Will HP's $200 Stream 11 Make People Forget About Chromebooks?

theodp writes With an 11.6" screen, Windows 8.1, and free Office 365 for a year, the $199.99 solid-state HP Stream 11 laptop is positioned to make people think twice about Chromebooks (add $30 for the HP Stream 13). But will it? "The HP Stream 11 is clearly both inexpensive and a great value," writes Paul Thurrott. "At just $200, it's cheap, of course. But it also features a solid-feeling construction, a bright and fun form factor, a surprisingly high-quality typing experience and a wonderful screen. This isn't a bargain bin throwaway. The Stream 11 is something special." The HP Stream Family also includes the HP Stream 7, a $99.99 Windows 8.1 Tablet that includes the Office 365 deal. By the way, at the other end of the price spectrum, HP has introduced the Sprout, which Fast Company calls a bold and weird PC that's bursting at the seams with new ideas, from 3-D scanning to augmented reality. (We mentioned the Sprout a few days ago, too; HP seems to be making some interesting moves lately, looks like they're getting on the smartwatch bandwagon, too.) If you're looking at the Stream as a cheap platform for OSes other than Windows, be cautious: one of the reviews at the Amazon page linked describes trouble getting recent Linux distributions to install.

Comments

No

[AmiMoJo]

Chromebooks are not just cheap, they are very low maintenance and easy to use. If you buy your mum a Windows laptop she will need technical support. If you buy her a Chromebook after the initial set-up you can forget about it.

Re:No

[Anonymous Coward]

Install Ubuntu on it and don't give her the root password. Teach her how to access the web browser, email program, and LibreOffice. Problem solved for 99% of mums.

Re:No

[SpockLogic]

Noooooooooo ....

Sprouts make me fart.

Re:No

[gbjbaanb]

Even Paul says its not too good (without saying "its too underpowered"):

Whether the Stream's Celeron process, 2 GB of RAM and 32 GB of eMMC storage will stand the test of time will of course require some, well, time. But I can offer a few quick observations.

First, this configure seems perfectly capable of running Windows 8.1 (and thus Windows 10 as well) and doing well for the types of casual computing tasks one should expect of such a machine. You can run Word and Office 2013. IE. Facebook. That kind of thing. My bloated Chrome configuration, with multiple add-ons, quickly overwhelmed available memory, and while it does run fine, you won't want to run Chrome alongside any other heavy hitters.

so its not really enough to browse the web with the addons one expects nowadays (and I assume heavy javascript web pages) and do anything else, and he goes one to say you have 10gb storage free. You'll have to carefully manage that once you store a load of music or movies on it.

Re:No

[Anonymous Coward]

Chromebooks are not just cheap, they are very low maintenance and easy to use. If you buy your mum a Windows laptop she will need technical support. If you buy her a Chromebook after the initial set-up you can forget about it.

This is precisely the reason I recommended my mother buy an Acer Chromebook because after years of supporting her Microsoft Windows-running computer it was definitely a blessing to have a computer which I could set-up for her the features (email, web browsing) she cared about and be done with support. The only support request I get these days, which admittedly is as rare as hen's teeth, occurs when the track-pad mouse freezes - attributable to the suspend mode I dare say. For 99% of the things I use a computer for these days a Google Chromebook would suffice since any software development work can be done on a virtual machine or physical server accessible via SSH from the Google Chromebook.

Re: No

[Anonymous Coward]

So microsoft's relationship with the govt is relavent here but google's is not?

Yeah, the NSA hacked Google to get at their data, Microsoft was a willing collaborator.

The US National Security Agency (NSA) has been hacking data links connecting Yahoo and Google's data centres, according to leaks by Edward Snowden.

Millions of records were gleaned daily from the internet giants' internal networks, according to documents published by the Washington Post.

The agency's director said it had not had access to the companies' computers.

As opposed to:

Microsoft has collaborated closely with US intelligence services to allow users' communications to be intercepted, including helping the National Security Agency to circumvent the company's own encryption, according to top-secret documents obtained by the Guardian.

The files provided by Edward Snowden illustrate the scale of co-operation between Silicon Valley and the intelligence agencies over the last three years. They also shed new light on the workings of the top-secret Prism program, which was disclosed by the Guardian and the Washington Post last month.

The documents show that:

* Microsoft helped the NSA to circumvent its encryption to address concerns that the agency would be unable to intercept web chats on the new Outlook.com portal;
* The agency already had pre-encryption stage access to email on Outlook.com, including Hotmail;
* The company worked with the FBI this year to allow the NSA easier access via Prism to its cloud storage service SkyDrive, which now has more than 250 million users worldwide;
* Microsoft also worked with the FBI's Data Intercept Unit to "understand" potential issues with a feature in Outlook.com that allows users to create email aliases;
* In July last year, nine months after Microsoft bought Skype, the NSA boasted that a new capability had tripled the amount of Skype video calls being collected through Prism;
* Material collected through Prism is routinely shared with the FBI and CIA, with one NSA document describing the program as a "team sport".

Re: No

[superswede]

[Serious question] I'm currently helping my mother on Windows remotely via TightVNC and it actually works alright. As long as it boots up I can do most/all work from across the Atlantic. My mother does have to do anything - no "click to accept" or similar.

Now, what's a similar option for a Chromebook/ChromeOS? Anything that just work without my mother's interaction? I need to be able to get full control just as if I was in front of the machine.

Related, being able to remotely control the device is also why I've retained from getting here a, preferably an Android, tablet, because of the built-in security making remote access tricky. I understand that one get around it if one root it, but if imagine the user base doing that is so small that the quality of such software is just not there yet, or?

Re: No

[benjymouse]

So microsoft's relationship with the govt is relavent here but google's is not?

Yeah, the NSA hacked Google to get at their data, Microsoft was a willing collaborator.

Since you so dishonestly quoted text from an article without linking back to it, here is the link: http://www.theguardian.com/wor...

This concerns the "Prism" program - which since the initial bruhaha has been revealed to be little more than an automated way to comply with (presumably) lawful requests from law enforcement agencies. (Note: I strongly disagree with the constitutionality of having a secret court issuing secret orders; it totally undermines the democracy)

The participation in the automated system (aka Prism) does not require a company to comply with more FISA requests, nor does non-participation allow a company to *not* comply with FISA requests. It simply has no bearing on it.

Importantly, the automated system does NOT(!) allow the agencies more access to users' data. Each FISA request will STILL have to be considered on a
case-by-case basis, and lawyers for the company will STILL have to review all material sent to the agency through PRISM before hitting the "send" button.

And conspicuously absent from your quote is the fact that while Microsoft was mentioned in the title, Skype, Apple, Google, Facebook and Yahoo were also mentioned.

