Chromebooks have been all the rage in the world of laptops since launching in 2011. For many great reasons including price, ease and overall stability of Chrome OS, Chromebooks have been receiving high marks of praise from people all over the world. HP has joined the Chromebook fray recently, and it’s been a pretty awesome Chromebook overall, sporting a few new things like the ability to charge via a standard micro USB cable like your phone charges with.
Unfortunately HP seems to be having problems with their Chromebook 11, and just yesterday we reported that it might be due to performance issues, and that many retailers were getting rid of their stock of the device. Now we’re learning from Google’s Chrome Blog itself that the charger is what is at fault, not the HP Chromebook 11 itself, which should be a big relief to owners of the shiny new device. Google is suggesting that users stop using the charger that’s included with the HP Chromebook 11 immediately, and switch to using any Underwriters Laboratories certified micro USB charger instead. Likely any one will work just fine, but the power output from one that charges any Android phone would probably work best. Here’s the post from HP and Google, from the Chrome Blog:
Google and HP are pausing sales of the HP Chromebook 11 after receiving a small number of user reports that some chargers included with the device have been damaged due to overheating during use. We are working with the Consumer Product Safety Commission to identify the appropriate corrective action, and will provide additional information and instructions as soon as we can.
In the meantime, customers who have purchased an HP Chromebook 11 should not use the original charger provided with the product. In the interim they may continue using their HP Chromebook 11 with any other Underwriters Laboratories-listed micro-USB charger, for example one provided with a tablet or smartphone. We apologize for the inconvenience.
Google hasn’t announced any corrective action just yet, but will likely issue new chargers when they decide how many need to be replaced. As for retail stock expect this one to be difficult to find until an official fix has been issued. After all retailers don’t want any extra returns after the upcoming Holiday season. If you’re in the market for a new Chromebook, the HP Chromebook 11 is still a great choice, just make sure to not use that included charger for now. If you’d rather not take the risk there’s plenty of other Chromebooks out there, and we’ve got a great little Chromebook Buyers Guide for 2013 that you should check out, which will point you in the direction of some other great Chromebooks out there. Chromebooks are paving the way for a new lighter, cheaper future for those interested in doing some portable computing but still need a physical keyboard. As always we’ll keep you up to date with news about the HP Chromebook 11 and the faulty charger situation as it develops.