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HP Stream 7 & 8 - $99 Full Windows 8.1 tablets

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J

joshschw

Member
AlexMogil said:
They are still waiting for them to boot up.

I have a dell 8" tablet and the struggle is real. It has 2gb ram and it is so very very painful. The 32 gb storage is just diarrhea frosting on the poopy cake.

It's a shame RT wasn't a success because this is the market they're after.
Click to expand...

I also have the same Dell and have never had even one single issue related to performance. I agree on RT but what is your "struggles" with the Dell. sounds like some sort of hardware fault if you have these problems.
 
A

aaaaa0

Member
AlexMogil said:
They are still waiting for them to boot up.

I have a dell 8" tablet and the struggle is real. It has 2gb ram and it is so very very painful. The 32 gb storage is just diarrhea frosting on the poopy cake.
Click to expand...

The heck?

I just timed the HP Stream 7 in my hands *right* *now*, it has 1 GB of RAM, and it boots in 21 seconds from the time I push the power button to the time the login prompt appears.

And that's with hiberboot disabled. If I enable hiberboot, that time drops to 7 seconds.

And this a *** $99 *** tablet.
 
R

RevDM

Banned
Yoshiya said:
where's the coupon?
Click to expand...

My googlefu wasn't good enough. Figured ~105 shipped is worth it

FYI Re MS office:

1 year on the PC (the tablet considered a PC). You must deactivate this if you want to use it on another PC
1 year on a tablet device
 
L

lupe121283

Member
well, somehow I bought this device last night. .... I drank a half bottle of whiskey last night.... Looking forward to it with overnight shipping too apparently.
 
D

Damaniel

Banned
Throw 2GB of RAM in this and it would be a very usable tablet. However, considering that Firefox will eat 300+ MB of RAM before you even open a single tab, that 1GB doesn't seem like it will go very far.

I can't see myself getting one of these. A $129, 2GB tablet would definitely be on my list though.

EDIT: Also, it's not Windows 8, but I was rather impressed by the Lenovo A8-50 tablet. As a 'value' tablet (especially at the ~$130 price you can get it for these days), it's quite nice and doesn't feel like cheaply made garbage. My girlfriend bought one (mainly to play Monster Strike on a larger screen), and my parents were so impressed by it that they each bought one too. Personally, I'm liking this race to the bottom - there are some pretty nice devices to be had for not much money if you know where to look.
 
F

Futureman

Member
everyone laughing at 1 GB.... this is still insanely great for $99. What could you get for $99 5 years ago? Just think what $99 tablets will be like in 2019. Lite Brite was probably $99 in 1990.
 
old

old

Member
Tempted. I love my ipad but sometimes work websites are only coded for Internet explorer or else the site doesn't function properly. Which I means I need a browser with 100% true unimpeded internet explorer functionality. Sadly that is still an issue with Safari on iPad. $100 just for IE sounds crazy but I might do it just to make my life easier.

Ridiculous that this product's number selling feature for me is Internet Explorer.
 
M

mrklaw

MrArseFace
...and obviously £99 in the UK...

Although if I bought for my wife for Christmas as a web browsing tablet that I could occasionally run steam home streaming on...

This or a kindle fire HDX?
 
W

whatever77

Banned
Futureman said:
everyone laughing at 1 GB.... this is still insanely great for $99. What could you get for $99 5 years ago? Just think what $99 tablets will be like in 2019. Lite Brite was probably $99 in 1990.
Click to expand...

No. Dell run its shitty Venue 8 Pro tablet prommotion for about 130-150 refurb non stop for a few months last year.

I have one. It has 2GB memory. It literrally will uninstall its wifi driver whenever I run photoshop and a brower at the same time. Now I don't mind shit don't run at all, or run at super slow speed. But currupting the wifi driver for running too many applications is something I have only seem on W8 but not on W7.

And you know how much fun it is to reinstall the wifi and bt driver when you don't have connection to the internet.
 
D

Damaniel

Banned
Futureman said:
everyone laughing at 1 GB.... this is still insanely great for $99. What could you get for $99 5 years ago? Just think what $99 tablets will be like in 2019. Lite Brite was probably $99 in 1990.
Click to expand...

Just a couple years ago, India was pushing the idea of a $35 tablet that would bring computing to the masses. If I recall, they nearly got the price down there, but it required the use of some seriously underwhelming tech (a sub-500MHz processor, resistive touchscreen, and so on). Now, I regularly see cheap Chinese tablets that cost less than twice that with far more reasonable specs (dual core, or even quad core, processors, capacitive touchscreens, modern versions of Android). Fry's will sell me any of half a dozen 'value' tablet models for less than $60 right now. I personally wouldn't use any of them myself, but the fact they exist is proof that tablets are quickly becoming a commodity item that even people in the poorest nations can afford. Plus, for many tasks, they're just far more usable - my dad, for instance, has a PC, but never uses it anymore because all of his computing needs are met by his tablet. He's not the only one, either.
 
