14 DAY TRIAL // Blatant lies aren't fun most of the time, unless they're played for laughs. The situation of HP's Chromebox can qualify as nasty or hilarious, or somewhere in the middle, depending on your view.
You see, HP advertises its Chromebox as being dust-free, silent, quiet, and efficient, thanks to its “fanless design.” Sounds all lovely and convenient, to be sure.
Alas, upon acquiring the thing, YouTube-based hardware reviewer Lon Seidman discovered that the device “sounds” actively cooled as well. The hum of the fan, however quiet, is, nonetheless, audible to the human ear.
Further digging revealed that even HP's own PDF disassembly guide includes the picture that reveals the fan-heatsink.
In hindsight, it is fairly obvious that a CPU with a TDP (thermal design power) cannot be passively cooled inside a palm-sized case. You can't include a heatsink large enough to dissipate the heat without the aid of a fan.
This still doesn't change the fact that HP advertises the Chromebox as fanless when it's not really fanless at all, though. HP may or may not publish an amendment of some sort in the near future. Whether or not it apologizes for the misinformation or blames everything on the Internet-based equivalent of a mislabel is anyone's guess.
