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  • victorson - Friday, December 19, 2014 - link

    Hey guys, you are doing a great job, but I can't help but wonder why do you insist on reviewing those absolutely boring devices?! There's a ton of amazing smartphones out there (lots of great ones from China, for instance) that you have not examined, yet we get to read about the HP Stream 7 that no one in their right mind cares about.
  • icrf - Friday, December 19, 2014 - link

    I'm curious about Windows tablets. Not enough to buy a $500 version, but maybe enough to buy a $100 version. I'm more likely to do that than buy the latest Chinese flagship that's difficult to get stateside. I appreciate the review.
  • tipoo - Friday, December 19, 2014 - link

    Exactly - and the EFI is accessible on this just like a normal PC, so you can install Linux on it too. A 100 dollar experiment isn't bad either, if you want to toy around with Linux on a tablet.
  • mczak - Friday, December 19, 2014 - link

    Just a warning if you want to install linux on it. I'm near certain this device just like similar ones has 32bit UEFI (as it runs a 32bit version of windows), and no traditional bios emulation (csm). 32bit linux distributions do not support UEFI, and 64bit ones generally require 64bit UEFI. Not saying this can't work (it is indeed possible to get this to work), but unless some distros decide to support 32bit UEFI this is quite problematic.
  • wtallis - Saturday, December 20, 2014 - link

    Honestly, if you know enough about Linux to have a chance of getting something useful running on such a resource-constrained tablet, EFI's not going to slow you down, especially since kernel 3.15 and later support loading a 64-bit kernel from 32-bit EFI.
  • miles_russell - Thursday, February 12, 2015 - link

    HP Stream 7 is not very popular to consumer and if you look on a consumer base review (such as http://www.tabletstop7.tk/ my favorite...) its nowhere to be found.
  • DracheMitch - Friday, March 27, 2015 - link

    I don't really think that New Zealand is a target market for HP...
  • DracheMitch - Friday, March 27, 2015 - link

    That's funny that for Linux, this is considered "resource constrained", and that Linux would have such a hard time being able to boot on it, but for Windows, this is a pretty workable device.

    Why is Linux so bloated? What does it have the hardware support of a 1990 Macintosh?
  • ENEMY OUTLAW - Thursday, January 12, 2017 - link

    Where can I buy one
  • metayoshi - Friday, December 19, 2014 - link

    As a previous owner of an Acer Iconia W4, I'm actually more inclined to buy a Windows tablet in the $500+ range than any of these lower end devices now. I mean, I definitely enjoyed my time I had with the tablet, and I pretty much agree with the pros and cons of having Windows on a tablet. But knowing those pros and cons as a starting expectation, I just feel like Windows on a tablet can be so much more and not as limited once you start getting the 64-bit Windows with 4 GB of RAM or more and 128 GB NAND or more (a more "standard" Windows configuration) such as the currently available $700 Dell Venue 11 Pro (Core M version). With lower end Windows tablets, unfortunately, the common app standard is not there, and for what I wanted to do with a Windows tablet, my W4 was just not up to par. With more powerful tablets, I feel you can take advantage of having Windows on a tablet, which is, ironically, being able to use the billions of standard Desktop Windows applications. In fact, I'm very excited about Core M tablets, and I'm probably going to put down some money on a Core M device once more OEMs start updating their Windows tablets with it.

    With that said, I'm excited to see a Bay Trail tablet review finally on Anandtech. I hope that means with Core M on the way, more Windows tablet reviews will be done on all points of the spectrum, from the cheap Atom processors, to the low powered but mid-priced Core M tablets that hopefully come out (like the Dell Venue 11 Pro), to the high end Surface Pros.
  • MrSpadge - Saturday, December 20, 2014 - link

    Exactly - it's good to know what such a device can do and what it can not do. Far more interesting to me than yet another expensive Android phone.
  • Wolfpup - Tuesday, December 23, 2014 - link

    Yeah, these Bay Trail tablets are really interesting to me, as is Core M. I'm figuring an updated, fanless Surface Pro with Core M might be perfect.

    The Surface RT line is actually great hardware, but of course not super appealing to most of us because no software compatibility...I've been wishing they'd just drop Atom 2 into the Surface RT's chasis and be done with it. I'd be perfectly happy to pay the premium those cost versus these cheaper tablets because the build quality and screen and whatnot are good, they have full USB ports, etc.
  • ENEMY OUTLAW - Thursday, January 12, 2017 - link

    Where can I buy one
  • Anonymous Blowhard - Friday, December 19, 2014 - link

    Oh yes, please review the latest rebranded pile of patent-infringing garbage cloned out of Shenzhen that won't get any software updates or support.

    Glad to see this as it's on sale for $99 in the Microsoft store in the Signature edition without bloatware.
  • TheWrongChristian - Friday, December 19, 2014 - link

    They'll get plenty of updates, via the installed back doors they often ship with!
  • garbagedisposal - Friday, December 19, 2014 - link

    At least your username is right.
  • TheWrongChristian - Tuesday, December 23, 2014 - link

    http://lmgtfy.com/?q=android+backdoor
  • pjcamp - Friday, December 19, 2014 - link

    What about Sony? Anandtech has historically treated them like they have cooties. I'd gladly trade this review for one of the Z3 phone.
  • Brandon Chester - Friday, December 19, 2014 - link

    Actually the treating like someone has cooties is going in the opposite direction.
  • tipoo - Friday, December 19, 2014 - link

    iirc, the problem was on Sonys side, not sending them review units or something like that. Not to speak for AT, but I thought one of the authors mentioned it.
  • sonny73n - Saturday, December 20, 2014 - link

    Sony would never send their junks to this reputable site.
  • hpglow - Friday, December 19, 2014 - link

    How many times can you bitch about the lack of Sony reviews in these comments sections?
  • sonny73n - Saturday, December 20, 2014 - link

    What about it? Sony Z3 phones are garbage. I just bought a Z3C from BH Photo last week. I thought 10+ positive reviews from popular tech sites couldn't be wrong. Turned out I've made the biggest mistake. You want one of the Z3 phones review? Here it is:
    Pros: Good looking, great battery life, micro SD slot.
    Cons: Display is the worst I've seen on a smart phone beside other Sony junks of course. Touch panel patterns are clearly visible whether the screen is on or off. Color shift when tilt. Sony stock firmware contains spyware Baidu and bloatwares. Unlock bootloader will delete the TA partition which contains DRM keys.
    Other thoughts: I wish its display has the same quality as my old iPhone 4 which was from 5 years ago. I bought 3 Sony phone in the past 2 year. First the ZR, it got very hot even at browsing the internet - returned. Second the ZL, it got uncomfortably warm at normal use. Both phones displays made with TFT panels which are just terrible. Now the Z3C after very careful consideration because of those 2 ZR and ZL but this time it just pisses me off so much. Let me repeat - the Z3C display is worse than the iPhone 4's aftermarket ones on eBay which just costs about $14 each. Sony is nothing but a scam. They didn't post the display types for those 2 ZR and ZL on the spec sheets. Now I wonder the Z3C IPS display is some new kind of low cost IPS tech they just invented. I'd rather have a TN display with no visible touch patterns than this junk they claim ips.
  • Wolfpup - Tuesday, December 23, 2014 - link

    Are you serious? They've got malware on their stock phones?!? Yowzers, I almost bought one for the waterproof-ness, but ended up going with a Nokia 635 'cause figured it's cheap so if it gets damaged....well, it's cheap. (And actually I like my 635 quite a lot too as a phone...I think 90% of people would probably do just fine with it and don't need a $650 phone lol)
  • victorson - Saturday, December 20, 2014 - link

    If you are thinking that this subsidizied pos tablet is any different than what the Chinese are doing, good for you, but you have little touch with reality. I've had the chance to use and review the latest top smartphones from Xiaomi and Meizu, and those are nothing short of amazing smartphones, and yes, they are getting regularly updated
  • Gich - Friday, December 19, 2014 - link

    No one? I do.
  • zero2dash - Friday, December 19, 2014 - link

    Obvious troll is obvious.
    Why are you reading articles on "boring devices" and then bothering to leave a troll comment on top of it.