Little information is available on the actual design of PRISM, and basically all of the speculation was based on this single slide from the Snowden leak: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

From that slide you can see that Microsoft was indeed the first company to comply with FISA orders through PRISM, but that Yahoo, Google, Facebook, Paltalk(?), YouTube, Skype, AOL and Apple all followed.

So you are grossly misrepresenting facts, being dishonest and out lying about the information in a transparent attempt to taint Microsoft while letting Google of the hook. Now, why would you do that? Anonymous cowardly liar.

Re: No

[Pikoro]

Chrome Remote Desktop. Full password protected access from anywhere in the world, even if she's NAT'd behind her router. Chrome Web Store

Re: No

[superswede]

Thanks. However, last time I played with Chrome Remote Desktop (on Windows) it required interaction on the receiving end (e.g. initiation or at least approval). I'm looking for something that requires zero interaction on the other end, i.e. "Just start the computer and I fix the problem for you". See, my mother sometimes get stuck when another windows gets in front of the web browser and she can do nothing, have an even harder time explaining the problem over the phone - it's at that level. So I need to be able to at a minimum log in remotely a view the screen - ideally take over a run it.

Re:No

[sunderland56]

Chromebooks are not just cheap, they are very low maintenance and easy to use.

So:
  - buy this laptop
  - return Windows to Microsoft for a $100 refund
  - install Chrome
  - profit!!

Seriously - if you can score this hardware for $100 and run some other OS, they'll sell like hotcakes.

Re:No

[Anne Thwacks]

Will it run FreeBSD?

If so, it might actually be useful.

[boople woople twaddle twaddle, /. says I type too fast.]

Re: No

[Anonymous Coward]

Teamviewer is available for Android....

Re:No

[timeOday]

This $200 Stream has an SD Card slot. For $110 you can expand it to 256 GB if you want. OK, that's overkill for a $200 device, but you get the point. Get a 32GB card for $15 instead.

Re:No

[NJRoadfan]

An extra $20 gets you a usable machine (sometimes it goes on sale for $200): http://www.microcenter.com/pro...

Granted it isn't as small as the Stream, but it certainly isn't bulky or heavy. 4GB of RAM is plenty for current apps and storage isn't a concern. I landed up getting two for a friend of mine to replace some really old XP boxen. Performance was good for day to day tasks and the Celeron N2830 has GPU accelerated video for playing 1080p cat videos on YouTube. The only "con" I have with it is that it only has 2 USB ports.

Re: No

[bazorg]

Well let's benchmark these things properly before saying that Chromebooks are fast and celerons are slow. On passmark the celerons have a score close to that of an old core2duo. Are we telling people to use "pay as you go" apps from Google Play instead of Microsoft's Live Essentials and those apps that come with W8 just because we can't compare Celerons with ARM SOC s?

Re: No

[Hamsterdan]

SDHC cards are not in the same ballpark where speed is a concern

Re: No

[Graymalkin]

Loading movies and music on a computer is something older geeks do but hardly anyone else. Everyone else is using online services like Netflix, Spotify, and Vudu and just renting/streaming. This is especially true for the college age crowd the Stream and Chromebooks are marketed towards. They're sitting on gigabit Internet connections in their dorms so cloud storage is a no brainer for them.

For anyone wanting to use a Chromebooks or Stream PC as a backup laptop it's cheap to pick up a high speed SD card with a lot of storage. for most tasks they have plenty of power. Loading up a browser with too many extensions is problematic on any machine, not just low end ones.

Re:No

[AmiMoJo]

It's a low cost device for casual use. People who need a lot of heavy Chrome add-ons are not the target audience. The target audience is people who listen to Spotify and other streaming services, or watch Netflix so have little need of local storage. It's basically for people who want something like a tablet but also with a reasonable keyboard so they can type a few emails or letters.

Re: No

[rkcth]

You don't get 100gb free with a MacBook, you get 5gb.

Re:No

[walterbyrd]

Also: Chomebooks are know for very fast boot, and great battery life.

Re:No

[chuckugly]

If you have a NAS, who cares, and if you don't have a NAS, why not?

Re:No

[mordenkhai]

Fixed the leak? I have to double check that I have the most updated version, but I am pretty sure I do and FF takes more RAM each hour it is open regardless of if I am actually browsing, or just leave it running while I game. I wish they would fix it. I have been tempted to swap to Chrome or even..... IE.....ewww.

Re:No

[spire3661]

Keep in mind that laptop from microcenter is a lot heavier. 2.8 lbs vs 4.7 lbs. That is a huge difference when you weigh the stuff in your backpack by the gram.

Re:No

[BBF_BBF]

The problem is the system does not see SD cards as a local disk. ITs not a trivial matter you can handwave away. Some programs wont let you install on removable storage. I own a Dell venue 8 32 GB, i will NEVER buy something with that little main memory ever again. I would like to add i have been managing small OS drives for 10 years, starting with a 74 GB Raptor drive. I prepared for this future of small OS storage, what i didnt prepare for is how long OEMs would rape us on memory and no one is saying anything about it.

Too bad that even with 10 years experience, you cannot figure out if a computer/tablet runs Microsoft Windows or if it runs Android. The Dell Venue 8 runs Android, the HP Stream and the Dell Venue 8 Pro both run Windows 8.

I own an Asus T100TA that also runs windows 8 and when I add a microSD, it shows up a drive D in windows. It looks and works like any other drive in windows. I can install programs on it no problem.

However, the Venue 8 is an android machine and with the newer versions of android, Google has really restricted what can be stored on an external microSD card and what each program can access on them. You're talking about restrictions on an Android platform and applying them to a thread about Windows 8 machines. Meh.

Re:No

[timeOday]

Getting enough internal storage for your applications is solid advice.

That said, this runs Windows, not Android like your Venue, and it has a USB3 port, so there should be no obstacles to installing programs on an external drive, and it should perform fine.

Re: No

[ranton]

You're complaining about the offerings of two entirely different price points. This for $200 versus a macbook air? It's only 5 to 6 times more expensive. For the price point the value is clear here, even if you're blind to price point.

While the AC is a bit silly for comparing any HP Stream spec with the Macbook Air, s/he does make a good point that 10 GB of free storage space is really really low. You need to produce a usable product for people to buy it, regardless of the price point. 10 GB is just too low, and it is pretty obvious IMHO that a 64 GB drive would have made this product far more useful, even if it would have made the product $225 instead of $200.

Re:No

[spire3661]

I own the Venue 8 PRO, the Venue 11 PRO AND the Asus T100....... Just because it shows up as a D drive under windows doenst change the fact that its labeled and handled as removable storage and some programs will not install to it as it is not seen as a 'real' system drive.