R

RevDM

Banned
lupe121283 said:
well, somehow I bought this device last night. .... I drank a half bottle of whiskey last night.... Looking forward to it with overnight shipping too apparently.
Click to expand...

I too was intoxicated. Still looking forward to having it though. Main driving point is that I travel somewhat frequently and want to smash my netbook everytime (despite decent specs).

I had gotten it from costco w/ 4gb ram. It had the AMD processor which was considered better than the intel atom at the time.
 
J

jwhit28

Member
When these cheap tablets say windows 8.1, do they mean full windows or is it still limited like RT? Can I download any old .exe and run it?

I mainly want one with 2GB of ram for a tablet that can use flash.
 
F

FLEABttn

Banned
jwhit28 said:
When these cheap tablets say windows 8.1, do they mean full windows or is it still limited like RT? Can I download any old .exe and run it?

I mainly want one with 2GB of ram for a tablet that can use flash.
Click to expand...

The HP Stream in particular is full Windows 8.1. You can download any .exe and run it. It works with flash.

I bought one last week. For $100, I don't think you can do better. I use mine for content consumption vs creation and don't find the RAM to be a limiting factor, with IE11 metro being fairly nimble for the specs this thing has.
 
H

Heigic

Member
You get a year of Office 365 with this too. So it sort of only costs $30...

I'd wait until Windows 10 until buying one though. The consumer preview is meant to be in January.
 
B

border

Member
Dell Venue 8 Pro has 2GB RAM and it comes with an actual Microsoft Office license -- not a 1-year Office rental.

You get what you pay for with $99 tablets.
 
T

The Abominable Snowman

Member
Heigic said:
You get a year of Office 365 with this too. So it sort of only costs $30...

I'd wait until Windows 10 until buying one though. The consumer preview is meant to be in January.
Click to expand...

If you're with Win8, Win10 comes as complimentary or at least a steep discount. I wouldn't worry about the OS, as W8.1 is a great experience.

I've ported over my old Office keys with no problem from other workstations. Even called MS a couple times and got free keys.
 
D

Dr. Benton Quest

Banned
I recommend the Venue Pro 8 if you want a cheap functional tablet. Runs all x86 apps I need and I can play Isaac, Morrowind, and Fallout 3 on it.

I just wish it had a larger screen.
 
A

aaaaa0

Member
I've been carrying a Steam 7 around for the last week as the second device in my bag.

My primary mobile work device is a Surface Pro 3 i7/8gb/512. I write software on it (more specifically I write drivers, there's a decent chance you have one of my drivers on your system right now).

The Stream 7, even with 1GB of RAM, performs fine. It boot fast, runs pretty smoothly, I can't really complain for $99. I had to go to HP.com to update the firmware and drivers, which seemed to fix some WiFi glitches.

I find I actually take out the Stream 7 more often than the SP3, simply because its smaller, lighter, and more convenient and I don't care what happens to it.

For example, I'm typing this right now on the Stream 7 while eating lunch. The SP3 stays firmly in the laptop bag, for when I need to work later. If I drop the Stream 7, or spill soup over it, or it gets stolen, or whatever, I dont care, I'll just go buy another one.

I also have a Venue 8 Pro, which used to be my second device, but it has been spending its time at home lately, mostly because of WiFi glitches but also because I wanted to see if the Stream 7 could replace it. Post updates, it has felt more stable than the Venue, which is impressive, again, considering the price. No WiFi problems, no connected standby hangs.

So far, so good.
 
R

RevDM

Banned
aaaaa0 said:
I've been carrying a Steam 7 around for the last week as the second device in my bag.

My primary mobile work device is a Surface Pro 3 i7/8gb/512. I write software on it (more specifically I write drivers, there's a decent chance you have one of my drivers on your system right now).

The Stream 7, even with 1GB of RAM, performs fine. It boot fast, runs pretty smoothly, I can't really complain for $99. I had to go to HP.com to update the firmware and drivers, which seemed to fix some WiFi glitches.

I find I actually take out the Stream 7 more often than the SP3, simply because its smaller, lighter, and more convenient and I don't care what happens to it.

For example, I'm typing this right now on the Stream 7 while eating lunch. The SP3 stays firmly in the laptop bag, for when I need to work later. If I drop the Stream 7, or spill soup over it, or it gets stolen, or whatever, I dont care, I'll just go buy another one.

I also have a Venue 8 Pro, which used to be my second device, but it has been spending its time at home lately, mostly because of WiFi glitches but also because I wanted to see if the Stream 7 could replace it. Post updates, it has felt more stable than the Venue, which is impressive, again, considering the price. No WiFi problems, no connected standby hangs.

So far, so good.
Click to expand...

Let's not beat around the bush here. The question everyone here wants an answer to is, how well does it play porn? Some gaffers have 20+ tabs open at a time, can 1GB of ram really handle that much DP?
 
