HP Recalls Defective Chromebook 11 Chargers

The devices were sold for about $280 (£172) each at Best Buy stores nationwide and online at Amazon.com, Bestbuy.com, Google Play at Play.google.com, and HP Shopping at Shopping.hp.com from October 2013 through November 2013, and included with the Chromebook 11, according to the CPSC.

The Chromebook 11 debuted in October, featuring an 11.6-inch In-Plane Switching (IPS) screen with a 176-degree wide viewing angle, a magnesium frame for strength, a quiet fanless chassis, an Exynos 5250 GAIA ARM processor, 2GB of DDR RAM, a 16GB solid-state hard drive, Wi-Fi, speakers mounted under the keyboard and about six hours of battery life on a full charge.

Sales Expansion

In June, Google expanded its network of dealers for its Chromebooks by beginning to sell them through Walmart and Staples stores, raising the number of outlets for the devices to some 6,600 stores. Consumers are also able to purchase the machines via Staples online, while business users will be able to buy them through the Staples Advantage B2B program. Additional retailers are also expected to be unveiled in the coming months, including select Office Depot, OfficeMax, Fry’s and TigerDirect stores.

Chromebooks and their desktop brethren Chromeboxes run Google’s Chrome operating system and feature a wide range of preinstalled, cloud-based Google services and products, including Google Docs and Google Calendar. Chromebooks allow users to do their work online with less need for on-machine storage for large applications and files.

Back in March, Google had unveiled an earlier expansion of Chromebook sales to six more nations and to additional Best Buy stores in the United States. At that time, the smaller, lighter and inexpensive Internet-centric computers were being rolled out by Acer, HP and Samsung in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland and the Netherlands.

In May, Google began testing Chromebook-equipped store kiosks to make it easier for businesses to help their customers and employees check merchandise stock, place orders or get more information while shopping or working. The kiosks use something Google calls “Managed Public Sessions” to allow employee and customer use of the devices without the need for logging in.

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Originally published on eWeek.