Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Just over a year ago, I got my first Chromebook, the Acer C720. Since that time, except for gaming, it has been my most used computer for everyday web consumption: Ebay, Amazon, Facebook, Google+, Wordpress, Netflix, Youtube, etc. I even figured out how to use Crouton to install Linux (Ubuntu) on it, so that I could install Steam for local gaming and Steam Streaming. While the Acer doesn't have a great screen, or even a good screen, and it feels kind of, well, cheap overall, for the price it was a fantastic value. With the release of the HP Stream 11, I think Windows has a device that hits a similar value/performance intersection. I've only owned it one day but based on initial impressions, this is a fantastic value and an easy recommendation for a LOT of use cases. SPECS The HP Stream 11 is an 11.6" Windows 8.1 Laptop, powered by an Intel Celeron N2840 processor at 2.16 GHz. It has 2 GB of RAM and a 32 GB SSD, neither of which can be upgraded. It is rated for 8.5 hours of battery life, depending on performance and brightness settings of course. The screen is a 1366x768 high definition LCD screen, which has a matte coating for anti-glare. This is basically the same screen as the Acer C720. Which is to say, the screen is pretty bad. The matte coating takes a relatively low-resolution affair and makes it that much more dull and muted. That said, it is serviceable enough and has decent brightness considering the price point. Just know going in that your tradeoff for choosing this over a similarly priced $200 Windows Tablet is that the screen on a tablet will likely be IPS and significantly better in terms of clarity and viewing angles. However, this matte coating does help very much with glare in overhead and outdoor lighting situations. As far as ports, the Stream 11 has 2 USB ports (one 3.0 and one 2.0), a full-size SD slot, and HDMI. It has a single combo headphone/mic port. It also has two down-firing speakers that put out decent sound for the price point. SETUP Setting up this device wasn't too bad. Windows 8 has come a long way over the past 12 months. In December 2013 my wife's HP required several hours of updates, and updating my Surface Pro (1st Gen) from Windows 8.0 to 8.1 was very difficult; there was a point where the update hung, and I had to do quite a bit of research to get past it. Contrast this to the HP Stream 11: It took 10 minutes to get from unboxing to a functional Windows desktop. Once there I removed Norton, installed Avast, installed Chrome, and installed Steam, and then installed 35 Windows updates (33 required and 2 optional). This took 22 minutes, plus another 12 minutes of processing after I rebooted, for a total time of 34 minutes. The system handled them all with no crashes, hangs, or issues. Drivers for accessories like my USB Logitech Mouse and Dell Printer were plug and play with no issues. PERFORMANCE This processor/RAM setup powers a lot of 2014's Chromebooks, and thus it has Octane benchmarks similar to devices like the Asus C200 Chromebook and Toshiba Chromebook 2. My personal Octane scores were in the 7,500-8,000 range. As a point of comparison, the Acer C720 and HP Chromebook 11, with 2 GB of RAM and an Intel Celeron 2955 processor with Haswell architecture have benchmarks in Octane of around 11,000. You're looking at about 20% decrease in performance. In general, most websites load quickly, but more intensive sites like The Verge hang a bit while various images and videos load. Once pages are loaded, everything scrolls smoothly. I read some people complaining about Chrome being an issue on this device but it ran fine for me. I had IE with one tab, Chrome with three tabs, and Steam open and the web pages were running fine. I also tested Google Docs and that ran smoothly. Boot time to the log-in screen is about 10 seconds, plus another 5-7 seconds of loading after you enter your log-in credentials. Unlike Chrome OS, when you hit the desktop a Windows device is still processing and loading in the background, so the full boot takes a bit longer - but I'd still say the whole process is under 30 seconds and to hit the log-in in 10 seconds is impressive. I had no problems installing Avast, Chrome, and Steam on the device. I tested Steam Streaming on my local network from my desktop computer and was able to play Wolfenstein: The New Order at an excellent FPS. I also tried a few games running locally including Pacman DX, Luftrausers, and Towerfall Ascension. These ran without issue. I would think that many indie games should run on this, especially those of the 2D variety, but 3D gaming performance will