As expected, HP debuts 10th Gen Comet Lake Chromeboxes with dual 4K support

HP dropped some exciting news today with the release of the first-ever AMD Ryzen-powered Chromebooks but that wasn’t the only Chrome OS news to come from PC giant. As we expected based on a spec sheet that was leaked a bit early, HP has officially announced the industry’s first Chromebox mini PC powered by Intel’s 10th Gen Comet Lake CPUs. The spec sheet laid out, in detail, what the new HP Chromebox G3 would offer so there’s not really anything new to report. However, HP did hold one little surprise ace up its sleeve. The price.

While the HP Chromebox G2 debuted with an impressive price tag of $200, I suspected that the upgrade to Comet Lake and all it offers would result in a substantial price bump. Throw in the difficulties that manufacturers are having with supply chain delays and the high demand for Chromebooks and other PCs, I truly expected the base model Chromebox G3 to start at a solid $299. I am very happy to report that I was wrong. That said, the entry-level HP Chromebox G3 does come in a little higher than its predecessor. The base G3 will be powered by an Intel Comet Lake Celeron 5205U. While this CPU isn’t a massive upgrade from the 8th Gen Kaby Lake chip, it does offer a noticeable boost in performance, and don’t forget you’ll be getting Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5, and dual HDMI ports that can support up to two 4K monitors.

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This all comes in at a very respectable price of only $254. This is presumably for the Celeron model with 4GB of RAM and 32GB of storage and no Chrome Enterprise Upgrade. The G3 Enterprise Chromebox will start at $384 and both iterations are expected to hit the market in October. For power users, you will be able to configure the HP Chromebox G3 with up to a Core i7-10610U Quad-Core processor, 16GB of RAM, and 128GB of NVMe storage. However, given the very similar design to the G2, you will likely be able to upgrade the storage and RAM yourself if that’s how you like to roll. Here’s the full rundown of specs and available options for the HP Chromebox G3.

HP Chromebox G3 w/optional Enterprise Upgrade

As soon as the G3 is available, we’ll get one in and do a proper teardown. I suspect these will sell like hotcakes in the enterprise sector but the HP Chromebox G3 will make a great desktop device for consumers, as well. With dual 4K support and the latest Intel CPUs, this Chromebox will be able to handle meetings, schoolwork, Stadia sessions, and even some robust Linux applications. You can bet we’ll be seeing Comet Lake Chromeboxes from other OEMs in the near future as Acer and ASUS generally announce toward the beginning of the New Year.