It has been nearly ten months since we uncovered evidence that developers were working on new Chromeboxes based on the 10th Gen Intel Comet Lake family of processors. We are currently tracking no less than three Comet Lake Chromeboxes in development but we’ve yet to see or hear anything from OEMs indicating a new Chromebox is headed to market. That is, until now. We received an email tip pointing us to a support document from HP that specs out a third-generation Chromebox for Enterprise that is equipped with up-to a 10th Gen Core i7-10610U CPU.
At first glance, you’d be forgiven if you thought this new device was actually the HP Chromebox G2. That’s because the chassis is identical. It appears that HP has decided to keep the exact same design aesthetic but a closer look reveals that the port selection has switched up a little bit. On the front, the HP Chromebox Enterprise G3 features the same two USB 3.0 ports, 3-in-1 card reader, and 3.5mm audio jack. However, when you check out the back of the G3, you’ll see that HP has ditched one of the USB-A ports. Instead, you’ll get two full-size HDMI ports which will be perfect for a dual-monitor setup. The G3 loses its antiquated USB 2.0 port and you’ll get two USB-A 3.0 and a USB-C port on the back along with an RJ-45 ethernet port.
No announcement has been made by HP but this spec sheet is living on a public URL as part of the company’s support pages. That’s a good indicator that we’ll see this Comet Lake Chromebox hitting the market in the near future. This particular model is branded “Enterprise” and comes with the Chrome Enterprise Upgrade pre-loaded. That leads me to believe that we could see an announcement in the form of some sort of collaboration with Google’s Enterprise division, GSuite. Presumably, HP will eventually offer a consumer version of the Chromebox G3 but don’t count on it being cheap. The 10th Gen processors and the upgraded performance of Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5, and optional NVMe storage will come at a price and HP is in the habit of asking top dollar for these products when they first land on the market. Hopefully, we’ll see this and models from other OEMs launch before the end of the year and perhaps we can snag some holiday deals on a new Chromebox that will get updates for the next eight years. Wouldn’t that be nice? You can see the spec sheet for the HP Chromebox Enterprise G3 here.
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Special thanks to D.J. Lu for this awesome find.