Re:No

[spire3661]

I meant Venue 8 PRO. windows 8 labels the SD as removable storage and some programs will not install on it.

Re:No

[gweihir]

That one is easy: Put a notebook Linux like Mint on it and most maintenance issues go away. Question is, have they made that easy or hard?

Re:No

[WuphonsReach]

My older Thinkpad T61p is around 6.0 lbs. We just got a T440s (which is Lenovo's thin version of the T440) and it's about 3.5 lbs. Macbook air units are 2.4-3.0 lbs.

(I was curious as to weights of various devices. And most of those figures don't include the weight of the charger.)

Re:No

[Christian Smith]

- return Windows to Microsoft for a $100 refund

Seriously - if you can score this hardware for $100 and run some other OS, they'll sell like hotcakes.

Except you'd more likely get around the ~$15 (guesstimate, no citation) OEM unit license cost as a refund. We're not talking the retail license here, and it puts into light what a rip-off the retail license cost actually is (assuming the extra cost of for the "support" that comes with the retail license.)

Re:No

[tlhIngan]

Except you'd more likely get around the ~$15 (guesstimate, no citation) OEM unit license cost as a refund. We're not talking the retail license here, and it puts into light what a rip-off the retail license cost actually is (assuming the extra cost of for the "support" that comes with the retail license.)

Probably less, though.

You forget the Windows license comes "for free" because of the hardware subsidy that comes with cheap computers. You know, all the crapware that is preinstalled? Even if OEM Windows cost HP $50, they probably get more than that to install Norton Antivirus, McAfee and others together , plus demos of plenty more software. Since you didn't accept Windows, technically those companies don't have to pay so you only get back a token sum.

Something like this probably heavily subsidized by all that crapware, too.

Re:No

[spire3661]

The problem is that while you are right lots of software will install on the removable storage, not everything will, and that is a problem, for me. The first time i ran into it was Sony Play Memories, and it made me realize there is a fundamental difference between SD storage and onboard, even to the OS, thats all. For most things it will work, but its important to recognize onboard and SD card storage are not the same thing and are treated different by the OS. This will shape my buying decisions in the future. Stop trying to handwave it away and recognize that its a quirk to be dealt with, nothing more. The worst IT advice is always 'well, it works for me'

Re:No

[beastofburdon]

Really, 32GB drive? If it is anything like win7 that will be filled by system updates alone within the year.

Re:No

[Quirkz]

In-store purchase only? That's slightly less than convenient. Nice screen size for the price, though.

Depends

[fisted]

on whether I can run a BSD or at least some Lunix on it.

Office365 for year + 32GB = $70 a year

[Anonymous Coward]

Well Windows uses 24GB after all the patches, so the solid state storage is only 8GB or so. So that requires you use the 1TB online storage.

So you're actually looking at a $200 + $70 a year to continue the Office 365 + storage you filled up in the first year. $99 a year for the professional version. All your files would be online so you'll have to migrate if you ever want to stop paying.

It's maybe better to buy a Netbook and put OpenOffice on it, it will have a 500GB drive, and you can store your docs and files locally.

Chromebooks are for Google fans, its sort of a poor mans Windows, but with only 32GB of flash and Windows taking most of it, this isn't really a Windows laptop.

Re:Office365 for year + 32GB = $70 a year

[tepples]

It's maybe better to buy a Netbook

I thought netbooks were discontinued in favor of tablets.

Re:Office365 for year + 32GB = $70 a year

[amiga3D]

Whatever. I never use a tablet for computing unless there is nothing else available. My dinky little Acer Aspire One is better at everything than my tablet with the exception of being a smart remote which is what the Samsung 7" tablet I have has become. It makes a fucking fabulous remote control though, I threw the logitech remote in the trash.

Re:Office365 for year + 32GB = $70 a year

[squiggleslash]

Heh, everytime I go by the laptops section in any large store that sells electronics, there's always a few Netbooks (usually not described as such, just as small laptops costing around $2-300.)

The "Netbooks are dead' meme has never made much sense to me. The marketing has changed. Indeed, I believe someone out there, maybe HP, is introducing some kind of small $200 laptop that runs Windows 8.1...

Re:Office365 for year + 32GB = $70 a year

[Quirkz]

I liked my Aspire One for the first few months. Great for traveling fairly light, easy for browsing and word processing. Then it started locking up constantly, especially when doing any downloading or network activity. I can keep it running for half an hour or more if I'm not using the network for much, but any kind of moderate net usage causes crashes within 3-5 minutes. This includes Windows updates and other attempts to patch drivers, etc., none of which helped. After a while I just gave up and stopped using the thing.

Re:Office365 for year + 32GB = $70 a year

[vandamme]

>> this isn't really a Windows laptop

Who cares? We're just going to put Linux on it anyhow.

Maybe some

[drolli]

I for my part consider buying a cheap windows tablet, which includes a office 2013 version.

Answer: No.

[Johnny Loves Linux]

It's a Celeron CPU. Office 365 is a rental. It's 2GB of memory. It's Windows. vs. http://www.google.com/intl/en/... and the OS is ChromeOS which is automatically updated. And it's not a rental. And you can install Ubuntu/Debian if you want in a chroot using crouton if you want a fully functional OS for programming.

Re:Answer: No.

[taxman_10m]

And it comes in blue and pink.

Re:Answer: No.

[supremebob]

I'd imagine that the Chromebook would drive me nuts every time Google decides to shut down a web service that you're depending on to get your job done. You know, like Google Reader, Google Wave, or the other dozen or so popular services have done so in the past few years.

Microsoft has it's issues, but at least they usually aren't forcing you to uninstall products that you already have installed.

Re:Answer: No.

[NotInHere]

I'm still missing codesearch. Luckily Github has improved its search since then.

Re:Answer: No.

[gbjbaanb]

no, true... but then Google doesn't expect you to pay regularly to continue to keep accessing your files (first year free).

I would say that a lot of Google services have not been closed but morphed into a different product - Wave was the start for functionality now in Google Docs for example.

Re:Answer: No.

[leonbev]

I'd imagine that the person who did a "-1 Disagree" on this post has never lost data due to a web service suddenly being shut down or signifigantly changed.

I'll bet that a bunch of the former Megaupload customers out there have learned this lesson the hard way. Google is likely to give you more advanced warning than that, but it's still something to be concerned about.

Re:Answer: No.

[recoiledsnake]

Google expects you to start paying after 2 or 3 years

https://productforums.google.c...

Re: Answer: No.

[KozmoStevnNaut]

In Google's case, the "pound of flesh" is a little bit of privacy, for a whole heaping helping of convenience. A lot of people consider that tradeoff OK.

Windows 10 please.