    The device isn't something you're interested in - congratulations. Read another article then. If you're looking for phone only reviews, there's plenty of sites out there for those.
  • III-V - Friday, December 19, 2014 - link

    What a sad world we live in, where we casually dismiss what others have to say as "trolling." And what makes you think he read the article?

    I don't necessarily agree with him, but you're just being incredibly stupid.
  • Cinnabuns - Friday, December 19, 2014 - link

    So the OP's casually dismissive comment about a whole device category and the people who may be interested in it brought on a response in kind. This is sad how?
  • schizoide - Friday, December 19, 2014 - link

    It's a full, usable, x86 windows 8.1 tablet that regularly sells for $99 (and hit $79 on black friday!). It's not boring at all, it's downright astonishing that this thing even exists.
  • ddriver - Friday, December 19, 2014 - link

    With a single gig of ram it is far from very exciting or usable... I've been looking for a small factor x86 tablet with 4 gigs of ram, but all devices are crippled to 2 gigs of ram max.
  • schizoide - Friday, December 19, 2014 - link

    Have you tried one? It works OK with 1GB RAM. You can browse the web, including heavy sites, just fine. It runs Office quite adeptly. All the standard desktop stuff works great, as does (obviously) metro apps.

    Obviously it would be much better with 2GB. No doubt. But it _is_ usable with 1.
  • ddriver - Friday, December 19, 2014 - link

    I can do that on my android phone, the benefits of having x86 device is running full desktop applications which are not available for android, which do not run at all well with a single gigabyte eof ram.

    That's why i'd prefer a device that has not been crippled to only serve for basic tasks by having little ram, which is not expensive at all.
  • JarredWalton - Friday, December 19, 2014 - link

    Of course, running a desktop application on a tablet is almost as bad as trying to use Teamviewer to control a Windows device from an Android tablet. Windows desktop applications, especially legacy apps that were not built with any thought for a touch interface, are just not a great experience.
  • ddriver - Friday, December 19, 2014 - link

    I don't care about the user experience, my primary intent is to run a full C++ compiler on the device. It is the kind of things you just run without interacting with it at all.
  • Tikcus9666 - Friday, December 19, 2014 - link

    I've been using a Toshiba encore 8 for about 10 months now, after using previous android tablets. App selection does not bother me.

    Web browser works
    Email works
    youtube works
    twitter works
    Amazon instant video works (granted need to use desktop version of IE) this is one app i would like
    Netflix works
    I got a full version of office 2013 so, I can edit documents when out on the road (although would never want to spend hours working on a 8" screen)

    Bottom line it does everything I need at a fraction of the cost of other tablets and it comes with office.

    One thing the reviewer should note, on a desktop/laptop without a touch screen Windows 8.1 automatically boots to desktop so you barely see the start screen, you don't need any 3rd party apps to do that (also right clicking on the start button, gives you lots of options that used to be in the start menu)
  • ados_cz - Monday, December 22, 2014 - link

    Well, the included Office 365 is built with touch in mind, I have already created few tables for my work using touch screen and finished the last 20% of work on my desktop. Btw, I prefer the desktop IE on my Linx 7 as well. To me it is very usable even for desktop apps.
  • hughlle - Friday, December 19, 2014 - link

    Then this device is clearly not for you. you're complaining that an super budget device doesn't have high end specs.

    Out of interest, what's the cheapest x86 tablet with 4gb of ram you've found?

    Why do people read reviews of products and take the time to moan about the fact that it's not what they need. Shop nfor something else.
  • Azurael - Friday, December 19, 2014 - link

    I got a refurbished i3 Dell Venue 11 for £215. It has 4GB of RAM and a real 128GB SSD. It's bigger than this, I'll grant you, but it's a lot of power for the money and on a larger screen - desktop apps are usable. The latest version of Photoshop CC with a stylus is amazing!

    These devices got generally favourable reviews but suffered from terrible bugs (it froze every 10 minutes or so out of the box!) until a series of firmware updates for almost every component of the device (a touch screen firmware I get, but firmware for the LCD itself to fix a panel self refresh issue?! I didn't even know that was possible...) and now it's great with amazing battery life too.

    Sadly, Linux currently has a bug which prevents the internal LCD from working with graphics acceleration, although I have got OS X booted on it. I'm missing a few Android apps right now, so hopefully the kernel bug will get fixed because I haven't found Bluestacks a very good experience. It has 64-bit UEFI and a CSM so in theory it should run anything...

    It's a bit odd going from a Nexus 7 with a 1920x1200 7" panel to this with a 10.8" 1920x1080 one. I guess high DPI windows tablets will eventual arrive but at least this panel has good contrast and seems relatively well calibrated.

    I can even play a bit of Portal 2 on it!
  • schizoide - Friday, December 19, 2014 - link

    You're wrong. They run just fine.

    That was the point of my post.
  • beggerking@yahoo.com - Monday, December 22, 2014 - link

    you can't run flash or FULL APPLICATIONS on your Android nor icrap.

    this is a FULL LAPTOP on tablet form for $100.
  • beggerking@yahoo.com - Monday, December 22, 2014 - link

    and i have Toshiba Encore II 8 which is a similar device with only 1gb ram.

    it runs faster than my ipad mini retina on everything and i was able to open 8-10 browsers without leg.
  • ados_cz - Monday, December 22, 2014 - link

    Cannot agree more, very usable in deed. I have faster eMMC on Linx 7, 170 / 65 MB/s and hard-set swap file to 2GB, have not run into any problem so far.
  • tipoo - Friday, December 19, 2014 - link

    Try a tablet with 1GB RAM on Windows before talking about it, for tablet uses like mail, the browser, etc, 1GB is decent so long as you stay in Metro. This isn't for loading desktop apps on.
  • mss2 - Friday, December 19, 2014 - link

    Though even there, it depends on the desktop app. I bought one to replace the 10-year-old iPod we use to play music in the kitchen, so we run desktop iTunes (there being no Metro version, Apple presumably not being in a hurry to support a competing tablet). Fortunately, either we don't have the headphone jack issue reported here, or it's not noticeable at relatively low volumes on a dock that's not exactly audiophile-quality itself.

    It's easily the cheapest device that would a) hold all our music, with a microSD card, and b) support the star ratings and playlists we've already got in iTunes. (Any iDevice would be at least twice as much. I use various Android sync tools on my phone, but they don't Just Work without any issues. Mirroring the music directory from my desktop does.)

    I'm not a huge fan of the onscreen keyboard (true on my Surface Pro as well; I wish Microsoft would let Swiftkey or someone take a crack at it). But for setup, I had an old folding Bluetooth keyboard first used with a Windows Mobile PDA a decade ago that still worked. Since then, it's worked fine as a music player with a sideline in light web browsing. Overall, I'm genuinely impressed at what a $99 device proves to be capable of.
  • tipoo - Sunday, December 21, 2014 - link

    Fair point, some simpler desktop apps will also work. And also good point for a use case, streaming audio would work well on this, if the headphone jack issue was indeed just a manufacturing error and not within spec and not common.

    Did you try the headphone jack on actual headphones by the way? Is it noticable there?
  • tipoo - Friday, December 19, 2014 - link

    I beg to differ, the niche, sometimes low end devices that you call "boring" are a refreshing change for me, most people aren't buying high end all the time. I was also interested in the Streams specifically as gifts for people who don't need many apps, just a Metro browser basically.
  • eanazag - Friday, December 19, 2014 - link

    I also am interested in this review. Not totally sold on the device, but the price is great. A sub $100 device does make me nervous. There are goofy things that you may want a Windows device for in the single task category. This is clearly not a do everything device.

