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New HP Laptop Would Mean Windows at Chromebook Prices
New submitter nrjperera (2669521) submits news of a new laptop from HP that's in Chromebook (or, a few years ago, "netbook") territory, price-wise, but loaded with Windows 8.1 instead. Microsoft has teamed up with HP to make an affordable Windows laptop to beat Google Chromebooks at their own game. German website Mobile Geeks have found some leaked information about this upcoming HP laptop dubbed Stream 14, including its specifications. According to the leaked data sheet the HP Stream 14 laptop will share similar specs to HP's cheap Chromebook. It will be shipped with an AMD A4 Micro processor, 2GB of RAM, 32GB of flash storage and a display with 1,366 x 768 screen resolution. Microsoft will likely offer 100GB of OneDrive cloud storage with the device to balance the limited storage option.
And that game is Calvin Ball.
But will it run Linux??
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
loaded with Windows 8.1
Is that even enough for Windows 8.1? And I don't mean enough as in bare minimum to run the OS, I mean enough to actually run more than four applications and a browser with at least ten tabs opened.
Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
I think Microsoft gives manufacturers a discount if they limit their ram to 2 GB.
They are really shooting themselves in the foot, because a web browser can easily use 2 GB by itself, bringing the computer to a crawl.
Seriously.. my cell phone has 2 GB of ram.... This laptop will be nearly unusable without more memory.
This is as counterproductive as outlet stores. Sure, you pay a little less but the clothes shrink or fall apart.
And there on my ruined clothes it says Gap or Banana Republic - 2 brands I've bought lots of stuff from before, and will never ever buy again. But they made a little money, and I 'saved' a little money.
This laptop is the outlet mall version of an HP laptop - itself a brand that doesn't exactly exude quality these days..
At the same price point you can get last few years model of a real full featured laptop on ebay or newegg with much faster processors, more RAM and ... ah... usable amounts of storage. 32GB?
the cost of virus and malware scan software, monthly cost of Office whatever and the RAM the previous additions sucked up. Think I will pass.
I bought my Lenovo Mix (8" tablet) with full Windows 8.1, 4GB RAM and Office 2013 Home for just $200. I added a nice bluetooth keyboard and case for another $60 and now it's my primary "walking around the company campus attending meetings" device (replacing a laptop). $260 was already in the ballpark of my son's Nexus 7 table.
I hope Microsoft (and HP and all the interchangeable PC providers) keep this up - if Apple's not going to drop price it helps consumers to have another company with deep pockets engaged in the tablet price war.
Here's the thing. Part of the problem is that they're not really beating Chromebook on anything, just matching the price. I still am going to need to load an anti-virus program, still going to have to sit through a long startup, and still have to sit through Update Tuesday. Yeah, I know Chromebook isn't perfect, but for most of what I do, it's really good enough and with my Macbook covering the 10% of things I can't do with my Chromebook, I'm really not seeing the need for Windows at all. Office? Please. I've been using OpenOffice and/or Google Docs for the past 4 years and no one has even noticed a difference so long as I save to .doc format.
And are not trendy anymore. I don't think Chromebooks are only appealing because the hardware is cheap..
I picked up an Acer C720 about a year ago that was good enough that I don't even carry around the Mac Air that my company gave me. 2GB RAM, Celeron 2955U haswell processor, 8-9 hour battery life, hdmi/USB3, SD slot, 16GB storage, same video resolution as the HP above. All for US$199 and in a 2lb package.
I thought I'd need more storage, but it's a year later and I haven't used more than about 10GB of the internal storage. One of these days, I'll upgrade it to 32GB or 64GB, but I've just been storing my personal files on either a 64GB SD card or 64GB USB 3.0 fob.
Having something this thinly provisioned running the bloat that is Win 8.1 wouldn't be attractive for me at all, regardless of the price point. However, it's great for ChromeOS and Ubuntu Trusty.
HP makes the dead last lowest quality laptops. There is no other brand, including Acer, that beats them at failure rates and defect rates. Their support is nearly the lowest rated in the industry. So now they're going to make a "cheap" laptop? OH HELL NO!