[wjcofkc]

This will be a formidable low-end x86 machine if Windows 10 actual hits before the end of 2015, otherwise it's getting late into the game for these things. Then give anyone who buys one now a free upgrade. I would not want the tile interface unless I could use it like a tablet, and switching between tablet and notebook mode all the time just doesn't sound practical. A simple micro hdmi connector or even MHL compatibility would make this greater.

So is this one of those situations where I have to say, "mod me down all you want.." in ordered to get modded up? Just for the record I have been a huge Linux geek since about 95 with Slackware. Computers, operating systems, and software are tools and I explore all available tools. I've been running the Tech Preview pretty happily. It would make this machine an impulsive buy.

Re:Windows 10 please.

[SScorpio]

Read the specs it has a full HDMI port. If you don't like metro, there are several free to commercial options that return the start menu.

The Windows 10 upgrade is the big question. But it's been rumored that it will be a free upgrade for 8/8.1 users. But that's just speculation at this point.

Why?

[Monoman]

If people buy these simply based on price then most are likely to be disappointed. My guess is they will be marketing these towards students which is probably the best angle. Assuming they sell an acceptable number of them then only time will tell us if these keep customers happy for a reasonable amount of time. They'll need to make the upgrade to Windows 10 (and Office ?) free AND easy. They'll need to "just work" and stay that way. If these things things get easily infected with malware, spyware, or something more costly like Cryptowall then all money saved will be lost and then some. Windows has a reputation to fix and I'm just glad it isn't my job to try to fix it.

Re: Why?

[Monoman]

Macbooks aren't as common at my local community college from what I have seen.

Impartial

[QuietLagoon]

..."The HP Stream 11 is clearly both inexpensive and a great value," writes Paul Thurrott....

Now there's an impartial opinion.

Re: Impartial

[leonbev]

Yeah, the guy gets paid to write about Microsoft products for a living. Not exactly a guy to go to for an unbiased opinion.

Re:Impartial

[Anonymous Coward]

He was praising Windows 8 as being the best OS ever too (same for Vista previously). Either this guy doesn't have a clue or he's simply paid to say whatever...

Re:Impartial

[amiga3D]

Both.

And with colors that ugly...

[gaiageek]

No one would steal it, because they'd think it's a toy. But seriously, call me when it boots Linux Mint 17, and is available in black or silver.

Re:And with colors that ugly...

[fustakrakich]

Buy a can of spray paint. Rumor has it that Linux will run.

Re:And with colors that ugly...

[vandamme]

With all due respect, sir, fuck you.

Role reversal?

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

I just saw in Costco a HP Chromebook, 13 inch full HD screen, 1 year of 4G service (I think capped to some ridiculous 200 MB per month. But still good enough for very occssional use), 10 sessions in domestic flights, etc. Priced at 300$. Paired with T-mobile. T-mobile has some great pay-as-you-go data plans too.

So HP is pushing a souped up Chromebook, and a bare bones PC, along with bare bones chromebook and the usual standard formfactor laptops. Looks like HP is throwing everything on the wall and is waiting to see what sticks. It might drop the bare bones chromebook price down too. Come Christmas I would not be surprised to see same spec chrome book at 99$ or 129$

Basic selling point of Chromebook is not just the low price, it is a low maintenance streaming device, with a full keyboard and better screen. HDMI out, bluetooth keyboard, ... why would I even think of buying Roku or chromecast, or smart TV?

Re:Role reversal?

[amiga3D]

XBMC on a chromebook, that's a thought.

They did it on purpose

[Tenebrousedge]

It's ironic that it doesn't run Linux well, given that [a] Linux can be installed on everything from mechanical watches to dead badgers, and [b] Google insists on the non-release of Windows drivers for their Chromebooks.

Re:They did it on purpose

[amiga3D]

No actually new hardware is often problematic for Linux. It's the driver issues see? New proprietary hardware has to have drivers reverse engineered and that takes time. Give it 6 months to a year then try, by then these will be all over ebay at a fraction of their new prices.

Re:They did it on purpose

[Tenebrousedge]

Next thing you'll tell me is that I can't run Linux on my clockwork zombie badger. That, sir, is the kind of nonsense up with which I will not put!

TBH getting Linux to run on a Chromebook is a bit of a process, too, and some of the drivers just made it to the kernel in 3.17. While we're on the topic of irony, it's strange to think that it's normal for closed-source drivers to be reverse-engineered for Linux, but no one is likely to use the open-source Linux drivers to produce Windows drivers for the Chromebooks.

Re:They did it on purpose

[amiga3D]

It's that pesky GPL. They can't just take it and run.

Re:They did it on purpose

[Tenebrousedge]

Well, that's true to some degree, but it's still possible to do a "clean room" implementation. These sort of things have been done before, perhaps most notably by ReactOS. It's a hell of a lot better than starting with nothing in any case. I suppose it's less common to have a device for which Linux drivers exist but not equivalent Windows drivers, but it's still a little odd for reverse engineering to be normal in Linux-land and completely unheard-of (by myself, at any rate) on the other side of the fence.

Re:They did it on purpose

[amiga3D]

The biggest reverse engineering project I remember was the one where the original PC bios was reverse engineered thus creating the clone market.

Interesting devices

[Registered Coward v2]

I run some auto diagnostic software on a Mac using a VM running WindowsXP. If these devices are backwards compatible a Stream 7 would be an ideal device to replace my Mac. It's cheap, portable and has enough screen space even with the small screen to display diagnostic results. A micro USB -> USB adapter would to let me connect to the OBDC and a bluetooth keyboard would complete the setup. The 11 has full size USBand a keyboard but if the 7" works there is no need to shell out an additional $100.

Re:Interesting devices

[drinkypoo]

If these devices are backwards compatible a Stream 7 would be an ideal device to replace my Mac.

Well, they probably won't run XP properly. Anyway, you're better off keeping that stuff in a VM, and not letting it autoupdate. That way it never bones itself.

"... solid-state HP Stream..." Solid-state?!

[fygment]

Hell no! I want the vacuum tube version. Better yet, get me a steam powered version with 1.2 cycles per second pistons.

Seriously, since when is 'solid-state" anything but all-pervasive in the world of laptops?

No, but schools will take a second look

[vjlen]

We test piloted Chromebooks vs Windows laptops last year, and the decision was made to go with Chromebooks by the district's tech committee over the summer. 700 Chromebooks were purchased and rolled out to a complete grade level plus classes in other grade levels.

The decision to go with Chromebooks was purely political. There was a staff member on the committee (who is no longer with the district) that hyped Google Apps, but when September came, everyone found out you could not run Office on them, and many of the Google "Apps" listed in their directory for Chrome were either just shortcuts or weren't free, so there has been some resentment towards the Chromebooks and Chrome.

