It seems very unlikely that 7" Atom-based tablet that retails for $100 would offer GPS. You could claim that there is a possibility that the 8" version at $150 could have it, but lets be realistic. Margins are slim enough on these devices as is. There's no way GPS is included.
Regardless, a $100 Windows RT tablet is definitely something worth thinking about, even just from the inclusion of Office. It could be great for your kids. The Nexus 7 arguably has a much more appealing ecosystem, but it is also twice the price. HP and Microsoft are definitely trying to offer the ultimate value proposition, and they may have just done exactly that.
The excuse that I've generally seen for most Bay Trail tablets which don't include GPS is that it is typically integrated with LTE radios, and adding a separate GPS would increase the BOM. And that LTE radios typically significantly increase the BOM. But one of these tablets comes with free LTE data, which suggests that it probably has an LTE radio in it. It seems plausible that if GPS is integrated with that, the tablet will have GPS. It also seems plausible that if they're going to integrate LTE radios into one such tablet, it isn't impossible that they integrated a cheaper, standalone GPS module into the other one.
Other than the in-box maps, 3d maps preview, HERE maps, AutoRoute, Streets and Trips, and probably a dozen others, sure. This is Windows. There's 50 of everything.
Here maps for Bus is a THIRD party app that has caused me to miss MANY a rides. It is probably one of the biggest factors in my terribly hilariously horrible experience I had w/ the Nokia 635 as the app REFUSES to multitask. If I go back, it resets to the start...but not without forcing me to stare @ resuming...resuming... for a little while. If Tmo doesn't want it back, it's getting a bullet.
The way WP8 deals with things like support apps is a damned shame. I really wish they had some way of making those apps actually work in a way that was useful and kept at least a portion of the relevant information not only in memory but actively updated and sending toast messages as appropriate.
The HP Streams series for laptops and tablets are The Xperia series is not very popular within consumer based rankings (just see http://www.topreport.org/tablets/ for example...) and they are nowhere to be found within the top.
I can't find the reference in the WHQL docs (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/ha... but IIRC if you have mobile broadband in order to pass Windows 8 logo cert you need to have an A-GPS. as you noted most broadband chips come with GPS anyway as A-GPS needs an internet connection to work it's best.
Intel will never give you a pie cheaper and without a cause, some features: Only for Z3740, Intel Quick Sync Video Only for Z3740, Intel Clear Video HD Technology Only for Z3740, Intel Insider (Intel Insider delivers premium HD content to an UltrabookTM or PC) Only for Z3740, Secure Key Only for Z3740, Anti-Theft Technology
Only for Z3740 and z3745, Intel Wireless Display (WiDi) Only for Z3740 and z3745, Intel Identity Protection Technology Only for Z3740 and z3745, AES New Instructions
Also, The I/O total number of the Z3735F and Z3735G have been reduced to 367 from the 620+ (z3740). The image processor, audio ports are reduced to two from three. Video decoding and encoding are originally the four 1080p, three / one 4K but reduced to two 1080p. Also, USB 3.0, USB HSIC, LPC are no longer supported. USB 2.0 has also reduced to 2 x host and 1 x device from the 4 x HCI. The 7 x I2C and 2 x SPI of the low-power port was reduced to 5 x I2C and 1 x SPI. The Video output is also greatly diminished.
In the lowest-end 8" Windows tablets The WiFi does not support 5 Ghz, and with the cheapest low-end chips come from Formosan vender, like Realtek WiFi and Bluetooth module, etc..., or even is no GNSS/GPS, nor an HDMI port. And use a worse quality screen.
Currently these 8-inch Windows 8.1 tablets, Toshiba WT8-A 32GB/64GB ( dynabook tab VT484) is still a better choice, although not perfect enough, (launched in the end of 2013), GNSS/GPS, HDMI, e-Compass provided. (Note: this is not Encore 2 WT8-B this fall) Toshiba VT484/WT8-A gotten the decent components and parts inside, Atom z3740 comes with dual channel memory (2x64bit) maximal 4GB, which the VT484/WT8-A employs 2x1GB modules, say the WLan, Bluetooth and GNSS are all of Broadcom chips, and WiFi supports for 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz.
A recent unfortunate event, that obviously did not happen to me, sort of filled my cup of bitterness regarding HP, as a company, but most of all as a laptop manufacturer (stay far from their printers too). During the last 7 years, I’ve seen people cry, sware, go red, blue, then green, all of which while holding an HP laptop in their trembling hands. Most of the time, it’s already been the n’th problem they were experiencing with their “beloved” HP. During all these 7 years, I’ve fixed and chucked out more HP’s than all the other brands all-together. It first I was like “ok, unfortunate coincidence”, which then turned into “weird” and finally “this gotta stop!”
