HP Stream 14 Windows laptop to be priced at US$199

by Mark Tyson on 19 August 2014, 10:15

Tags: Hewlett Packard (NYSE:HPQ), AMD (NYSE:AMD), Windows 8

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We previously heard a gunshot across the bow of the good ship Chromebook at Microsoft's Worldwide Partner Conference in mid-July. Now we get to see the calibre of some of Microsoft's ammunition. Information regarding the US$199 HP Stream 14 laptop has been revealed via an official data sheet unearthed by Mobile Geeks (via GigaOM).

About a month ago we first saw the Windows vs Chromebook strategy outlined by Microsoft COO Kevin Turner. With Microsoft making Windows cheaper, or even free, to hardware partners they in turn should be able to make entry level laptops that easily compete with Google Chromebooks in the hardware stakes while offering Microsoft's OS and cloud services. The most eye catching slide at the MWPC said Microsoft intended to redefine the value category and trumpeted "6 things a Chromebook can't do" – for comparable cash outlay.

Not much more than a week later we saw HP launch a dual-core AMD Mullins powered laptop, the HP Pavilion 10, with a 10-inch touchscreen and 500GB HDD for $249. Now HP has gone bigger and even cheaper with its HP Stream 14.

HP Stream 14 Specifications

You can see from the above that the HP Stream 14 offers the AMD A4 Micro-6400T which is a quad core processor running at 1.6GHz. It has a TDP of 4.5W. Here's a comparison against the AMD dual-core E1 Micro-6200T processor in the HP Pavilion 10. Also making the HP Stream 14 more like the average Chromebook HP has kitted it out with a smaller fixed storage device, at 32GB or 64GB, but a faster flash memory based drive rather than an HDD. The 2GB of DDR3-133MHz RAM is not upgradeable. The HP Stream 14's non-touch 14-inch screen is not that posh just a 1366 x 768 display.

The next part of the spec list reveals the networking and ports built into this laptop. There's decent connectivity, ports and features on offer including; 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0, HDMI output, 1x USB 3.0 ports, 2x USB 2.0 ports, an SDXC card reader, four speakers with Beats Audio, and a 720p webcam. HP has installed a 3-cell 32Whr battery. The HP Stream 14 measures 343 x 241 x 17.8mm and weighs 1.76Kg (3.9lbs).

Just like Google does with its Chromebooks, Microsoft has augmented the small-ish built-in storage quota with a big lump of cloud storage: a 100GB OneDrive boost for 2 years. Windows 8.1 with Bing is the OS here, as you will have guessed.

It will be interesting to see what other manufacturers come up with at this low end price in the next few months.



HEXUS Forums :: 16 Comments

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I'm confused - what's the purpose of that last graphic in the article. I mean are users expected to “install the system board”, so this is laptop equivalent to Ikea flat pack furniture?

Even if that $199 ends up as £199, this is attractive at first glance. I guess I could even work around the limited storage, since after all there's a micro-SD slot. But 2GB RAM with Windows8, sorry no sale. :(
2GB RAM for windows 8 and office is absolutely fine.
@crossy, its windows and office RT, so it doesnt need same RAM amount of windows desktop versions, so 2 GB is fine, it would have been alot better if it was 4 GB though.
YazX
@crossy, its windows and office RT

No, it's full x64 Windows. And 2GB is plenty - I've run Win 8 VMs on 1GB with no noticable performance issues, and I have a mate running Win 8 on an old 1GB laptop and he swears it now runs better than it did with either XP or Win 7. I'd be perfectly happy with 2GB for a web/office device.

And if I ever need a new ultra-portable, this will be very close to the top of my list :)
Obviously it depends what you're doing with it, but i would never run with less than 4GB on a dedicated machine.