    What size SD card does it support up to?
  • Brandon Chester - Friday, December 19, 2014 - link

    I have seen it listed as "Up To 32 GB of Expandable Storage" on the pages of several retailers.
  • mss2 - Friday, December 19, 2014 - link

    I have a 64GB microSD card in mine with no issues thus far.
  • ados_cz - Monday, December 22, 2014 - link

    Me too in my Linx 7.
  • name99 - Friday, December 19, 2014 - link

    As an alternative point of view, I'd like to point out that I (and I assume some other AnandTech readers) do NOT see every review as a rabid badge of tribalism. Rather, I'm interested in the state of the ENTIRE industry as a whole, and exceptional devices (whether exceptionally low-priced, exceptionally high performance, exceptionally high levels of interest) from any ecosystem are interesting, simply to see where things are going.
  • cruzinforit - Friday, December 19, 2014 - link

    Speak for yourself- I'm very interested in a cheap windows 7 tablet. I wouldn't pay more than this for one as I don't really need it. I have a full Windows 8.1 15" Ultrabook as my mobile device and my smartphone. I'm glad they cover the full gamut, from high end stuff to low end stuff like this.
  • Infinite_Reality - Friday, December 19, 2014 - link

    This isn't a boring device, did you happen to read the article? I bought one of these day one and it is very impressive for a $99 device.
  • purplestater - Sunday, December 21, 2014 - link

    because there are people interested in small tablets who couldn't care less about smartphones
  • Wolfpup - Tuesday, December 23, 2014 - link

    I think this is one of the more interesting things they could review. "No one in their right mind" cares about it? Eh? But they do care about Chinese imports?

    Err...actually this Stream stuff is a pretty major launch that lots of people care about, and this is potentially a really good deal (sounds like really only killed by the headphone jack).

    I find reviews of things like this much more interesting/useful than like a review of the newest iPad which we pretty much know what it is and gets massive coverage.
  • darkbreeze - Friday, December 26, 2014 - link

    This IS actually of interest to many of us. In fact, I just bought one last week after seeing it in OfficeMax for 99 bucks. My only interest in a tablet is portability for automotive diagnostics and since all my diagnostic applications run on the windows platform, Android or iOS is not an option.

    It works great and with a micro-USB to my wireless adapter for my OBDII reader I can now watch and diagnose in real time with no cords or bulky laptop to move around.
  • Acreo Aeneas - Tuesday, January 13, 2015 - link

    Just because you might not care for a budget-oriented Windows tablet does not mean others are (as the replies below your comment speak to). Personally, I know little of the smartphone and tablet side of Windows mobile and this tablet has definitely piqued my interest (to say the least). I have friends and colleagues who are in the Windows sphere and want a Windows tablet for work. This is a nice cheap alternative without them learning a new OS (Android, iOS) and dealing with mismatches between a Windows desktop and a Android/iOS mobile device (very average users).
  • noorish - Thursday, February 12, 2015 - link

    I actually searched for this item and was happy to find this informative article, it is a "tablet" not a cell phone and I for one am glad to get some more info. Thanks
  • darryl hall - Monday, June 15, 2015 - link

    "boring device..." Try asking anyone who has on a whim picked this up. I haven't bothered to charge my iPad 4 in months. Unfortunately reviewers typically don't have the attention span to get a handle of a device before they review it. The desktop mode works so much better. pair the HP stream with the free virtualmouse app and the whole screen becomes a trackpad leaving you with a very capable full windows desktop in your back pocket. Any semi capable desktop OS is inherently more powerful and flexible than a mobile OS. I wish some publication would do a review of the actual desktop performance--which utilizes the native processing power of the hardware instead of focusing on only the metro subsystem.
  • darryl hall - Monday, June 15, 2015 - link

    as an example of the skewed review, the desktop version of internet explorer scores 490 on the sunspider test and 5872 on kraken 1.1.
  • oolzie - Friday, December 19, 2014 - link

    While I have no issues or complaints with the Stream 7, I feel compelled to mention that Microcenter stores (or Microcenter.com) sell the Winbook TW700 7" Windows tablet for $59 and that also includes the one year of O365 Personal. The Winbook name may not be as popular as HP, but I've tested nearly ever Windows tablet on the market over the last year and this thing is no slouch at all. We've been loyal users of the Dell Venue 8 Pro and this thing has had comparable reliability and performance. The build quality is very solid and the specs are pretty much identical to all these other ultra low cost Win 8 tablets. The kicker, and this is a big one for me, is that the Winbook has a full sized USB 2.0 port, a microUSB for charging AND a micro HDMI out. That's something that none of these other low cost tablets have offered yet. I've tested this thing connected to an external monitor and it can very easily be a general home use desktop. They also offer an 8" version with similar specs and a USB 3.0 port for $89. Don't sleep on the brand. If you're in the market for a small Windows tablet, this thing is practically throw away prices. Hell, the year of O365 makes it practically free.

    http://www.microcenter.com/product/439773/TW700_Ta...
  • nathanddrews - Friday, December 19, 2014 - link

    I have the TW100 10.1" IPS version that I got for $160. It's basically identical to this HP, except it has 2GB RAM, a full USB 3.0 port, micro USB 2.0, micro HDMI.

    My only complaint is a pretty big one - 2GB RAM for Windows just isn't enough. 4GB + 64-bit Bingdows is the key. I would gladly have paid another $20-50, knowing what I know now. There are so many applications that I COULD be running (games, mostly) that I can NOT run due to the 2GB limitation. I don't know how something like this can get by with only 1GB.

    Old games designed with the low-RAM, 32-bit environment in mind run excellent, well over 60fps, but yeah my advice for Windows tablets is 4GB minimum.
  • Anonymous Blowhard - Friday, December 19, 2014 - link

    Editorial: There's a random inclusion of the "Nexus 6 Daytime Test" on page 4 when talking about the camera.
  • Brandon Chester - Friday, December 19, 2014 - link

    Thank you very much, I had linked the wrong gallery. Fixed.
  • tolgerias - Friday, December 19, 2014 - link

    Glad to see more attention on Windows tablets. I am a happy owner of a Dell Venue 8 Pro, and I think full Windows on tablets has a lot going for it. Being able to download files into a folder I can access is a real plus. Networking with my Home Group is also super useful. Although I wouldn't buy a Stream 7 for myself, I would definitely purchase one for my 6-year old son instead of a $499 iPad.

    I just wish the Windows Store had a better selection (both in quantity and quality) of apps and games. Like the author said, most of the third party apps are either really bad or inferior versions of what you can get on iOS and Android. I hope this changes as more users adopt Windows.
  • TheWrongChristian - Friday, December 19, 2014 - link

    So presumably, this is a regular PC compatible in tablet form? Could it be booted into Linux via OTG USB?
  • lioncat55 - Friday, December 19, 2014 - link

    I think you can. You may need to boot in to the BIOS from Windows. I will check once I am home. If not, the Micro SD card might also work.
  • tipoo - Friday, December 19, 2014 - link

    Yes, the UEFI is accessible and people have gotten Linux on it.
  • yannigr2 - Friday, December 19, 2014 - link

    Windows with 1GB of RAM. Great. As for Android devices at $99, if we are talking about branded tablets, yes, but there are a few Chinese companies out there that offer good quality products with hardware that usually you see at over $200 from known manufacturers.
  • lioncat55 - Friday, December 19, 2014 - link

    I own the stream 7, the 1GB of ram can be pushed very far. Its shocking to me what I can do. Heroes of the Storms plays easy at the lowest settings.
  • mrdude - Friday, December 19, 2014 - link

    Petition to rename the bottom of all GPU related benchmarks as 'The Intel Zone'
  • smilingcrow - Friday, December 19, 2014 - link

    Using 4 decimal places for Maximum Brightness which is a value in the 100s is plain silly. Rounding to the nearest integer seems sensible to me.
  • Hairs_ - Friday, December 19, 2014 - link

    "The other thing that motivated me was the general lack of coverage for devices at the low end of the market. News coverage and reviews always seem to focus on the newest iPad, the newest Galaxy Tab, or the newest Ultrabook. There's not as much attention paid to these inexpensive devices, and it's problematic because many people simply cannot afford more premium devices that cost many hundreds or thousands of dollars. If nobody takes a look at the low end, there's also no push for manufacturers to improve those devices."

    THANK YOU!

    Finally someone gets it. Even if this product isn't fantastically amazing, or doesn't have some esoteric use case which requires research, or a sexy pr angle, there are lots of prospective buyers at this level who are being left absolutely in the lurch by tech sites.

