News - HP makes affordable LTE Chromebook using Altair chip

[HEXUS]

Altair's FourGee-3100/6202 chipset is utilised in this 11.6-inch $329 portable.

Read more.

[CampGareth]

Wait wait, so it's only 4G? No 3G whatsoever? That's interesting considering 4G has I think only just been made available on UK networks.

[MaverickWill]

Wait wait, so it's only 4G? No 3G whatsoever? That's interesting considering 4G has I think only just been made available on UK networks.

First sentence of the article:

"A Chromebook made by Hewlett Packard and sporting an Atair 4G/LTE chip is now available in retail in the US."

So, for now, the UK situation isn't particularly relevant (though it does hamstring the market for a 4G-only Chromebook quite a bit). What's interesting is how this move comes directly from HP - this isn't Google trying to bite back at Microsoft's "Scroogled" Chromebook/Ultrabook demo.

Having said that, portable devices that require online functionality to work properly, should come with their own portable online capabilities (while tethering is an option, IMO it doesn't count - that requires a whole different device). Microsoft had a point.