Yes, Chromebooks are lower maintenance. However, it would have been only a slight edge with Windows 8's recovery features. Windows 8 can run in 2GB pretty well for what kids would need it for.

Re:No, but schools will take a second look

[wonkavader]

They'll take a second look, and the smart ones will go with chromebooks. The chromebook world is full of boxes which perform acceptably at a low cost. They have no recurring costs. They're disposable. When one is smashed, you can use can replace it with without any setup at all. Work is never lost due to a disk crash.

The kids can install Linux and mess with that on these things. It runs reasonably well.

You can still have some Windows or Macs around to do the hard-core crap (that wouldn't work on underpowered windows boxes either) but the massive bulk of the computing needs for the students should be chromebooks. It solves lots of problems and has both a low entry price and a low continuing price.

Hardly a political decision.

Re:No, but schools will take a second look

[Anonymous Coward]

The decision to go with Chromebooks was purely political. There was a staff member on the committee (who is no longer with the district) that hyped Google Apps, but when September came, everyone found out you could not run Office on them...

Why do students need to learn an office suite? Besides there are plenty of applications which are accessible via the web browser if a GUI is important. Students can write their reports and essays using LaTex (WriteLaTeX.com), presentations using Beamer (WriteLaTeX.com), or even a markdown language. There are a variety of IDEs for software development for classes teaching some aspects of programming along with GitHub and BitBucket to host their projects. Microsoft Office 365 is accessible via the web browser on a Google Chromebook although I cannot think of a valid reason students should be learning a proprietary application.

Re:No, but schools will take a second look

[jma05]

> Students can write their reports and essays using LaTex

Good luck getting anyone outside CS to do that. Even if the student learns LaTeX, he/she won't likely be able to collaborate with other students/advisers easily. Exporting and importing into/from PDFs is not really a solution when edits are involved.

> I cannot think of a valid reason students should be learning a proprietary application.

The most common and valid reason is when other people you work with want to use a proprietary application and you are not in a position to make them do otherwise.

Re:No, but schools will take a second look

[rainer_d]

> Students can write their reports and essays using LaTex

Good luck getting anyone outside CS to do that. Even if the student learns LaTeX, he/she won't likely be able to collaborate with other students/advisers easily.

Even for my CS thesis, the professor wanted word files (annotate feature).
But I used lyx/klyx to write it and so he got PDFs, which he printed.

Lyx was wonderful, allowing me to concentrate almost exclusively on the text itself and not worrying about formatting. p I wish they would teach actual typesetting skills in school (because producing a document is a bit more than just filling a page with letters and spaces and a few pictures)!

Re:No, but schools will take a second look

[jma05]

I used Lyx initially for the same reasons and exported to PDFs. Soon it became apparent that it was much easier to just pass Word files since I could just click to accept or reject suggestions (I know Lyx can do that as well... if the people on the other side also use it) from my advisor who used Word. So I exported to Word and stayed there. Plus using Zotero with Word was much easier than with Lyx. I also liked the grammar checker in Word, flawed as it may be (it is popular to criticize it, but I liked it). There is LanguageTool integration for Lyx, which can be more comprehensive, but is also weakly integrated. I do hope to furrther use Lyx in the future though.

Re:No, but schools will take a second look

[rainer_d]

We met about once every six weeks face-to-face and he told me what to fix.

Turned out to be a good thing.

Re:"... solid-state HP Stream..." Solid-state?!

[itzly]

Solid state means that it doesn't have a spinning hard drive.

Or for twice that I can do actual useful work

[damn_registrars]

I frequently see new ThinkPads on sale for less than $400 brand new through Lenovo. I don't see what the advantage of this crippled $200 netbook would be; I would sooner spend a little more money to buy a vastly more useful system. Or spend a lot more and get a really nice thinkpad that won't need attention or upgrades for many years to come.

Re:Or for twice that I can do actual useful work

[l0n3s0m3phr34k]

It's market is in places where you need cheap hardware. I used to have National Grid as a client; many hours trying to troubleshoot their mobile collection laptops (mostly toughbooks) that where honestly far over-powered and complex for that situation. Schools too; low-powered systems might be more secure and have less "after class chicanery" than with a fully-functional laptop. Unfortunately, this product doesn't fall under that idea since it's Windows 8.1 lol. I doubt it would even work for companies like National Grid since I doubt it supports various other requirements but really the "tough" part isn't really needed as much anymore since most of the linemen today comprehend the frailty of electronics (they all have smartphones and know how to keep them alive) and probably don't need the whole toughbook idea, or at least not for all of them. And those things are HEAVY...my gf on the other hand is sometimes quite clumsy and her Toughbook is still functioning even with chunks of the case missing from being dropped, and stepped on. Her new one was recently a victim of a cat attack that poured a glass of water all over the bottom it while it was upside down and closed on the floor...any other laptop would have been toast! Thus why I pushed her to get another one...I just said "look at this old one, no other laptop can withstand you" lol.

Re:Or for twice that I can do actual useful work

[weilawei]

Or you can buy a refurb'd Thinkpad for $125-150 with specs and durability that will blow away these toys. Works just fine.

Re:Or for twice that I can do actual useful work

[damn_registrars]

Or you can buy a refurb'd Thinkpad for $125-150 with specs and durability that will blow away these toys. Works just fine.

I do the majority of my work on a thinkpad that matches that description. It was ~2 years old when I bought it used and it's still humming along just fine 2+ years later. I've had previous ones meet those kind of reliability numbers as well, and I'm not exactly easy on my hardware.

Frankly it baffles me how much people will pay for hardware that won't last this long.

Re:Or for twice that I can do actual useful work

[KozmoStevnNaut]

I'm still using a T42 that I bought new ~11 years ago. Granted, I don't use for any heavy work, but with Arch Linux and XFCE, it handles basic everyday tasks just fine.

The battery is down to ~10-15 minutes of runtime by now, it's heavy, the screen resolution is low, some of the plastic has broken off one of the corners and I'm on the third (IIRC) mini-PCI WLAN adapter. Firefox/Chrome really doesn't like more than about 10 tabs open at any one time, multitasking in general is not advised.

But it plays 720p video (downloaded, not Youtube) just fine without dropping frames, surprisingly.

I've been considering an upgrade and I would be willing to buy another decently-specced Thinkpad in the hope that it would also last at least 10 years for everyday usage. But on the other hand, looking at my normal usage, why should I spend ~$2000 on the Thinkpad I want (FHD IPS display, SSD etc.) when a ~$200-300 Chromebook could handle all of it just fine, without leaving me completely hard-broken if I were to accidentally drop it or spill soda in the keyboard?

No one can catch the ginderbread man!

[Maury Markowitz]

Is anyone else amused by the rapidity of this race to the bottom?