    More of these, please!
  • MonkeyPaw - Friday, December 19, 2014 - link

    The ironic thing about the Windows Appstore is that, despite having terrible selection and quality in general, it has the best RSS (Freely) client I have ever used on a touch device in NextGen Reader.
  • Arbie - Friday, December 19, 2014 - link

    I agree with Hairs. These are interesting devices and some crucial facts like actual battery life are nowhere available. Others comment that 2GB etc are better; well, maybe test some of those devices too. I personally have no interest in flagship smartphones.
  • BrokenCrayons - Friday, December 19, 2014 - link

    Thanks for the review. I've been really curious about the Stream 7 for a while now and I'm glad it got the usual, thoughtful treatment from Anandtech. Windows tablets, inexpensive ones in particular, don't get a lot of attention which makes being an informed buyer pretty difficult.
  • bill.rookard - Friday, December 19, 2014 - link

    The point of this article is that there are no bad devices, there are bad price points. I have one of these, and I picked it up at the local retail store. I didn't pay 119.00 for it, I didn't pay 99.00 for it. I got this for $79.00 out the door. They had a $20.00 off special for it, no coupons required.

    While certainly it is not a perfect device by any means, in truth, at $80.00 it's one of those price points where you just can't go wrong. It runs full Win8. Decent display. Sufficiently powerful for a tablet. Battery life is long enough for what I use it for, and it's removable and replaceable. I haven't tried the audio jack yet (I may do that when I get home now that I'm aware of it), but still, again for what I paid for it, how could I complain?
  • Michael Bay - Friday, December 19, 2014 - link

    Brandon, you really should have reviewed a Stream 8. Nobody expects anything from 7, but at 150$ there should be less compromise in specs and build of the device, making it much more desirable.

    And why all this Mami fixation, really.
  • Spectrophobic - Friday, December 19, 2014 - link

    I don't think a mere inch is worth almost double the price of a Stream 7 on sale. A bigger battery is always good but in terms of running the thing at 100% scaling, a fine point stylus is still required. It's nice for $150 if it has 2GB RAM.

    Also, it's Mami-san. Who couldn't resist her?
  • ClockworkPirate - Saturday, December 20, 2014 - link

    The Stream 8 also has an LTE radio. For that reason alone I'm considering returning the 7 I got for my brother... Free 200MB/mo from T-Mobile is just so tempting.
  • Spectrophobic - Saturday, December 20, 2014 - link

    Oh yeah, forgot about that. That could be a good point for several people. But for myself, who only uses a tablet at school or at home, it isn't a big deal.
  • damianrobertjones - Friday, December 19, 2014 - link

    "microSDHC (Up to 32GB)"

    It's odd that they state that... It WILL work with the 64GB cards and, probably, 128GB.
  • Brandon Chester - Friday, December 19, 2014 - link

    Yeah I would expect it would go higher, but I don't have a 64GB card to test and I don't want to ruin someone's day by having them buy this and a MicroSD that ends up not working.
  • cruzinforit - Friday, December 19, 2014 - link

    Brandon- is that a copy of Kisses, sighs and cherryblossom pink I spy sitting next to your Mami figurine?
  • Brandon Chester - Friday, December 19, 2014 - link

    No.
  • azazel1024 - Friday, December 19, 2014 - link

    For the eMMC performance, I don't know why you'd be super surprised. I've run a couple of different benchmarks on my Asus T100 with a Sandisk SEM64 in it (64GB eMMC) and I get around 20MB/sec read and write 4k numbers. About 40MB/sec sequential write and 105MB/sec sequential read. This is both when I got it new and I ran the test a few weeks ago to see how TRIM had been keeping up over the last year that I've owned it. I got roughly the same numbers I did before (using ATTO and Crystal disk both). I'd imagine that'll fall apart quickly, but it is pretty good with random/small file performance in both testing and real usage. Its just that the sequential numbers are kind of sucky on the eMMC in the Asus T100.

    Of course that says nothing about the HP Slate 7, I am just saying I don't think the numbers are necessarily suspicious.

    On a different note, anyone here when Airmont/Cherry Trail might finally be dropping?
  • azazel1024 - Friday, December 19, 2014 - link

    Also, Brandon, on the storage utilization, you mention that there is missing space you have a hard time tracking down. What is shown under the settings for usage doesn't take in to account things like the hiberfile.sys (hibernation file, which is generally equal to the installed RAM base), page file or any recovery/restore partitions.
  • Brandon Chester - Friday, December 19, 2014 - link

    I tried to take that into account based on what the tablet originally had free before I did anything with it. There's just stuff that accumulates like files left in Program Files after you uninstall a desktop app, and files stored in Appdata that don't get deleted.
  • Death666Angel - Sunday, December 21, 2014 - link

    I take my windows file system over any android or iOS stuff any day of the week. I know more about the things on my 7 drives in my windows desktop than I do about what is on my 16GB smartphone/tablet.
  • pugster - Friday, December 19, 2014 - link

    I brought one of these tablets for $70 this week actually after a couple of promos from Microsoft. I wish that they had included an dongle where you can plug in an usb drive in it and an hdmi port. I have windows 8 pc's and using this windows 8 tablet is definitely a learning curve compared to Android tablets and ipads. I was surprised that windows 8 with 1gb of ram is responsive in this tablet assuming that you won't multitask that much.

    Since Microsoft gives out these windows 8.1 with bing licenses for free, I would imaging that we would see many Chinese tablets to get into this bandwagons for cheap tablets next year.
  • swkerr - Friday, December 19, 2014 - link

    I actually bought 2 of these of the kids for Christmas. One at $99 and one for $74 from the Microsoft store. I have been using a Nexus 7 second Gen for more than a year and have found it to be the perfect size. It is really just a glorified reader and Alarm clock. I use it to read the news and check email and occasional light gaming but never video or music.

    I figured for this purpose the Stream 7 would be fine and anything else was just a bonus. The Office subscription is a big plus as well. I have already set them up and tested them and am actually very impressed. I actually purchased a case ($10) Mini Bluetooth Keyboard with touch-pad ($30) and a 64GB MicroSD card ($25)

    As setup I was able to install Sims4 and Origin and the game actually plays pretty good. I installed Steam and The Swapper on the other and again works fine. Some of the Windows games are not bad either.

    Flipboard, Facebook and Twitter all work well as well as Nexflix, Hulu and Plex. Alarm Clock HD + was the best Alarm clock app I could find and it works great. Not sure I would ever use office on one of these without the Bluetooth keyboard but with the keyboard it would work fine in a pinch.

    I have a Microsoft Wireless Miracast dongle on my TV and the Stream 7 works perfectly with it. Even at the low resolution it looks pretty good streaming from Netflix. I was able to get it to run at 1080p as well but then you need the bluetooth keyboard.

    If you think of this thing as a PC it sucks but as a 7 inch table it really does what you expect of it and at $99 it is a bargain. The Metro app store is limited but the basic crap people really use is there. And if it is not you still have a browser and all the old PC apps that will probably run fine. The lack of touch support on the old games and apps may be an issue and some things don't size will to the low resolution but for what you are likely to use it for it is great.

    Was considering buying another Nexus 7 in case I broke my current one but would probably get one of these instead. I have several 10" Transformer tables and They are just too big for how I use a tablet. Even the 8" android and iPad Mini are just that much too big as a reader.

  • CharonPDX - Friday, December 19, 2014 - link

    "This wouldn't be an issue if these Windows tablets allowed you to directly move files to them from another computer over USB, but they don't."

    But they do. The micro USB port supports the "USB OTG" (USB On-The-Go) specification. With a simple adapter, the port can be converted to a full-size USB Type-A port, to which you can plug in whatever USB devices you want. (That's the extra bonus of it running full Windows 8.1.) I have used my HP Stream 8 with a variety of USB devices.

