Maybe Microsoft Has A Clue After All.
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Bought a tablet; £100 ($100 in America, but that's another story!). It's an HP Stream 7. Windows 8.1. And I've got to say that it is excellent. A real 'magic carpet' experience. The price includes a year's subscription to Office 365 and a TB of Cloud. Of course it takes some cajoling to get it to play nicely with other systems, onedrive-d for Linux syncing, plus it cannot do USB mass storage, so loading music onto the blessed thing is inconvenient. But overall, the experience inspires confidence. Microsoft should have been targeting this price from the beginning.
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Bought a tablet; £100 ($100 in America, but that's another story!). It's an HP Stream 7. Windows 8.1. And I've got to say that it is excellent. A real 'magic carpet' experience. The price includes a year's subscription to Office 365 and a TB of Cloud. Of course it takes some cajoling to get it to play nicely with other systems, onedrive-d for Linux syncing, plus it cannot do USB mass storage, so loading music onto the blessed thing is inconvenient. But overall, the experience inspires confidence. Microsoft should have been targeting this price from the beginning.
The cameras look a bit...well...rubbish (0.3MP front?) But other than that, it looks like a good bit of kit. What's it like to use, with only 1GB of RAM? (I had more than that in my Win98 box...and it struggled)
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
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The cameras look a bit...well...rubbish (0.3MP front?) But other than that, it looks like a good bit of kit. What's it like to use, with only 1GB of RAM? (I had more than that in my Win98 box...and it struggled)
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
Fairly fast, very fluid. Smooth graphics. Responsive. More responsive than my Android, with less jamming after boot as there is a civilised and less frequent update path for apps. Large app selection(I bought it as a work tablet), including a rudimentary irc client. It sits on my desk at the office monitoring open source specialist chats. With the processor being a four-core Atom, it's x86 and that means full scale'PC' 8.1(which would cost more than the whole tablet if you went crazy and bought it), which may qualify for the upgrade path to ten - don't yet know(or care). Battery life is supposed to be up to 8 hours, but I got 12 out it yesterday; about double my Android (HP Slate 7). The only big scores for the (old) Slate are Beats Audio and better wallets.
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Bought a tablet; £100 ($100 in America, but that's another story!). It's an HP Stream 7. Windows 8.1. And I've got to say that it is excellent. A real 'magic carpet' experience. The price includes a year's subscription to Office 365 and a TB of Cloud. Of course it takes some cajoling to get it to play nicely with other systems, onedrive-d for Linux syncing, plus it cannot do USB mass storage, so loading music onto the blessed thing is inconvenient. But overall, the experience inspires confidence. Microsoft should have been targeting this price from the beginning.
Simon O'Riordan from UK wrote:
it cannot do USB mass storage
Are you saying this because it doesn't have a full-size USB port, or have you actually tried it? I've ordered a USB -> MicroUSB adapter to try out with mine--I suspect that, as it's an x86 CPU, Windows with detect any device "properly" and be able to use any of the existing drivers... Meanwhile, there's still the MicroUSB SD slot...
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Bought a tablet; £100 ($100 in America, but that's another story!). It's an HP Stream 7. Windows 8.1. And I've got to say that it is excellent. A real 'magic carpet' experience. The price includes a year's subscription to Office 365 and a TB of Cloud. Of course it takes some cajoling to get it to play nicely with other systems, onedrive-d for Linux syncing, plus it cannot do USB mass storage, so loading music onto the blessed thing is inconvenient. But overall, the experience inspires confidence. Microsoft should have been targeting this price from the beginning.
I have a hard time believing that HP or Microsoft is making a profit on such a sale. If I'm right and they're dumping product - don't expect a long life of support on it. Just saying...
Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master. ~ George Washington
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Simon O'Riordan from UK wrote:
it cannot do USB mass storage
Are you saying this because it doesn't have a full-size USB port, or have you actually tried it? I've ordered a USB -> MicroUSB adapter to try out with mine--I suspect that, as it's an x86 CPU, Windows with detect any device "properly" and be able to use any of the existing drivers... Meanwhile, there's still the MicroUSB SD slot...
Using the micro usb it doesn't show up on Linux or win7. I haven't found any settings that enable mass storage. Probably deliberate. Still, there's always an excellent file manager with Dropbox integration(both *available* ), so it's possible to relay.
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I have a hard time believing that HP or Microsoft is making a profit on such a sale. If I'm right and they're dumping product - don't expect a long life of support on it. Just saying...
Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master. ~ George Washington
The only support you'll need is 8.1 and that will be around a while.
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I have a hard time believing that HP or Microsoft is making a profit on such a sale. If I'm right and they're dumping product - don't expect a long life of support on it. Just saying...
Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master. ~ George Washington
Mike Mullikin wrote:
I have a hard time believing that HP or Microsoft is making a profit on such a sale.
We already know Microsoft doesn't; OEMs now get the license for free for 7" devices and smaller.
Mike Mullikin wrote:
don't expect a long life of support on it.
That wouldn't be any different than most Android tablets then. I have a Coby stuck at 2.2, an Acer at 4.2, and I'm not holding my breath for being able to upgrade my Dell from 4.4 to 5.0. There's Cyanogenmod, but that's not manufacturer support, which is what we're discussing.
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The only support you'll need is 8.1 and that will be around a while.
Simon O'Riordan from UK wrote:
The only support you'll need is 8.1 and that will be around a while.
Unless of course a security issue pops up and Microsoft issues an 8.1.1 or 8.2 and it doesn't work on the unit because of some weird driver issue and HP doesn't care because they've abandoned the product line due to financial losses. Disclaimer: Before some of you (you know who you are) get all defensive and start accusing me of all forms of heresy and fanbois-isms, R-E-L-A-X!!! I'm not suggesting its a bad tablet or it should not be purchased or used. I'm simply pointing out the possible reality based on the economics (and similar histories) in an effort to temper expectations. No more, no less.
Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master. ~ George Washington
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Simon O'Riordan from UK wrote:
The only support you'll need is 8.1 and that will be around a while.
Unless of course a security issue pops up and Microsoft issues an 8.1.1 or 8.2 and it doesn't work on the unit because of some weird driver issue and HP doesn't care because they've abandoned the product line due to financial losses. Disclaimer: Before some of you (you know who you are) get all defensive and start accusing me of all forms of heresy and fanbois-isms, R-E-L-A-X!!! I'm not suggesting its a bad tablet or it should not be purchased or used. I'm simply pointing out the possible reality based on the economics (and similar histories) in an effort to temper expectations. No more, no less.
Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master. ~ George Washington
Now now. Stop whining and eat your sprouts. :laugh:
