HP’s budget Windows tablet, the HP Stream 8 is a little more expensive than its counterparts, but it’s a price well worth paying. You’re still getting a limited device, but it’s one that’s superior to its counterparts.
Microsoft’s doing some fascinating things — some of which it’s just unveiled as part of its broad push for Windows 10 — but in the meantime, there’s a lot of Windows 8 selling to do. HP’s Stream 8 tablet joins the family of “Windows 8.1 with Bing” devices, offering Windows in small screen tablet form for exceptionally low prices.
Seriously low prices, in fact, given that the combined cost of a regular Windows licence and a year’s subscription to Office 365 would blow away the cost of the HP Stream 8, or the other competing low-cost Windows tablets entirely. From a certain way of thinking, you’re getting the hardware for “free” in that situation.
Microsoft’s pitch here is that Windows 8.1 With Bing is only available for small screen, low powered Windows devices as a way to make the Windows 8.1 tablet concept competitive with the tsunami of low-cost Android tablets on the market. From a productivity standpoint it’s not hard to argue that a “full” Windows machine can do more than a low-end Android tablet, as long as the hardware is decent enough.
The only other catch is that, as the name suggests, “Windows 8.1 With Bing” comes with Microsoft’s own search engine, Bing, pre-selected as the default on Internet Explorer. Yes, you can change it if you like, and you’re not stuck with IE if it’s not your browser of choice either.
I’ve previously reviewed two other low-cost Windows 8.1 With Bing tablets, the Toshiba Encore Mini and the Pendo Pad 8, both of which sell slightly cheaper in Australia than the HP Stream 8, which has an RRP of $229, although it’s not too hard to find it under that $200 sweet spot. HP still clearly thinks it’s worth more than its competitors, however, despite Microsoft’s rules on low cost Windows tablets strongly limiting what vendors can actually throw into them. Make them too good, you see, and they wouldn’t qualify for “free” Windows.
In hardware terms, HP matches up an Intel Atom “Bay Trail” Z3735 Quad Core processor with 1GB of RAM and 32GB of storage, although Windows itself reduces the user available storage to around 23GB. It is upgradeable via microSD, although the microSD slot sits behind the removable plastic back cover, which means it isn’t easy to access. The display is an 8″ 1280×800 pixel IPS panel with multitouch support built in. Here the HP Stream 8 impressed me compared to its competition, simply because the combination of Windows on small screens using touch is often fraught with problems. It was one of my key dislikes on the Pendo pad, but on the HP Stream 8, it mostly just works.
The physical hardware itself isn’t that impressive to hold — and again you’d expect that at this price point — but it feels solid enough. The one aspect where I reckon HP’s missed a trick is in expansion, because the only port on the Stream 8 of any type is a microUSB one, used for charging and, if you’ve got a converter or drive with inbuilt microUSB connectivity, adding additional storage. That also means that you can’t have an additional peripheral plugged in and charge the HP Stream 8 at the same time.
One thing that did genuinely surprise me with the HP Stream 8 is that, unlike its competitors, it actually could complete some standard benchmarks. Benchmarks won’t tell you everything about a product, but where the Toshiba and Pendo resolutely fell over either while installing due to lack of space, or while running, the HP Stream 8 managed to record a score of 1018 in PCMark 8’s Home test and 10849 in 3DMark’s Ice Storm test. No, they’re not stellar scores, and you wouldn’t expect them to be, but it does point to the fact that this is a tablet that you can throw some older games or slightly intensive apps onto if you’re willing to compromise a bit.
Battery life on small cheap tablets is often an exercise in extreme compromise, but again the HP Stream 8 punched a little above its weight. Oddly, you can access the battery by removing the rear cover, but it sternly notes that it’s not a removable part.
Where the Toshiba and Pendo pads averaged around four hours of battery life in a video playback test, the HP Stream 8 fell just four minutes short of six hours. If you’re only moderate in your usage, full work day access to the Stream 8 should be within reach.
There’s no doubting that low-cost Windows tablets are compromise machines, and the HP Stream 8 is by no stretch of the imagination a powerhouse system. As a base level tablet for those who want to keep it simple along with the expansion possibilities of nearly thirty years of Windows applications, however, it’s easily the best of breed within its category, especially if you can snag one for under $200.