    Note: The Stream 8 is different than the Stream 7 in only three ways that I can find:
    1. It has a 1" larger screen (8" instead of 7", but with the same quality of screen.)
    2. It includes 4G wireless (HSPA+, aka "3.5G" to most of us,) with 200 MB per month free form T-Mobile. I have T-Mobile for my family, so I just pay the $10/month to duplicate the amount of data on my highest-data line.)
    3. It costs $179. (Which is a steal - since it costs $139 just to *ADD* 4G to an iPad.)
  • Brandon Chester - Friday, December 19, 2014 - link

    Out of the box you can't do it, which is what matters.
  • PC Perv - Friday, December 19, 2014 - link

    Why not? All you need is a right cable. I am sure one will find such a cable for a lower price than Apple's Lightning cable's.

    You are such an ignorant and arrogant creature. Though I know why you want to disregard the utility of USB OTG. Which makes you a crooked creature on top of the aforementioned.
  • CharonPDX - Monday, December 22, 2014 - link

    Really? Then no desktop computer should ever have its utility on the internet considered since it doesn't come with internet built-in (you need SOME form of internet connection!)

    No printer should ever be considered worth using, because it doesn't come with paper in the box.

    A USB on-the-go cable costs all of $1.47 at Monoprice.

    I'm sorry, but that being your answer to my statement makes me seriously downgrade my judgment of you. Had you replied "I had forgotten about USB On-The-Go," I would have given you plenty of slack. But to completely dismiss an actually available core function completely, simply because "you can't do it out of the box," is rather haughty and dismissive.

    My Xbox is a crappy game system when it doesn't come with any games in the box.

    Using a USB On-The-Go adapter, you're limited to USB Hi-Speed speeds, but my USB 3.0 128 GB flash drive works just fine, and is plenty fast. In fact, it's almost certainly faster than the internal eMMC SSD. (Copying large files from eMMC to USB gets me about 27 MB/s. Copying large files from the USB to the eMMC is about 30 MB/s.) PLENTY fast to transfer large files.
  • Brandon Chester - Friday, December 26, 2014 - link

    It would be fine if the ability to send files from a PC via a direct USB connection was not an expected ability for a tablet, but it is. Alternatively, HP could have used faster and more stable WiFi and it would be a non-issue. Ferrying files between the two devices with a USB drive is a time consuming and cumbersome process, and having to go get additional hardware for it is an additional hurdle. I actually don't live near any electronics stores, so I would either need to drive a significant distance to get a USB-OTG adapter, or I would have to pay for one and have it shipped which takes time and reduces the tablet's price appeal, especially when paying shipping fees here in Canada.
  • CharonPDX - Friday, December 19, 2014 - link

    Mini related review:

    I bought the Stream 8, which is 1" larger, and includes HSPA+ "4G" service, for $179. My findings are near-identical to this review. The battery life is longer, and the back of the device fits better than Brandon describes the 7, but otherwise it seems the same to me, right down to the headphone jack noise issue. (I use Bluetooth headphones, so I mitigate that.)

    In the past year, I have switched between an iPad Air, a low-end Android tablet (the Air became my daughter's tablet,) to the HP Stream 8. I like the Stream 8 the best - even better than the iPad Air (and I was a 100% Apple user for personal devices prior.) I REALLY like having full-blown Windows available to me when I need it. I carry a small Bluetooth keyboard and mouse with me (Microsoft Wedge Mobile keyboard,) when I need to use it as a "real computer" rather than a tablet.

    The cellular connection is a nice bonus over the 7" model - and while the T-Mobile "free 200 MB per month for the life of the device" isn't much data, but it is a nice "lifeline" for emergencies. (I have a T-Mobile family plan, so I just added it to my family plan for $10/month.)
  • bill.rookard - Friday, December 19, 2014 - link

    Just as a quick note, maybe I got lucky. I'm watching Guardians of the Galaxy right now through headphones with absolutely no static issues whatsoever.
  • CharonPDX - Monday, December 22, 2014 - link

    I haven't listened to headphones often after the first couple times being static-driven. I was using Apple EarPods (because they're my standard "desk" 'phones at work.)

    I have now tried a few more, and the EarPods are the noisiest. Headphones that don't also have a microphone are the best, with some old-school Sony Studio Monitors (which are generally my best-sounding headphones every time,) having the lowest noise, but still having some.

    The Sonys, and a couple of the other "no microphone" ones are quiet enough that I can only hear the static during silent/very quiet periods.
  • SanX - Friday, December 19, 2014 - link

    Any tablet or phone with less then 1920x1080 must go straight to the drain or dollar store
  • BMNify - Friday, December 19, 2014 - link

    Thanks for the review, inexpensive but decent windows 8.1 tablets are generally ignored by PR driven tech media. Will like to see the reviews of other Baytrail tablets like Dell Venue 8 pro, Acer iconia W4, Asus Vivotab Note 8 and Lenovo Mixx 2 8.
  • sonicmerlin - Friday, December 19, 2014 - link

    The biggest problem with Windows is that the Metro UI is boring and even ugly. It's claustrophobic and gets old real quickly.
  • PC Perv - Friday, December 19, 2014 - link

    Pathetic tablet and pathetic review to "excuse" its shortcomings. Amazon Kindles are way better deals.
  • garbagedisposal - Friday, December 19, 2014 - link

    Said no one ever. Time to climb back into the dumpster you little troll.
  • PC Perv - Saturday, December 20, 2014 - link

    Rofl. HP Stream 7 is just the right tablet for your, for just $119. Enjoy.

    I'd rather donate that money to UNICEF.
  • digiguy - Friday, December 19, 2014 - link

    For those looking for a 8 inch Windows tablet with 4GB of RAM, it exists. And it also has 128 GB of (emmc) storage, the most powerful atom CPU (z3795, not very far from some i3 but fanless), micro HDMI, USB 3.0, full HD and LTE. It is the updated version of Thinkpad 8. Here in Europe it costs a little less than the Surface pro 3 with i3.... I would have bought one if weren't for lack of a stylus (essential for me in such a small, but premium, tablet...)
  • Spectrophobic - Friday, December 19, 2014 - link

    I got my Stream 7 for $64.10 from the MS Store; bought it due to being morbidly curious about how Windows run with only 1GB memory. Turns out, not bad. Well, while it's still predominately memory-bottlenecked, things can go smoothly when used the right way. In terms of web browsing, you pretty much have to stick to desktop/Metro IE. Chrome is fine when you only work with a single tab. YouTube videos are only good up to 720p on most videos and the same applies to x264 videos.

    The only real gripe with the thing is audio; the speaker sucks and the 3.5mm jack has static. I refuse to hear any audio coming out of this thing, unless if you put a USB DAC/amp with it. My unit unfortunately contains dead pixels. Minor, but my OCD refuse to forget about it. Kinda considering returning it...

    In the end of the day, it's a good tablet for the money that is actually back by a known company. It's good, not very good, just barely good. But, I still consider it as a "toy" due to its limitations. Hopefully, a company would come up with a Windows 10 (with Bing?) with a decent SoC with 3GB RAM, 10" 1920x1200, and a stylus (that can fit into the thing) for $300.
  • sonicmerlin - Friday, December 19, 2014 - link

    Except the Zoom in function to increase font size doesn't even work in IE (or Chrome). It just zooms in the entire page, making it impossible to zoom out. It's extremely annoying having to read small font on a low res screen.
  • Spectrophobic - Friday, December 19, 2014 - link

    Uhhh, I don't have any problems with zooming in or out in Chrome, Desktop IE, or Metro IE. By "Zoom in function to increase font size" do you mean: 1) Pinch zooming, 2) Web browser scaling, or 3) Windows scaling?

    Also I'm on 125% windows scaling.
  • sonicmerlin - Saturday, December 20, 2014 - link

    I mean when you open ie metro and then to to settings and change the zoom. It goes up to 400%, but rather than increase text size it just zooms into the page, causing words to end up outside the viewable screen. Then you can't even zoom out. Try going to arstechnica and zoom to 300% (just to see what I'm talking about).

