The maker of expensive printer ink, HP, seems jolly keen on putting Google’s Chromebook out of business. This week it announced several new stream notebooks. For those who came in late the Stream series is HP’s version of the low cost Windows laptop, meant to compete head to head with Chromebooks on price.
The difference between the two is that the Streams still offer a fully fleshed out operating system. The Stream 14 is available to purchase now for only $299, and comes with an AMD A4 APU, 2 GB of RAM, and 32 GB of eMMC storage.
Now HP has fleshed out its range and announced two additional laptops, and two tablets.
The laptops come in two screen sizes with the smallest being 11.6” and the mid-size being 13.3” and these are to compliment the already released 14” model.
HP is not saying what the exact specifications have not been disclosed yet, but both units will be powered by an Intel dual-core Bay Trail Celeron processor. This means that it is a fanless device, and both come with 2 GB of RAM and 32 GB of eMMC storage. The 13.3” device has an optional touchscreen to go with the 1366×768 resolution that both laptops share. The 13.3” model also is available with optional 4G connectivity. HP is including 200 MB of free data every month for the life of the device. As another value add, HP is offering one year of Office 365 personal, which includes 1 TB of online storage and 60 Skype minutes per month.
Battery life is eight hours and 15 minutes for the 11.6” model, and seven hours 45 minutes for the 13.3” model.
The HP Stream laptops are available in several colours, and will be priced at $199.99 for the 11.6” model and $229.99 as the starting price for the 13.3” model.
HP also announced the HP Stream 7 Tablet, which is a 7” Windows 8.1 that comes in at only $99.99. There is also the HP Stream 8 which has a starting price of $149.99. Both tablets are powered by Intel Atom quad-core processors, and 1366×768 screens. Like the larger of the two laptops, the 8” tablet, if equipped with the optional 4G, comes with 200 MB of data per month for the life of the device, and both also come with Office 365 personal for one year.