Enjoy bankruptcy.

Re:No one can catch the ginderbread man!

[l0n3s0m3phr34k]

lol thus why Enterprise Services is going it's own way. My division at HP is far more concerned with up-time, reliability, meeting SLA's, and 24/7/365 monitoring and troubleshooting than profit...probably stemming from the massive fine we got a few years ago from the Feds lol. Now every time I see some new product I wonder which side it is on...

But personally I think Meg's ideas are mostly working...the split puts both sides in better shape, faster reactions as a corp, and a finer tuned "vision". Of course I'm unhappy seeing some of my friends loose their jobs but that's just corporate life ESPECIALLY in IT and from what I've seen no one was "singled out" it is pretty random. Even while some divisions are laying off people others are hiring...we lost some help desk people but are adding mainframe operation techs and they get paid almost twice as much! Honestly I'd much rather see HP having more "mainframe" level activities going on than expanding contracted help desk operations but we have to leverage the capabilities we have in-office.

I think though that my location might be a "special case" since we're the site of IBM's 360 SABRE location and this system can't be "moved" easily. It's all underground, multiple bubble doors, iris scanners, password-of-the-day stuff. I work a few hundred feet away for almost two years and haven't seen the inside of it but walk around the top of it during my smoke breaks every night...yet I have worked deep inside the Cherokee Data Center for months on end so I have whatever "clearance" to be inside of it technically. Our location is quasi-government entangled and is kinda it's own entity inside of HP lol.

Cost of data

[tepples]

any software development work can be done on a virtual machine or physical server accessible via SSH from the Google Chromebook

If you're SSHing and VNCing to the server on which you're developing software, how much data would that use per month? At $10 per GB (common price for cellular data in USA) that could get expensive.

Re:Cost of data

[tepples]

Surely a Chromebook won't prefer wifi when it can get it

Which it can't, as public transit in my home town doesn't offer Wi-Fi. In order to get Wi-Fi on a bus, I'd have to pay a cellular carrier several hundred dollars per year for wireless hotspot service.

HP Split-up

[l0n3s0m3phr34k]

this is a direct result of the split; it's why HP did it (I think). This, along with the 3D printing, Moonshot, etc shows how much faster two smaller corps can move instead of one big corp going multiple directions.

Xbox Live for original Xbox

[tepples]

Microsoft has it's issues, but at least they usually aren't forcing you to uninstall products that you already have installed.

Halo 2 multiplayer perhaps?

Re:Xbox Live for original Xbox

[tepples]

Halo 2 multiplayer is integrated into Halo 2 single player. You can still play one of them at least.

Purchased functionality is still permanently missing.

MMO

Which reminds me: There exists a better example in Asheron's Call 2: Fallen Kings, an MMORPG first published by Microsoft in November 2002 and shut down in December 2005.

Re:"... solid-state HP Stream..." Solid-state?!

[jones_supa]

You are of course right, but just as a sidenote for those who don't know, in electronics solid-state is a broader concept than just hard disks with flash memory.

ExplorerBook

[Luthair]

I think unfortunately these devices are very misleading, with 32gb of (very slow) local storage they simply don't offer anything more than a Chromebook. There isn't space for installing programs (or games), nor is there enough space for local media.

E'rethin' Old is New Again

[DrunkenTerror]

posted from my Celery 900MHz "netbook"

Re:E'rethin' Old is New Again

[bobjr94]

I still have and use an eee pc 1000hd. It has an extended battery and SSD, boots up very fast and runs a long time. For web, facebook, slashdot and youtube (not HD) its fine. I even have some games on it, warcraft 2 & 3, they run great on 8 year old hardware. This machine with non expandable 2gb ram and 32gb drive is just not going to do it for me. I can spend another 75$ and get a real mini laptop thats upgradeable for the future.

Re:E'rethin' Old is New Again

[KozmoStevnNaut]

I had one of the original 7" display Eee 701s with the ~600MHz underclocked Celeron. Man, that thing was a turd. On the other hand, my dad is still using its replacement, a 1001HA with the 1.6GHz Atom and upgraded to 2GB RAM. It works brilliantly as an ultraportable diagnosis and firmware-flashing machine, and as a DMX controller for his amateur rock band.

Another HP 2000

[Deathlizard]

Awhile back, HP made the HP 2000 Laptops running low end AMD Processors and sold them at Walmarts at $279.

Piece of Crap doesn't even describe this PC. These are easily the slowest PC's I have touched in years, and it's not because of Windows 8. (Hell, I think Chrome OS Would struggle on these things.) It's the Hardware components they chose to use with them. Using Low end AMD C and E processors coupled with hard drives with embarrassing slow speed and latency times, it's built to be as cheap as possible and it shows. HP seems to have a track record with this as well, Slipping Tablet, Phone and NetBook Components in full size laptop form factors to convince Granny that she's getting more Laptop than she actually is.

I constantly get these in the shop and I tell the customers there's nothing I can do to them speed wise to make them any faster. Even if you reset them to factory (Which Amazingly removes all of the bloatware down to only essential Hardware necessary items) it's takes practically 30 minutes to boot before you can actually use it. Patching it takes about 1 full day between waiting an hour for it to actually register updates, to installing Windows 8.1, which takes 4-5 hours, and another 6-8 hours installing the Windows 8.1 patches. With just about any other laptop (short of the Toshiba's that follow this same Price model) I can go from windows 8.0 factory to fully 8.1 patched in under 3 hours.

If $279 Gets you crap like the HP 2000, I can't imagine what these $199 systems would be like, Unless MS is seriously giving HP Money each time they sell one of these.

Acer Aspire E-11

[Anonymous Coward]

Just for this type of comparison I bought a Acer Aspre E-11 from Best Buy for $179.00. It has a Celeron N2830, 2GB Ram, and a 320 GB HD. At first the user experience was so poor I could not figure out why anyone would buy one without taking it back. I than learned I could set the mem cache to static and it became usable. When it is closed it looks almost the same as my Samsung Chromebook. It is a full Windows box but it has not taken the place of the Chromebook. The reason is my Chromebook lives on the kitchen table, in the kitchen, family room, etc. Everyone uses it everywhere and it gets tossed here and there. It's wake up from sleep is instant and it always works. You never have I had to wait for a software update. It just works all the time when you need it to look something up fast or watch something while you eat. If a system update needs a reboot it lets you know but doesn't kick you out of what you are doing. Reboots are almost instant. The Acer may be better for content creation but it doesn't compete with the Chromebook for what we use the Chromebook for. I also own a Dell Venue 8 table and it's has 32gb of storage which makes it useless for running traditional Windows applications because they are so big. It came with office installed (not 365) and was only $250.00. Again not a very useful device. Yes I buy about one of everything just to play and compare but the Chromebook gets heavy use.