probably be terrible. You don't have much space to store modern games, anyway. As a Steam Streaming device though, it works fine. And, it should be able to handle most emulation of systems up through the PS1 / Sega Saturn / N64 generation as well as a lot of good retro games on GOG. Oddly enough, the wireless speed I got using tests on this device were about 10-15% slower than the same tests on my Moto X or Acer C720 connected to the same network, from the same location. That said, the connection didn't drop at all for the four hours I had the computer running. (If interested: I have 50 Mb down and up via FiOS. My first speed test showed this was only getting 28 up and 25 down, but a re-test after rebooting later showed 37 up and 36 down) I haven't had the device long enough to test the battery but I would expect 8 hours is pretty reasonable, keeping in mind that brightness and what you're doing for that time play a major role. BUILD QUALITY This is a mixed bag. As noted the screen is the low point of the device. It isn't so terrible that the device isn't usable, but it is pretty bad. If you can live with the C720, you can live with this, but you won't like it. The Stream 11 comes in at under 3 lbs of weight (2.8 lbs), feeling just a bit heavier than my C720. Heavy compared to modern 10" tablets, but still relatively light. One complaint I have is that this device only comes in two color options, Blue or Magenta. While I like the blue - it looks better in person than it does in pictures - the absence of a neutral color like white, black, or grey is strange. The diminutive size and blue color does make this look more like a young adult toy than a full-fledged Windows 8.1 device. That said, it is reasonably sturdy in the hand, feeling and looking mostly like a shrunken version of the HP14 Chromebook. Unfortunately, the trackpad on the HP Stream 11 is NOT on par with the HP14 Chromebook. While the HP14 is a $300-$380 device (depending on specs), I don't think it is unreasonable to expect the touchpad to be on the same level of quality as the HP14 or C720. It isn't. I've used worse, but I definitely will prefer a mouse with this, whereas on my Chromebooks I think of a mouse as totally optional. Through use, I've gotten better with it, but at first I was having a very hard time just dragging and dropping files into folders, for instance. The keyboard pretty much feels like a shrunken HP14 Chromebook keyboard. Keys are a bit squishy and don't have a ton of travel, but it is stated as 97% full sizes and my WPM was about the same as usual. EXTRAS On its own, this is a pretty compelling device for $200, but HP throws in some goodies. You get a one-year subscription to Office 365 Personal (one computer + one tablet). This does not come installed on the device; you get a redemption key that must be used by the end of 2016. I actually love this, as you can redeem the subscription on another device if you choose to do so. This is a $70 value. I'm still debating whether to redeem this key for my Stream 11, so I did not test MS Office, but based on how it runs Google Docs and Sheets, I would expect they'll run just fine provided you don't have a ton of other applications going at the same time. You also get a $25 Windows App Store gift-card. Finally, you supposedly get 1 TB of MS Cloud storage for a year, which is pretty crazy if accurate. As I have no need for that yet - I have 150 GB of Drive storage from my Moto X and Chromebooks - I haven't tested it, but it is a very nice add-on. These offers compare pretty well to those Google gives you with Chromebooks (12 GoGo In-flight passes, 60 days Google All Access Music passes, and 100 GB Cloud Storage for two years). FINAL THOUGHTS I'll need to spend some more time with this device before I know for sure how I feel about it, but first impressions have been pretty favorable. I didn't expect it to run Windows 8 so well, or have such a short boot time. The Chrome performance was much better than I'd expected based on what I read elsewhere, and Steam Streaming worked perfectly. While I still wish there was a neutral color option like Black or Grey on the market, which would make me feel much better about suggesting to grown adults that this is a serious computing device, this is a decent-looking device with build quality and Windows 8 performance above expectations for this price point. For students or those seeking an ultraportable back-up computer, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised with this computer. If you're thinking about getting an Office 365 Personal subscription anyway, this computer is basically $130, which is an absurd value.