Well, this isn't good. Browsing HP's UK online store, their newest listings for Chromebooks are clearly stating that they no longer come bundled with a charger.
The text reads..
Does not include a power charger. Supporting the universal USB-C charging standard, by helping simplify charging and reduce electronic waste.
I'm all for minimising e-waste, but this move worries me. I'm running a poll on the channel's YouTube Community page, it'd be great if you could vote to give your opinion here.
This isn't just HP making some bold independent move, we're going to see it from all manufactures in the near future. Although the UK is out of the EU, it looks like we're caught up with the new "EU Common Charger Directive" legislation where from 28th April 2026 manufactures are legally required to offer you the device without a charger. UPDATE - to clarify, it relates to laptops with power requirements of 100w or less, so extremely powerful machines requiring more than this, such as gaming laptops, should still come with chargers.
My understanding is that it has to be a CHOICE, from HP's implementation when I go to checkout with the model SKU shown above, there's no prompt or offer to select a charger. I found that odd as I assumed they'd want to up sell you regardless. They do still have older stock of this same 15a with the same spec that does come with the charger listed on their site, but I only found that as I was digging for it - is that my "choice"? See the screenshot below. Oh and right now it's £1 CHEAPER to have the charger, or look at it the other way, pay an extra £1 to not get the charger? This currently just feels like more confusion and cost for the consumer.
HP might just be ahead of the game, but I can't imagine any manufacturer wanting the complexity of differentiating their stock for the UK vs. the rest of Europe. I'll be looking into how the various big manufactures roll this change out more closely.
We've seen it recently with Apple and the new MacBook Neo, in the US you get the charger, in the UK and the rest of Europe - no charger in the box. Now they're coming for our Chromebooks, or rather their chargers!
The "no charger in the box" approach started phones and it worries me it's spreading in this way to Chromebooks and the laptop market more widely. Chromebooks most commonly come with a 45w or 65w USB C charger, this isn't typically the type of charger everyone had just lying around.
I'd like to see manufacturers have to offer a clear choice at checkout of receiving a charger or not - and I'd expect to see a price reduction of some sort for not selecting the charger. For example, if I could buy a Chromebook even £10 cheaper, being someone with a stock of chargers I might be quite happy to forgo one. However, when it doesn't look like there's any price reduction AND you're getting no charger in the box, I'd feel like I was being ripped off.
Let me know of any questions below and I'll do my best to make some sense of it and give you an update. As a reminder, the YouTube poll is here.