    The same goes for desktop IE and chrome. On an actual desktop when you go to, for example, chrome's settings and alter the zoom value the font size will increase. But if you do it on a Win 8 tablet it just zooms the whole screen. I've tested this on a win book 7 and an hp stream 7. Heck if you choose "full window" on chrome you can't get out of it without restarting the tablet.
  • Spectrophobic - Saturday, December 20, 2014 - link

    I see what you're talking about. "Zoom" is literally what it suggest, zooming in. It doesn't say it's for font. I think your problem has to do with your vision or 7" is just too small for you. Either play around with DPI settings, get glasses, or opt for a bigger tablet.
  • zodiacfml - Saturday, December 20, 2014 - link

    Isn't this futile?
    Doesn't a 2 in 1 device make more sense than a standalone tablet? Does giving this a keyboard dock would kill netbooks? They should just give up netbooks ang give 7 to 10inch tablets keyboard docks.
  • ados_cz - Saturday, December 20, 2014 - link

    Here in UK I bought similar tablet when it was on sale for £59 (approx. $92) few days ago: Linx 7. I had a chance to hold HP stream in my hand and the bulid quality of Linx 7 is so much better. No creaks, thiner, lighter, micro HDMI out, micro SD slot integrated into the top side. I love the Linx 7, so much bang for buck... Office 365 for one tablet and PC as well. However I too have problem with static noise in headphone output but not as severe as it seems to be with the HP Stream from your description, once a music or anything else is playing, you cannot really hear the stacit noise on Linx 7, battery life ranges from 4-6 hours on Linx and the tablet weights 280g. Great device, almost exactly 20 years ago, I had my first PC - 486 DX2, now I have my first proper Windows 8.1 tablet (Had Acer Iconia before with Win 7) and it is 25x cheaper and so much better :-)) - Here is the Linx homepage http://www.linx-tablets.com/
  • geok1ng - Saturday, December 20, 2014 - link

    " the inclusion of only 1GB of memory; that's definitely pushing the limits of what Windows can run on" was said on the first page. but on the rest of the article there is not a single memory related issue reported. So either the reviewer is not aware that windows 8.1 is a memory sapper *highly unlikely* or the above passage should be addressed on the final comments.
  • Spectrophobic - Saturday, December 20, 2014 - link

    The memory isn't really a big problems... unless you're using Chrome, Steam, or playing modern games.
  • ados_cz - Saturday, December 20, 2014 - link

    I have 1GB of RAM on Linx 7 as well and hard-set the swap file to 2GB and I see no problems. BTW I tried to steam-stream DOTA 2 over my N wireless from mine main PC (i5 4670k + GTX 760) and it works flawlessly and looks great.
  • eriri-el - Saturday, December 20, 2014 - link

    A small disappointment I have with this article; I have a Stream 7, and you can enable 20/40 MHz channel width in Device Manager under the Network Adapters, RTL8723BS properties, Advanced Tab, Bandwidth. I can connect at 150Mbps to my wireless network just fine, but I don't notice it being much faster. Not user friendly, but then again this is Anandtech. Also, the article didn't mention a small niggle I have with the display besides what is already mentioned, the screen refreshes at 53Hz only. Not really a deal breaker considering nothing much can go above that refresh rate which entry-level specs, but it's worth noting. Also may I ask Brandon, since you did mention that the average user who probably buys this tablet probably won't have access to this kind of color calibration, can you upload your ICC profile so that we average users can benefit. I know no two screens are exactly the same, but at least it'll be better that what we get out of the box, no?
  • Brandon Chester - Saturday, December 20, 2014 - link

    I had considered doing so but I don't know if it might violate some agreement between us and X-Rite or SpectraCal who provided the equipment and software.
  • Brandon Chester - Saturday, December 20, 2014 - link

    Also mine is selected to run at 60Hz and UFOTest confirmed that it was refreshing properly.
  • eriri-el - Saturday, December 20, 2014 - link

    No problem there, wouldn't want you guys to get into trouble. Strange, UFOTest shows my display refreshing at 53Hz. Time to ask HP directly. I apologize for assuming that you missed it out, might be a problem/defect on my end. Thanks for the reply.
  • Brandon Chester - Saturday, December 20, 2014 - link

    Does yours say 53Hz in the Intel control panel?
  • eriri-el - Saturday, December 20, 2014 - link

    Yes it does. The Intel control panel shows 53p Hz only. Strange, I've posted in the HP forums, and so far one person says that his Stream 7 runs at 53Hz too.
  • Brandon Chester - Saturday, December 20, 2014 - link

    That's super odd. I can confirm mine says 60p. I would love to contact HP about that, but they haven't even gotten back to me about the headphone jack and WiFi so you'll have as much luck getting answers as I will.
  • Brandon Chester - Sunday, December 21, 2014 - link

    Updating to the latest bios brought it to 53Hz.
  • eriri-el - Sunday, December 21, 2014 - link

    So I guess my device comes with a newer bios out of the box compared to your device. Thanks for updating me. Guess I'll let it slide since it's not really a defect, nor does it affect the user experience on such a budget device.
  • Yuriman - Saturday, December 20, 2014 - link

    Highly interested in this device. I'm very happy with the HP Chromebook I got recently, and it looks like this tablet should be able to run Hearthstone well enough.
  • jameskatt - Saturday, December 20, 2014 - link

    Great review. The most important thing I learned: I would rather have a great laptop like a MacBook Air running Windows 10, than any Windows Tablet. Windows is simply better interfaced for computers with keyboards and mice not fingers.
  • jb14 - Saturday, December 20, 2014 - link

    I picked up similar tablet, a cheap Chinese import to the UK (Voyo WinPad A1 mini) at just under £100. 2GB and 8" being the main differences. Great as a couch surfer and using on planes/trains, using the OTG cable & accessories when x86 is required. I wouldn't spend more than £150 on such a device personally though.
  • Teknobug - Saturday, December 20, 2014 - link

    Wow why are there so many cheap Windows tablets lately. The low price always tells me "junk", but it makes me wonder. I'd love an x86 based tablet to handle some stuff I do on my desktop while on the go (without needing VNC or remote desktop).
  • rootheday3 - Saturday, December 20, 2014 - link

    Brandon-
    You say on the Display page of the review:
    "It should be noted that these measurements were achieved by disabling Intel's Display Power Saving Technology (DPST) feature, which causes dynamic brightness and contrast depending on the image displayed on the screen. While some other devices do this to some degree, DPST ended up reducing max brightness measurements by nearly 100nits, and the constantly changing brightness played havoc with measurements during analysis and calibration."

    and also on the battery life page:
    "It's likely that enabling Intel's DPST will improve these results, but all that really means is that dimming the display below our 200nits standard will improve battery life."

    DPST shouldn't reduce overall brightness - the algorithm it uses is designed to detect dark scenes and change the panel gamma curve to let more light through while reducing the backlight intensity to match. If working properly this can save a lot of backlight power on scenes that have low luminance values and moderate contrast to start with (e.g. movie watching). Normally there should be no noticeable difference in overall brightness of the image (though there may be a second or two of visible modulation if the image suddenly changes from bright to dark or vice versa). If you are seeing drops of 100 or 200 nits brightness when DPST is active, something isn't right.

    For what its worth, other devices use techniques (called CABC - content adaptive backlight control) that do the same things as DPST - they generally just don't give you control over it the way that Intel's control panel does.

    Are you 100% confident that the visual issues and brightness issues you are describing are isolated to this device or to Intel DPST in general and that other mobile devices don't have similar dimming going on?

    Any possibility thaty you are conflating DPST vs Automatic Display Brightness (ADB) based on ambient light sensor detected brightness variations in the room?

    Backlight is a huge contributor to platform power in tablets and other very low power mobile devices -If you only disable DPST on Intel platforms but don't disable CABC on other platforms, your low battery life results are perhaps not fair...

    Note also that the Intel control panel offers an aggressiveness slider for DPST - can you reduce the aggressiveness value and see if that makes it better visually?
  • Brandon Chester - Saturday, December 20, 2014 - link

    Some other devices do it in the video test, but not in the web browsing test. You can see the brightness of the Stream 7 decrease when you load a very white web page, and it goes back up when you return to somewhere like the Start Screen. This doesn't happen on an iPad. You can see in our Asus UX21 review that DPST does reduce the brightness when showing an all white screen, so I don't think there's anything wrong with my statement that DPST was reducing max brightness in our test.

