Hewlett Packard's Shelia Watson updated the company's The Next Bench Blog on Thursday with news of an upcoming HP Chromebox. There will actually be two when they arrive this spring, one that sports an Intel "Haswell" processor and one for more demanding applications that has an Intel i7 "Haswell" processor.
"It works with standard keyboards, mice and displays, and offers connectivity using HDMI, DisplayPort and Bluetooth, along with four USB 3.0 ports. Like other Chrome devices from HP, the Chromebox offers a fast, easy and safe computing experience for you and your family," Watson writes.
Unfortunately, Watson doesn't provide any specific specs, and the notification page merely reveals Chromeboxes in four different colors: Smoke Silver, Ocean Turquoise, Snow White and Twinkle Black. She notes that some of these colors were used on the Chromebook 14 introduced a few months ago.
"You can securely mount the Chromebox to your wall or to the back of your monitor using standard VESA mounts. This petite little package can also snugly fit into your home theater, and it's small enough to pop into a travel bag (in case you wanted to set up shop while on vacation)," Watson adds.
Meanwhile, over on Google, the search engine giant has introduced a Chromebox bundle of its own, bringing together Google+ Hangouts and Google Apps in an easy-to-manage solution. The Chromebox is part of a $999 kit for meetings, which also includes an HD camera, a remote control and a microphone/speaker.
The Chromebox in this bundle is actually one of several Asus revealed just days ago. Specs show that it has an Intel Core i7-4600U processor, either 2 GB or 4 GB of DDR3-1600 MHz memory (two SO-DIMM slots), a 16 GB SSD, a 2-in-1 SD card reader, Wireless N connectivity and more.
According to the company, the remote control has a full QWERTY keyboard on the back, a nano-sized USB adapter, and RF connectivity (no line of sight necessary). The camera can capture video up to 1920 x 1080, and will automatically switch resolution based on available bandwidth.
"For the same price that companies have typically paid for one meeting room, they'll be able to outfit 10 rooms—or more. CDW and SYNNEX will help bring Chromebox for meetings to customers and resellers, and Chromeboxes from HP and Dell will be available for meetings in the coming months," reads Google's blog.
Later this year, Google plans to launch the Chromebox for meetings in Australia, Canada, France, Japan, New Zealand, Spain and the U.K.
For more information about Chromebox for meetings, head here.