Once your netbook dies

[tepples]

My dinky little Acer Aspire One is better at everything than my tablet

I can see how this might be true. But what do you plan to buy once your "dinky little Acer Aspire One" dies?

Re:Once your netbook dies

[tepples]

How long do you think sellers will continue to offer working Acer Aspire One computers at a reasonable price on eBay?

Re:Once your netbook dies

[amiga3D]

Long enough. There are plenty of Commodore 64's still for sale.

Consider the Haswell Celeron 2995U chromebooks.

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's a refurbished Acer C720-2644 with 4GB of ram and a 16GB SSD for $209: http://www.amazon.com/Acer-Lap...

The same refurbished C720 with 2GB of ram usually goes for $150 on Amazon, but they just ran out of the refurbs.

By the way, it is easy to add more memory to these things: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

Re:Consider the Haswell Celeron 2995U chromebooks.

[TeknoHog]

For a moment there I was excited. You mentioned the 4 GB and 2 GB (ram) models, followed by "add more memory". The video was about upgrading the SSD, though. Not surprisingly, as it's generally much easier to change the disk than ram, although there are exceptions (my trusty/mouldy Powerbook has a simple RAM bay, but you need to dismantle the whole thing with O(100) screws to access the HD).

Links?

[sootman]

What's up with the Amazon links? HP doesn't have product pages anymore?

Actually, Yes

[chuckugly]

I'm going to get at least one of these. Should be perfect for my house; I'll mount my users area in my NAS and I can browse the WWW or RDP to my EXSi hosted VMs from a nice little inexpensive terminal I can leave in the living room or garage, or both. I'll probably also send 1-2 of these to some family overseas who like to Skype as well.

It's an incredible (subsidized) value. Not a great main system but still useful in many scenarios.

Re:It didn't work like that for me in reality.

[Anonymous Coward]

Now that you've described this theoretical and/or fantasy scenario you've made up, let me describes how this really works.

Total time spent getting a Chromebook running, and maintaining it for less than a year? An hour getting an acceptable Google username, two hours setting it up initially, countless (I'd estimate over 12) looking desparately and often unsuccessfully for alternative software, and then occasional phone calls of several minutes when questions came up, or it stopped working well because the Internet connection dropped out.

Can somebody please mod the parent down? It really is just a fantasy, and doesn't correspond at all to reality. It shouldn't be +5.

The Google Chromebook is too difficult for you apparently. Pray what specialised applications does your mother require on her computer that takes you hours to install and configure on the Google Chromebook? Dropping the Internet connection sounds like a WiFi router/access point issue.

Price -Microsoft Tax?

[WheatGrass]

Minus the Microsoft tax, what would be the cost of this device? (I'm just trying to figure out what Windows 8.1 is worth these days.)
Should I buy Windows and get a free PC or can I buy Windows 8.1 OEM for a quarter without the free PC?
Microsoft is now fully into its race to the bottom for diminishing returns.
Does the company expect to make a killing on the app store?
Will this thing blend?

I'm still waiting

[plopez]

Seriously, I have been waiting for years for the 'Lovecraft' model from HP.

*runs* *ducks* *hides* :)

Re:The real question is

[manicb]

Can I run 1080p porn on it?

32 gigs ain't exactly a lot of porn to torrent, but I can set up a wireless seedbox for that.

"seedbox"

Re: It didn't work like that for me in reality.

[Anonymous Coward]

Lol, it took you 3 hours to turn a Chromebook on and create a Google account!? You must be a special kind of stupid.

Yo Mama

[MacDork]

Is computer illiterate? Buy her or pops a Chromebook and they can't do their taxes on it.

Anyway, computer illiterate parents are not the market where Chromebooks are selling. Most are landing in the hands of computer illiterate children via schools looking for a "cheap laptop." Schools love them. They are inexpensive and low maintenance. You don't need IT with Chromebooks and that's exactly what schools want to hear. Too bad the kids can't really use Chromebooks to learn anything about computers.

20 years ago, Microsoft sold US education policy makers on the concept that "learning computers" meant learning the MS Office suite. That has produced a generation which is completely deficient in general computer knowledge. Tech giants are now flailing around trying to encourage kids to code now, because of the rarity of truly educated computer users.

Chromebooks will be the final nail in the coffin for US tech labor. "Computer people" in the US will be even more rare. Doing anything beyond web browsing and email is difficult on a Chromebook. I've used one as a daily driver for more than a year now. My C720 is my only laptop. I've installed Chrubuntu and chroots using Crouton. I've done Android development on it. You might think that would serve as proof that kids *can* use them to learn, but it is not the case.

My productivity has easily been a quarter of what it was on a 'real' laptop. I rarely do anything in linux on it, because every time I boot it up, I have a chrome window with my top 8 websites staring at me. Oh, hey, let me check the news on (HN | CNN | Slashdot | etc) really quick before I start work. 3 hours later, I'm bored with laughing at stupid pictures on imgur and wondering what it was I had planned to work on today. Even when you do want to work, the hardware is cheap, so everything takes just a little longer. Let me switch back to chrome and check email really quick while this thing compiles... Okay, that was funny cat picture... well, will you look at the time! I guess I will work some tomorrow instead.

And then there's the problem with Chrome's habit of autoupdating itself. Every auto update has the potential to hose your chroot environment. Meaning, oops, that autoupdate just blew your afternoon. Time to spend several hours reinstalling ubuntu and all the developer tools that took ages to set up properly.

In short, I wouldn't recommend a Chromebook as a real computer any more than I'd recommend an iPad. It is not a producer device. It's designed to allow passive consumption of whatever garbage lies on the web. I'll be getting myself a new 'real' laptop for xmas.

Re:Yo Mama

[tlhIngan]

Is computer illiterate? Buy her or pops a Chromebook and they can't do their taxes on it.

Actually, I think they can, thanks to cloud-based tax software. Mostly because of the rise of OS X which means a bunch of Windows only tax software just won't work for them.

Sure, there are plenty of issues when trust Intuit and others with your tax information (it's web based, after all), but with a Chromebook, I'm sure security of the laptop isn't as big a problem.

And given the way people generally backup, at least users won't be able to have the IRS pull a fast one over them since they can retrieve what they filed online rather than try to hunt for a backup or realize it was on the crashed hard drive.

Not as secure, though if the IRS already has the data... but I'm sure for a lot of users, probably way more convenient, way more secure and way more recoverable.

Re:Yo Mama

[MacDork]

Many states have locked PDF forms that can only be filled with Adobe Acrobat. The PDF can't even be saved once filled, so an electronic backup is out. The only backup available is a printed one. You're not going to be able to fill and print them on a Chromebook, even with Linux.