    Oh and no, it wasn't ADB, I disabled that right when I set up the tablet.
  • Laststop311 - Saturday, December 20, 2014 - link

    Smaller battery than note 4 phone thats only 5.7" is worriesome. This tablet could of been really good if they just upped the ram to 3GB and upped the battery to 4000+mah. I think it would of sold more if they raised the price an extr 25 for the extra 2GB of ram and an extra 15 for the extra 1000mah of battery. Doesn;t a tablet like that for 159 sound a lot better than the current one for 119
  • Laststop311 - Saturday, December 20, 2014 - link

    Wouldn't mind seeing a 64GB option for 30-50 more as well
  • ados_cz - Sunday, December 21, 2014 - link

    They can't up the ram without changing the CPU which in turn would increase the price further more, the atom Z3735G is limited to maximum of 1GB of ram. But the ram is not problem on this device, I hard-set swap file to 2GB on my Linx 7 (same atom) and it runs just great.
  • Roy2001 - Saturday, December 20, 2014 - link

    I have stream 8, Intel Soc performs very well, but OS is not so good.
  • andrewaggb - Sunday, December 21, 2014 - link

    I have a 64gb miix 2 8" windows tablet. Picked it up used/cheap. It's pretty decent, but the quantity of windows updates are a bit ridiculous. The app selection is much different, but there's plenty of games and apps my kids like on it. My daughter probably prefers it to the ipad, my son definitely prefers the ipad.

    Desktop apps suck on it, they run fine, but the screen is too small in my opinion.

    Performance wise I think it runs fine.

    Battery life is ok, but not as good as an ipad.

    I imagine the stream 7 is very similar. For $100 it's probably a great deal. You also get full flash support, which I use for some streaming applications.
  • spdfreak - Sunday, December 21, 2014 - link

    I wonder if these are basically the same as the Winbook Tablets that MicroCenter sells. The MC 7in tablet is 60.00 in today's ad. The 8in with 2GB Ram is 140.00.

    HD IPS LCD 7" 1280x800 Display
    Intel BayTrail-T Z3735G 1.33GHz Quad-Core CPU
    1GB RAM & 16 Flash Storage
    Windows 8.1 OS
    Expandable up to 64GB via microSD Card

    The WinBook 7" TW700 Tablet has 16GB of integrated storage, which can be expanded via microSD Card. Includes 1 year subscription for Office 365 Personal.
  • darkich - Sunday, December 21, 2014 - link

    Good review, and I agree that spec wise this is probably the best tablet for the price.
    But I would rather recommend buying an used Android tablet for this price.
    For 110$ I got an aluminum 8“ IPS (excellent Samsung panel) 800p quad core 3G tablet with 2+5Mpix cameras, even radio, GSM and GPS. Slim, stylish and just 340g of weight. Still 20 months of warranty and in pristine condition.
    Finally, for a tablet use case Android is definitely a much better choice than Windows.
  • jkauff - Sunday, December 21, 2014 - link

    For less than a hundred bucks I can play movies on a handheld device using MPC-HC and madVR on default settings. Pretty cool. BTW, I fixed my headphone jack with a shot of compressed air and a bit of contact cleaner. It wasn't defective, just dirty.
  • lazymangaka - Sunday, December 21, 2014 - link

    I wonder if the headphone static is a problem with the Bay Trail chips or something weird with this zero cost version of Windows, because my Acer Iconia W4-820 also suffers from an annoyingly large amount of static over its 3.5mm headphone jack.
  • Regular Reader - Monday, December 22, 2014 - link

    Interesting. I have an Iconia W4 and haven't noticed the static. Does it happen to you at any volume level?
  • AllanMoore - Monday, December 22, 2014 - link

    If you live close to a MicroCenter, a much better pick would be the Winbook TW800 ($ 100). It's got a full USB 3.0, hdmi, micro sd, ips. In my opinion, it's by far the best $ 100 out there. Otherwise i would add extra $49 and buy <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B009X3UW2G?ie=UTF... Asus Nexus 7</a>. It's faster and better value!
  • ados_cz - Monday, December 22, 2014 - link

    Whether it is a better value depends on user, I prefer the full windows 8.1 on my Linx 7, bookmark bar in IE synchronizes with my desktop pc as well as bunch of other things. It is just nice to have a proper PC in pocketable form factor. I have even found a very nice touch screen touchpad in windows store for mouse cursor navigation, handy when you connect external screen and extend the desktop. I just really love this cheap windows tablet. Linx 7 is sooo nice, 280g of full PC experience goodness :-) I have even sold my very good touchscreen Dell e5440 because it became obsolete to me, still keeping hi end mini itx desktop.
  • harrynsally - Monday, December 22, 2014 - link

    With HDMI and full size USB, I thought of getting one of these to use with external monitor and wireless keyboard/mouse.

    At $100, the TW800 WinBook only has 1GB RAM and 16GB eMCC storage. Even after tuning, Win 8.1 will use 95% of the storage and adding microSD only good for saving photos, documents.

    For $200, you can get the TW100 WinBook that comes with 2GB RAM and 32GB eMCC storage, which will allow room to run additional software.

    Did my homework and just purchased a Dell Inspiration NoteBook for $300. that included a Haswell i3 processor, 15.6" touch screen, 4GB RAM, 500GB storage, HDMI, 3 USB ports including one 3.0), optical DVD drive, 4 cell battery etc.
  • marvdmartian - Monday, December 22, 2014 - link

    Bought one of these on BF, on sale from Office Depot for $79. Tried it for a few weeks, and I'm shipping it back to them today.
    Frankly, I was underwhelmed with it. As pointed out in the review, battery life is dismal.....even when it's on standby! While I wasn't using it every day, I did try to pick it up whenever possible, to attempt to immerse myself in the Windows 8 experience, as this was my first W8 device. But it seemed as though every time I picked it up to use it, I had to plug it in and charge it first! Sorry, but sitting there, doing NOTHING for 3 days, and the battery dies (from WHAT??) is NOT acceptable to me.
    As I already said, this was my first W8 device.....and will likely be my last one, too. I know, I know, some people are enamored with it, and think it's the greatest thing since sliced bread. But I'm just not impressed with it (and this is the improved Windows 8?? yikes!). I have used pretty much every version of Windows since 95, and found this one to be the least intuitive one of all. Hopefully Windows 10 will bring back some of the simplicity of the older versions!
    As I said, this is being shipped back today. I did a refresh of the operating system (to wipe my info off of it), boxed it up, and Office Depot is paying the return shipping. In its place, I'm looking at the year old Asus 7" tablets, running Android. I've owned one of the newer 10" tablets made by them for almost a year now, and have been much more impressed with their products, as well as their value, than any other manufacturer out there.
  • kg4icg - Monday, December 22, 2014 - link

    I actually have this tablet, been using it for a couple of weeks now. Not bad at all,, Have a 64gb Samsung SXDC UHS-1 card in it. Actually use it to program radios in the field by way of USB-OTG adapter. Use my phone as a hotspot whenever I need to do something online. Not bad for something I picked up from Microsoft for $100. Oh by the way, I'm posting this comment thru it.
  • kg4icg - Monday, December 22, 2014 - link

    By the way, only the Back cover is plastic, the frame is metal, possibly aluminum. A Plastic tablet this size is half the weight, Namely the Samsung Tab 4.
  • BuddyRich - Monday, December 22, 2014 - link

    I recently bought a DVP8 on-sale (wanted more RAM) but considered the Stream 7.

    I justified it as a Raspberry Pi with a built-in screen. I mean outfitted with a case you are spending $35 to 45 for that Pi Whats another $50-60 for a multi-touch screen if you have a use for it? If you don't, obviously don't spend on it. I bought it to be a replacement for a squeezebox touch, which this does superbly.

    It comes with a Windows License which is handy, you can still get Linux on it if you want the lighter-weight OS... I think the UX is rough using desktop Windows with touch. They really should have put the keyboard on the charms bar rather than taskbar as you'll be using it alot if you don't use a bluetooth keyboard.

    My only complaint is the OS is not a "pro" license so I had to use Team Viewer rather RDP to connect to my device.
  • Wolfpup - Tuesday, December 23, 2014 - link

    So glad you guys reviewed this! Very disappointing that the headphone jack is bad. Everything else seems...well, not bad or even good for a $100 tablet, but not being able to use this for media, when otherwise it would be AWESOME for media since it's real Windows kind of kills it for me.