If they can make their 2015 machine cold boot in under four seconds, and come up from suspend in under one second, it'll be almost as good as a 2013-2014 Chromebook. Here's to hoping Microsoft can catch up.
I can confirm that Windows 8.1 x86 on 2GB RAM runs great--even on a 5-year old netbook. I loaded Win 8.1 Pro on a 2009-era Dell Inspiron Mini 9 (it had a now-unsupported XP) with an x86-only hyperthreaded Atom processor & IDE SSD--and it flies. I even put a new Intel 802.11ac WiFi-Bluetooth miniPCI card in it. I can't use Metro apps (1024x600 screen doesn't meet Metro's 1024x768 requirement, darn it), but after loading Start8, I don't care. I have a very portable little desktop machine that flies with Office 2010, Firefox, etc.
My only complaints are that Chrome actually performs quite poorly on sites with heavy AJAX (specifically Yahoo Mail), and that Flash is better off left not installed (darn). But Firefox appears to be much better optimized for low-end hardware, so I just use Firefox with no Flash.
Windows 3.1x calc: 3.11 - 3.10 = 0.00
One of the things Microsoft did right with Windows 8.x is reduce the memory it uses. So much so that it only actually needs up to 360mb of memory to run the OS while in desktop mode. That is up to, that is not at least. In this case the OS will definitely NOT be getting in your way. Actually, I've found Windows 8.1 is better to use on low end hardware as they have also reduced CPU use and optimized the start-up time.
2GB is enough for basic Windows use with running multiple programs. Of course depending on what programs you are using. I have a netbook that isn't officially supported by Windows 8. It went from 80 seconds start time in Windows 7 to 20 seconds in Windows 8. Programs launch and respond better now with the Windows 8. While there are many, many things wrong with Windows 8, it works extremely well on low end hardware.
Don't get me wrong, I hate Windows 8.1. Metro sucks, they messed up the configuration by having it spread all over the place. They broke multiple programs. On my last main machine it slowed down my boot time from 60 seconds to 90 seconds, though some of those problems were because I upgraded instead of fresh installed. The upgrade process is broken, it will upgrade you, but may forget to install critical OS files and will offer no way for you to fix it without reinstalling. Windows 8.1 feels like Windows Vista. They messed up the little things, which is what they got right in Windows 7 and is really important in your day to day usage. On my new main computer, old one the SATA controller failed, I upgraded to Windows 7, but my netbook, I wouldn't want to go back to Windows 7 on.
Microsoft, Apple, Google, Amazon what's the difference? All steal money from devs and control with walled gardens.
potential. Although it may not perform like a potent end notebook at its price point it can be very compelling in a number of scenarios:
1. As a standalone device to run a specialized program. I use several programs to trouble shot car problems and a $200 laptop means I would not have to risk busting my expensive laptop in the garage and still have portability vs a desktop.
2. Similar to 1, schools and other organizations would have a low cost machine that could be used in large scale implementations and would run currently available Windows software, unlike Chromebooks.
3. It offers a lower price point for a Windows machine for students or others for whom a more expensive machine is a stretch.
Of course, MS, if they follow past practices, will figure out a way to cripple the OS so the machine turns out to be an expensive paperweight.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
HP laptops always feel so "Playschool kids playset" to me. The keys have a terrible tactile feedback, and the gloss is tacky. I'd like them to fix that first.
So only 32gigs of storage on the device eh? Hmm. I dunno, seems kinda limited with no way to expand it without buying my own storage.
I'm afraid that very few computers of any kind offer a way to expand the storage without buying storage.
You could try stealing three USB drives and a high capacity SDXC card and fitting them into the available ports on the Stream 14, easily expanding the storage by as much as you want, but speaking as your attorney I would have to advise you that that could cause you some legal difficulties in the future.
My 2012 Surface Pro "Cold Boots" in 2 seconds. Flash Drive. My 2010 netbook boots in 20 seconds. 5400rpm hard drive. A lot of the boot process is dependent on the hard drive, so a low end 2015, should probably boot as fast as a higher end 2012 machine. I put "Cold Boots" in parenthesis because Windows 8.1 almost never really cold boots. It uses a form of hibernate where it figures out what is exactly the same each boot time and stores an image of that on the hard drive, then just loads it into memory. That combined with UEFI makes Windows 8.1 boot really fast on new hardware, even if it is low end.
