Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

The HP Stream 7 Windows 8.1 Tablet is an impressive value in 2014. It's the first 32GB Windows 8.1 tablet to crack the $99 price mark. Whether it's the right tablet for you is very situational. I also bought an ASUS VivoTab 8 to evaluate and compare. Comparing HP vs ASUS 1. PRICE: The HP is (was) $99 and the ASUS is still $199. 2. OS: Both tablets are 32-bit Windows. You cannot install 64-bit Windows without dealing with the 32-bit UEFI issue. 3. STORAGE: Both tablets have 32GB of eMMC (SSD-ish) storage. The HP has 1GB RAM and the ASUS has 2GB RAM. 4. CPU: The ASUS has a CPU with better specs and is indeed has a somewhat more fluid UI. However, there isn't that much difference. 5. BIOS: The HP BIOS is easy to navigate. It's touch sensitive and has a virtual keyboard for navigation. The ASUS has neither and is difficult or impossible to navigate without using a USB keyboard. The main reason for caring about the BIOS is if you want to install an alternate operating system such as Linux (more later) or Windows 10. 6. Driver Availability: ASUS is a good citizen having posted a complete set of drivers. I have not found any other 8.1 tablet maker who has done so. This is really important if you wipe out your storage, such as experimenting with a new OS, and then wish to restore Windows 8.1. 7. HAND: The ASUS feels like a tablet, the HP feels a bit blocky. 8. DISPLAY: The ASUS is an inch larger and has a bit better display. 9. GPS: The ASUS has a GPS. HP does not. 10. microSD CARD: I tested a Samsung 64GB Pro microSD card in both tablets. The card must be formatted as NTFS to be recognized by the tablet. The HP would not recognize the card when formatted exFAT. I could transfer up to 19MBps from tablet USB to tablet microSD card. On a PC, the card performs (USB 3.0) at 78MBps read and 64MBps write. To install the microSD card on the HP, you must peel off the tablet's back cover and then insert the card next to the battery. The ASUS has an accessible SD cartridge slot so the back doesn't have to be removed. Which one do I recommend? Depends on your situation but I recommend first considering the WinBook tablets available from Amazon and, better yet, at Microcenters. The WinBook TW801 has an 8" screen (vs HP's Stream's 7"), an additional 1GB of memory, a micro HDMI port, and a second USB port (a full size USB 3.0 port). Windows tablets with the features of the TW801 may well become the platform for the next generation of HTPCs. Geek Install Notes (applies to both the HP and ASUS). 1. Drivers for ASUS VivoTab 8 [...] 2. Drivers for HP Stream 7 are --- where? 3. Linux is a bad idea on these tablets because of the many esoteric drivers needed to make a tablet work. As of this date, there is no Linux distribution that offers essentials drivers; display, touch, WiFi and probably others. Also there's the 32-bit UEFI issue. 4. Holding down both the power button + down volume will boot into BIOS (eqv to F2). 5. HP Stream 7 BIOS has convenient menu for navigating BIOS. You'll need a USB keyboard for navigating the ASUS. 6. My trusty USB drive with Easy2Boot (recommended) didn't boot. I assume this is because the BIOS is 32-bit UEFI. 7. I wiped out the ASUS storage trying to install Windows 10 and Linux. Thankfully ASUS has posted drivers enabling reinstallation using a stock Windows 8.1 Pro + Update 1. I do not recommend doing what I did, reinitializing the 32GB storage and not having a backup. Fortunately drivers from ASUS site installed ok but there's a couple uninstalled drivers according to device manager. GPS drivers missing? 8. HP Stream 7 and ASUS booted fine with a powered USB 2.0 hub. I loaded up the USB hub with three USB drives and a keyboard. 9. SplashTop Streamer, a remote desktop utility, installed fine. SplashTop Streamer is particularly convenient for setting up the tablets. Recommended. There may be some issue, possibly a timeout issue, when connecting to tablets. Changing taskbar property to force booting into desktop may have fixed the issue. 10. Send Anywhere utility installed fine. Send Anywhere is a very convenient cross-platform file transfer tool. Recommended. 11. Annoyingly, HP Stream 7 and ASUS don't allow separate timeouts for display and sleep. You can only set one or the other and the setting apples to both. A solution is to disable connected device setting in registry and manually enter the following in an administrative Command (cmd) window. The following commands will cause the display to timeout after 15 minutes and cause the tablet to NEVER (0) sleep. Disable connected device using regedit: HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Power\CsEnabled (change 1 to 0) sc config dam start= disabled -- reboot -- powercfg /x monitor-timeout-ac 15 powercfg /x standby-timeout-ac 0 [Update 16-Nov-2014: These changes work great when plugged-in. However, on battery the tablet never goes to sleep -- you must physically hit the power button to put it into sleep.] 12. Tested performance using Windows built-in benchmark named WinSAT (search: Windows Experience Index in 8.1). Open an administrative cmd window and execute c:\windows\system32\winsat format -restart. The ASUS and HP Stream 7 had similar scores. Subjectively (and backed by CPU specs), the ASUS is somewhat more fluid. 13. Windows 8.1 tablets have an onscreen keyboard which is wimpy. I highly recommend activating the more deluxe keyboard available through a settings change. It's well worth it. 14. USB keyboards work in BIOS and Windows. I tested using the Logitech Illuminated Living-Room Wireless Keyboard K830 and Touchpad for Internet-Connected TVs (920-006081) -- worked great. Update 15-Nov-2014: Both tablets are able to play Iron Man Blu-Ray ISO rip with zero stuttering. This is quite an impressive task as Blu-Ray ISO playback is resource intensive. The Blu-Ray was played off a USB flash drive (direct attach) using VLC player. The ASUS used 70% CPU while the HP was near 100%. Both had ok audio. The ASUS has a somewhat better quality display. I recommend a couple accessories. Be sure to have a full-size USB to micro-USB adapter available such as a Cable Matters (2-Pack) Micro-USB 2.0 On-The-Go (OTG) Adapter and a 16GB+ USB flash drive such as Mushkin Enhanced Atom Series USB 3.0 Flash Drive (MKNUFDAM16GB).