    Meanwhile I think it was Toshiba has a cheap 7" one too but it's killed by using a 1024x800 (?) screen with a higher resolution scaled down to it. Seems like it both cases spending the extra $60 or whatever for the 8" tablets would be the way to go (assuming the 8" models don't have these problems).

    Worth noting that actually the Windows desktop is VERY useable on a 10.6" screen...it even works pretty well through my iPad's 9.7" screen with remote desktop. (The issues there are more just that there's a bit of lag/weirdness since it's sending touch commands across a wifi network!)
  • mkozakewich - Wednesday, December 24, 2014 - link

    I've been waiting for this for almost five years. I got a refurbished $200 netbook in the beginning of 2010, and then a $600 pocket netbook (Viliv N5) half a year later, and then a new $200 netbook near the end of 2011. This basically beats all of those, and at half the price.
  • Evaluate - Monday, December 29, 2014 - link

    I bought HP stream 7 tablet and I am fully satisfied with its unbeatable productivity and performance compared to android tablets.
    I have used android devices for a while and now having HP stream 7 tablet in my hand for $100 it sounds unbelievable. In android devices either smartphone or tablet your productivity is limited badly. Here in HP stream 7 tablet you can enjoy full windows and can install all software. You don't need to accept any limitation as you can find countless alternative software if one wasn't good enough. Full Microsoft office, you cannot compare it with any toy software in android. You might spend $340 for Samsung Galaxy that runs android and you might gradually make yourself happy with whatever it gives you.
    I am very much impressed that I could run full windows and programming applications, unbeatable performance in playing videos and all these just for $100. I am really impressed.
    Android might be good for smartphone as the functionality is OK for phoning. However if you want to find, install and use anything else seriously, forget it.
  • Don Gateley - Sunday, January 4, 2015 - link

    Sorry to hear about the poor audio jack. The one thing this device and the more expensive Dell VENUE Pro 8 Win 8.1 tablet offer that you can't get with any Apple or Android tablet is the ability to process any audio passing through it from any source on the way to the jack or to Bluetooth.

    I have an app that uses that capability which will make the cost of the device unimportant. The function alone will justify the cost. The Dell device has the DSP horsepower needed and I'll have to see if this one does even if it isn't yet a good platform for my app for electronic reasons.
  • thebeephaha - Monday, January 5, 2015 - link

    AnandTech / Brandon Chester - Have you thought about reviewing the Plugable Pro8 docking station that was a Kickstarter earlier this year? Now it's up on Amazon and is designed for the HP Stream 7 (and several other small Windows tablets) to both charge and provide USB device connectivity at the same time.

    http://plugable.com/products/ud-pro8

    Looking at the reviews, it should basically turn the Stream 7 into a much more capable little system.
  • mister qwik - Friday, January 23, 2015 - link

    interesting nice read. using the hp gave a win8 education and it boots faster than my 2 samsung and asus tabs. a blutooth ms mouse fixes finger poking. a lenmar helix powercell fixes power worries. useful items for any tablet sit down session. for any oddities as mentioned the price was right or i wouldn't have one.
  • junipers - Friday, May 5, 2017 - link

    It's 2017/5/4. I've had the HP Stream 7 for a year and it's been interesting. In the beginning it was little more than proof of concept. Windows 10 ran but it was a device plagued by hardware compatibility problems. Microsoft and its partners have done quite an impressive job in tracking down and rooting out hardware bugs. Hibernate/Sleep now preserve battery life for weeks on end. Recently the wifi connection became stable. Even certain aspects of Windows like Edge have become subtly more usable (though, Edge is still the epitome of mediocrity in terms of details like a non-functional Find and many web pages which don't work properly).

    The HP Stream 7 with Windows 10 is still nowhere near as usable as similarly spec'd Android or iOS device, but, it is functional in a pinch if you need to run older Win32 apps in a super portable device. I've run SketchUp and Excel to view documents, and, if you add a BT keyboard and mouse and you've got a super-portable MS Word word processor or PowerPoint designer.

    For a lark I put Halo: Spartan Assault on and it runs swimmingly. The only thing wrong with the game and the tablet is Windows 10 and how Microsoft cannot figure out how to disable edge swipes when the game is in full screen mode <droll laugh>.

    Windows 10 has improved since I first got the tablet a year ago. After recently doing a Fresh Start the OS runs a relatively lean 14.5 GB with 2.8 GB worth of apps (1 GB for Halo: Spartan Assault). There's still over 11.2 GB free. 300 MB of the 2.8 GB are the Mobile Word, Excel and PowerPoint, and, since it's a 7" tablet, those three are FREE edit-enabled versions even if you don't have an Office 365 subscription. They're not as full-featured as real Office, but, in a pinch they'll do.
  • MarkWebb - Wednesday, February 6, 2019 - link

    It's Feb 2019 and the original wave or Win tablets are still running - the Stream 7/8, Winbook 7 and 8, the Venue 8. I've got some observations as a long-time owner (but only occasional user) of each of these devices:

    1. HP blew it on the audio. The static crackle is still there. But now Mpow bluetooth earbuds only run about $18 on Amazon, so there's that. I even got a warranty replacement on the Stream 7 and it came back with the same static. It's not a constant, there are moments of audio clarity then the static kicks in.

    2. Windows 10 version 1809 is superb on these little tablets. About 16gb free on a 32gb version (only Dell offered 64gb versions). I had to wipe out the old factory recovery partitions and do clean installs.

    3. Driver support on Dell is awesome with occasional driver updates over the years and even includes Dec 2018 BIOS updates (Spectre Meltdown etc.). HP has drivers on their web page, but NO updates since 2015. Winbook you have to email MicroCenter for a "secret" link to drivers. Nuvision also lacks support.

    4. Running on 1gb on 32bit is like having hair transplants without local anesthetic. Consider this a "one app at a time" device and since Chrome opens instances for each new tab, consider limiting to just Facebook, just USA Today if you open tabs on those demanding web pages.

    5. 2gb on 32bit is faster than a netbook of yore, slower than a Chromebook on an ARM chip or an N3xxx processor. So, adequate. What 2gb/32bit lacks in speed, it makes up for in running 720p (and downconverting 1080P) H264 files, with subtitles, just fine. But not when downloading Patch Tuesday in the background! MPC-HC will handle the more stubborn files, the built in Windows player app can handle almost everything smoothly and has a better interface, and VLC is sort of ok.

    6. 4gb on a 64bit machine is like 2gb on a 32bit machine. What you gain in RAM you lose due to the extra demands of 64bit. So don't complain if your tablet "only" runs 32bit, it might be better performing.

    7. Dell Venue 8 Pro is limited to about 79% gamut BUT the color is very accurate. The HP Stream 7 is pretty terrible and is downright unusable unless you go into Control Panel, Display, and "calibrate" sop everything isn't lost in shadows during playback. The colors still seem weird after, but at least you don't feel like you are in a dark room without a flashlight.

    8. If you get used to the 2gb/64gb Dell Venue 8 Pro and then try the later, supposedly improved (but actually just cheaper) successor the 1gb/32gb Dell Venue 8 Pro, you will be able to measure the additional delays due to the retrench to 1gb with a hourglass - no stopwatch required. It is so slow sometimes I think it crashed. It WILL play Netflix, Amazon Prime, and run h264 just fine though. So long as it isn't Patch Tuesday.

    9. Don't mistake the puny 8" tablets with the fine Dell Venue 10 Pro (whether 720p with Bay Trail, 1080p with Bay Trail, 1080p with Cherry Trail and 4gb/128gb) which has a faster clock speed. Or with the Venue 11 Pro which is a mishmash of 2gb or 4gb, 32bit and 64bit, N3775 and N3795. All reportedly about 80% gamut. With the Dell Venue Pro 11 7140 they shot up to 100% color gamut and entry level was a Core M3, optional M5 and then i3 etc. IIRC. The Latitude 11 was born great, great screen and good Core M.

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