Sorry. I don't trust other people with my tax returns.

Re:Yo Mama

[MacDork]

Screenshot what? A blank form? You can't even fill the form on a Chromebook because it requires Acrobat Reader.

Re:Yo Mama

[MacDork]

lol. Says the moron who couldn't figure out Acrobat runs on neither ChromeOS or Linux.

You go ahead and take several screenshots of partial pages and then go into an image editor to stitch them together though. Hey, maybe you can even break out your iPhone and take pictures of your screen. That'll be even better, because you'll add an extra step or two between you and a final product.

I'll just print them, thanks.

CAD540 per year

[tepples]

Why would I run a GUI on a server?

Because you're developing GUI applications and want to test the GUI. Using an actual computer for this would save you CAD540 per year. But then perhaps I'm an outlier because I program on my laptop on the bus ride to and from work.

10.1" vs. 11.6"

[tepples]

Perhaps what died at the end of 2012 was the 10" screen size on a device with attached keyboard. Most of the "small laptops" I see nowadays are 11.6", which may need something bigger than a typical man-satchel to hold one.

How can you forget something you never heard of?

[PJ6]

OMG... maybe it worked!

Long-term reliance on used hardware

[tepples]

You claim that people will be able to rely on a long-term supply of a product that includes its own hard drive, display backlight, and lithium ion battery for at least as long as people rely on a long-term supply of a mains-powered, solid-state product such as the Commodore 64 computer. But good luck finding an affordable working Vectrex console, which is a more apropos example because like the Vectrex, an Aspire One computer has its own screen. And I've seen a lot of sellers selling used Nintendo Entertainment System consoles for more than the $50 that Nintendo was selling them for new at the tail end of the NES era. And good luck getting the seller to provide a reasonably long warranty, or get used to buying one every 31 days when the eBay guarantee runs out.

Re:Long-term reliance on used hardware

[amiga3D]

I see old laptops all the time at yard sales for next to nothing. Still I don't really expect to use a 20 year old computer. I used an Amiga 3000 from 94 until 99 and despite the fact it was 10 years old had no trouble finding anything I needed for it at reasonable prices. Still I ended up moving on to a newer much more powerful system because eventually technology moves so far that upgrading becomes irresistible. I didn't leave the Amiga because it wasn't viable anymore but because something far better finally came along at a price I couldn't turn down.

No. Chromebook is actually the better package.

[Qbertino]

No. Chromebook is actually the better package for most people.

8 hrs. battery time. Boots in 8 seconds. Zero maintenance. Zero worries about backups. Zero worries about installing programms. Zero virii. Zero synching your photos, videos, audios, whatnot with your tablet and/or phone. Everything in the cloud. Drop your laptop, have it stolen, pour coffee into it - no problem. Order a new one, log on, all your stuff is there and you didn't even have to archive. While the the one is being shipped you can use your friends computer or your cellphone to do the most important stuff until it arrives. I gave my fiance a laptop (IBM Thinkpad, Ubuntu 14.04, all ready and set up) and an android tablet. She used the laptop once. The tablet she uses constantly. Just watching her is a real eye opener.

Anther Point in case:
I'm your type A slashdot computer geek and even *I* would prefer a chromebook over a windows laptop (typing this on Linux btw.)

I'm quite convinced that my next portable computer will either be an android tablet with an extra bluetooth keyboard or a chromebook - routing a chromebook with crouton and installing linux on it is quite easy, and 8 hrs battery time for 299 has a nice ring to it.

The truth is: Google is set to bring the second half of humanity online. They are basically the budget Apple. You pay significantly less with at least as much convenience, if not even more. Google takes care of you and all your computing stuff for free and in turn the may observe you 24/7. That's the basic deal and there is no upside MS can offer to that.

With MS it's pay premium, and get observed, and functionality degraded over time and virii and we want to know all your details before you can use windows unencumbred. Oh, and MS Office is a subscription now. ... Who the eff wants that? ... MS only has a chance to do that for historical reasons, and those are wearing off quickly.

No one I know would want this ugly laptop with windows on it.

My 2 cents.

Re:No. Chromebook is actually the better package.

[KozmoStevnNaut]

I'm your type A slashdot computer geek and even *I* would prefer a chromebook over a windows laptop (typing this on Linux btw.)

I'm quite convinced that my next portable computer will either be an android tablet with an extra bluetooth keyboard or a chromebook - routing a chromebook with crouton and installing linux on it is quite easy, and 8 hrs battery time for 299 has a nice ring to it.

I feel the same way. I could upgrade my aging T42 (one of the best laptops ever, IMHO) to the modern equivalent (probably a T440 or X240), and I'd be willing to pay the premium price for another 10-12 year capable laptop. But a Chromebook would handle 99% of everything I ever use my laptop for and cost so much less. The Toshiba Chromebook 2 with the FHD IPS display looks like a nice candidate.

Re:No.

[Bill_the_Engineer]

Flamebait? Try brutally obvious. Where are the Google book advertising?

Re:glossy or not

[KozmoStevnNaut]

I'm willing to settle for a glossy display, but only if it's a high-res IPS display and no matte IPS option is available. TN panels can go sulk in a corner, they're worthless to look at.

Re:Give examples

[spire3661]

I did name one, Sony Play Memories. REGARDLESS, it exposes the fact that ANY application could do that if the devs choose. The main overriding point is that SD storage is NOT the same thing as onboard, and comes with its own limitations. It is the only salient point to this discussion.

Re:Goodbye Chromebooks for me.

[yenic]

Yup. On the money. HP Stream is my next laptop as well. Any serious work needs a desktop in my experience. You could certainly get by on a Macbook Retina, but I wouldn't want to have to unless I traveled for work. Tablet that lets you install standard programs and has a keyboard is basically what I think the market wants. Chromebook almost hit the mark, but not quite there.. a little too Google-oriented with their services push for most people's taste.

Yes

[vandamme]

There's a 7 GB recovery partition on that HP, that would be the first to go.

On my present HP laptop my biggest OS/apps partition has 13 GB in it. My current Mint 17 is under 7 GB. Of course Windows and some huge antivirus plus Office won't fit in that, but I'll never have to worry about that again. I'd be very comfortable with a 64 GB SSD. Another 64 in a SD would be just overkill.

Re:And with colors that ugly..

[vandamme]

Rumor is that Mint 17 has the kernel from Ubuntu 14.04, and some stuff doesn't work (touchpad, wifi?) but Ubuntu 14.10 runs fine, and the newest Mint should follow soon.

Re:"... solid-state HP Stream..." Solid-state?!

[vandamme]

Yeah, lot of people waiting for the Steam powered version, actually.