Microsoft, Apple, Google, Amazon what's the difference? All steal money from devs and control with walled gardens.
Actually, I've found Windows 8.1 is better to use on low end hardware
So long as the hardware is new enough to support Windows 8.1. AMD CPUs prior to Athlon 64 and Intel CPUs prior to Pentium 4 Prescott cannot run Windows 8.1 because they lack SSE2 or lack the NX bit.
All he wants is a browser so why give him more?
So that he doesn't have to re-buy hardware when he comes to want more.
As a Galaxy S4 owner (yep, owned not leased on contract) I'm forced to have part of my phone taken over by HP's "Print Service Plugin" which may not be removed - this despite not owning (nor intending to) any HP devices.
Given this single data point, one can only speculate at the severity of crap-ware storm which rages when one willingly opts in to the HP universe.
*sigh* if only rants could fix problems.
Requiem for the American Dream
Specs are nice, but what does the thing WEIGH? One of the major advantages to chromebooks etc. is that they're light enough for you to carry around without feeling like you're strapped to a gold brick.
If this device is anything like the dell venue pro with 32GB, it works out to something like 17GB usable when you turn the device on, but by the time windows update runs its going to be less than 10GB free.
Lots of discussion about this on the internet, for example:
http://en.community.dell.com/s...
And in the laptop world, a cheap laptop isn't going to have squat for expandability anyway
A laptop running Windows or GNU/Linux can use external flash drives, hard drives, optical drives, printers, flatbed scanners, cameras, keyboards, mice, Wacom tablets, joysticks, sound cards, TV tuners, and whatever else you can plug into a USB hub. Plus a second display plugged into the VGA or HDMI output. Chromebooks can't even print while the Internet is down, such as after you've used up all the monthly GB for which you've paid your ISP. And a lot of games work on Windows and GNU/Linux but haven't been taken in JavaScript for Chrome OS.
I'd like to give it a test drive but it does have some appeal when compared to the Chromebooks...namely:
1) It's $100 less than a comparable Chromebook with similar specs. $100 is a big deal in this price segment.
2) It is fully functional offline. Chrome OS has some functionality offline but it's not even close to Windows in this respect.
The limited storage (32GB) in the base version has me a bit concerned but you can always put in an SD card or USB stick for additional storage. Couple that with Dropbox and you should be pretty good. I'd probably opt for the 64GB version if it wasn't that much more.
The 2Gb of memory is probably enough - barely - to run a few apps and have some browser tabs open. Keep in mind, this thing is not being marketed as your every day workhorse laptop. It's for light duty web surfing and email.
Usually to offset losses when selling cheap windows laptops the manufacturers get paid to install all kinds of bloatware and other stuff that takes hours to remove from the machine (some consumers are unable to do this themselves) Will this come with that? Also isnt the reason people buy chromebooks is because all your files and settings are in the cloud. You just log in and every thing is as youd want it to be?
"Microsoft has teamed up with HP to make an affordable Windows laptop to beat Google Chromebooks at their own game"
How would you go about replacing Windows 8.1 with a Linux distro?
Tiny Chromebook-sized Windows laptops are already about there. Acer's E3 series has basically Chromebook specs (Celeron Dual-core and 2GB RAM) and a 320GB hard drive and can be had quite easily for $250. I just recently picked one up from Best Buy for $199 (may have been a sale - not sure).
I may eventually put Linux on it (I run Mint on my desktop), but for my needs something like this works great. I use my laptop maybe 10 times per year while traveling. I just need something functional with a keyboard, screen, and internet connection.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
That's interesting. Last year Microsoft bragged that they'd reduced its boot time to 8.5.
However having more than one cpu core or a processor such as the pentium two or newer gets around that. Pity the lowest end Microsoft operating system didn't. They expected you to buy the server version of the software if you wanted to use 4GB or more.
So to sum up, 32 bit systems can and do adress more than 4GB, it's just MS Windows XP or similar that can't. I've still got an old Win2k dual socket system here to run legacy software and it can use the full 6GB of memory it has even though the CPUs are older than PAE.