A

aaaaa0

Member
RevDM said:
Let's not beat around the bush here. The question everyone here wants an answer to is, how well does it play porn? Some gaffers have 20+ tabs open at a time, can 1GB of ram really handle that much DP?
Click to expand...

I'd imagine 20+ tabs would indeed be a problem with only 1gb of RAM, but does anyone really need that much DP at once?
 
P

Penguins&PolarBears

Member
Just got the Lenovo Yoga Tablet 2 with Windows yesterday. I was a bit concerned about how it would handle the 1920x1200 display, but I'm really impressed with the speed of the new Atom processors. I bought a couple dual core Atom tablets a couple years ago and they were pretty slow with max download speeds of about 34Mbps. On these new quad core Atom chips I'm getting my full 75Mbps downloads. No slow down in anything, I've thrown at it. I plan to buy more quad core Atoms this holiday as the performance is very solid. I have the 10" Yoga 2, but I think I will pick up the 8" Yoga too since it has the same specs in a smaller package. The 15 hour battery life is amazing, but it does take a long time to charge as a result.
 
G

GraveHorizon

poop meter feature creep
Would this tablet be good for both Steam streaming and Photoshop, or would the Venue Pro 8 be the better option? My girlfriend insisted I get her a tablet for Christmas after I mistakenly mentioned considering getting one for myself, and she hopes to use it for her graphic design class with all her Adobe programs and basic Office stuff. I want one for general media purposes and hopefully playing and streaming Steam games (either with my laptop if I get it fixed, or with my desktop if out-of-home streaming is doable), and it would be nice if I could get the same thing for both of us. More RAM sounds obviously better, but would it still be enough for Steam and Photoshop?
 
A

aaaaa0

Member
GraveHorizon said:
Would this tablet be good for both Steam streaming and Photoshop, or would the Venue Pro 8 be the better option? My girlfriend insisted I get her a tablet for Christmas after I mistakenly mentioned considering getting one for myself, and she hopes to use it for her graphic design class with all her Adobe programs and basic Office stuff. I want one for general media purposes and hopefully playing and streaming Steam games (either with my laptop if I get it fixed, or with my desktop if out-of-home streaming is doable), and it would be nice if I could get the same thing for both of us. More RAM sounds obviously better, but would it still be enough for Steam and Photoshop?
Click to expand...

If you want Photoshop, you're going to want a bigger tablet with a pen, 4GB or more of RAM, and an i-Core processor (not Atom/Baytrail).

A Surface Pro 3 or Surface Pro 2 is what you want IMHO.

The Stream 7 doesn't have a real pen at all.
The Venue 8 Pro has a pen, but it's kind of half-assed for art.

Neither is ideally suited for a heavier app like Photoshop. They're cheap and great for casual web browsing, videos (VLC and MPC-HC both work just fine), lightweight apps and games, light office usage, and stuff like that, but I wouldn't use them for any serious amount of Photoshop.
 
T

thefit

Member
RevDM said:
I'm still surprised no one cares about a 100 dollar full windows tablet that comes w/ 2 free office subscriptions
Click to expand...

It hard to get excited when this time last year I purchase a surface rt and a year later no one uses it at home and I can't remember the last time it was even charged or turned on I also bought at the same time a touch screen mini windows 8 laptop and its slow as fuck so that too is another black eye. I have upgraded every other device to windows 8 though and with classic shell it aint so bad.
 
M

Marion Cobretti

Member
1GB of ram obviously is hard to swallow for some, but man, 5 years out shit is gonna be so insane. Everything is gonna be soooo cheap and ubiquitous.
 
J

JohnChang

Banned
RevDM said:
Let's not beat around the bush here. The question everyone here wants an answer to is, how well does it play porn? Some gaffers have 20+ tabs open at a time, can 1GB of ram really handle that much DP?
Click to expand...

i visited myfreecams on my wii u tonight....just had to change browser agent in wii u settings, yah that was neat
 
W

whatever77

Banned
GraveHorizon said:
Would this tablet be good for both Steam streaming and Photoshop, or would the Venue Pro 8 be the better option? My girlfriend insisted I get her a tablet for Christmas after I mistakenly mentioned considering getting one for myself, and she hopes to use it for her graphic design class with all her Adobe programs and basic Office stuff. I want one for general media purposes and hopefully playing and streaming Steam games (either with my laptop if I get it fixed, or with my desktop if out-of-home streaming is doable), and it would be nice if I could get the same thing for both of us. More RAM sounds obviously better, but would it still be enough for Steam and Photoshop?
Click to expand...

You can get a new/mint Asus i3/4GB laptop (q200e x202e) on ebay for 200-250. IMO 4GB is minimum you need to run Photoshop. I run Photoshop on a 2GB tablet but only because I want to use on the field after taking pictures.
 
F

flkraven

Member
Would this Stream 7 thing be good for my GF? Wanted to buy her a graduation gift, and she would use it for facebook, pintrest, youtube, wikipedia, reading books, and maybe the odd game like angry birds. Is this a good option for her? Or are there better black friday deals around $100?
 
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