Now, as much as this seems to some of you like a counter-campaign against HP, it’s not. It is merely sharing my 7 year experience, putting all the pieces together and proving why HP is NOT a good choice. I could turn this into “vs. article”, and say go buy DELL, Sony Vaio, Toshiba or ASUS. I am not going to do that. The choice is still going to be your’s, and I certainly don’t want to promote other laptop manufacturers either. It’s not my goal. My goal is to paint a real picture of HP and their omnipresent laptops.
Lots of you have HPs. Why? Everybody sells them. You can buy an HP at Tesco’s for God’s sake. It’s one of the biggest manufacturers on this God-forsaken planet. BUT biggest does not = best. It’s amazing how few people get that. Biggest does NOT = best! Remember Pioneer and NEC optical drives? No. Well, those were one of the best, while most of you had problems with LG and Asus, which at that time were the biggest in the optical drive industry. The fact that someone makes something in humongous volumes, does not imply or mean, they’re actually doing a very good job. Stop thinking that because HP is so well-known, it must also be damn good, or even the best.
Price-wise HP, while apparently ranks well, it’s kind of a lie, and it does not. True, you do find really cheap HPs, which are in fact Compaq Presarios (300-400$), on the market, but that does not make an entire line of products a good choice. Just during the last year I’ve seen 3 HP Pavilions go nuts out of the blue. One of those was irrecoverable. Mind you, those were expensive laptops (900-1000 euros). Mother-board crashes, BIOS fails, CPU stops working, fans go rogue, screen goes into labour and dies on the table, and I could continue. Sure, all laptops face these problems, more or less. I am not saying these are strictly HP issues (although some actually are), but the sheer number of unsatisfied and disappointed HP customers is way beyond acceptable. Yes, I’ve seen DELLs HDD or RAM die, yes I did. No manufacturer is perfect. No electronic device is perfect. Hell, I’ve seen all sorts of defects on all laptop manufacturers, but losing a HDD (if you have sensitive and important data, learn to back-up) or RAM is so not a big problem, compared to losing the laptop itself. HDDs and RAMs are the cheapest, and can be replaced by almost anyone who has minimal hardware knowledge.
HPs are so mass-produced that they seem to completely fail when it comes to quality and durability. Opposed to general belief, people do not buy a laptop every 2 years. Most of us like and hope to use it for around 4-5 years, and when you spend 800 or 1000 grand on a device, that expectation is more than justifiable. HP users tend to double that amount, or at least live a life full of frustration and the physical absence of the laptop itself considering the amount of time it spends in service. With an unjustifiable price, that also comes with almost assured tears and frustration, probably even the price of some new component if not the price of another laptop itself, HP not only that it does NOT seem like a good choice, but an extremely risky one as well. Unless it’s really cheap and has good warranty (2-3 years), under no circumstances do I see HP laptops as being a logical, technically and economically sane choice.
So, to answer the question in the title, HP is too mass-produced to still be able to offer quality over quantity. Also, in reality it’s never been as good as some folks try to convince their clients. You always hear HP this, HP that, the brand-name is out there, but ask yourself, how often was it about how durable or high quality their laptops are. Going with HP is a risky step, far riskier than going with a Toshiba or DELL. That step is certainly your’s to take, but ask yourself, what’s more important, to have an HP laptop or a good laptop?
It is likely that you are suffering from some sort of confirmation bias. The fact that you repair a lot of HP computers does not mean they intrinsically have the highest failure rate. But it does mean that a lot of people buy HP computers.
Once upon a time I worked in a Dell call centre. Some people there were convinced that Dells were horrible because all they heard all day were callers with broken laptops. Of course that's your experience, because that's your job!
It's silly to state that the largest PC manufacturer also has the highest number of failures. That should be expected.
Since you mentioned "the last 7 years" I have to bring up "solder gate" (the use of faulty solder on HP motherboards) - I know of tons of HP laptops that failed from the faulty solder (issues presented in a very specific way), which HP never admitted to and generally wouldn't repair. I got burned on HP (plus they killed Palm!) so I'll look elsewhere. Also, everyone needs to stop making those awful 1366x768 screens. Like, literally, just stop making them.
No - he's right. HP is in a league of its own for crap. No other brand is more closely associated with the phrase "notebook cpu fan that will never shut up."
Since AMD launched Jaguar processors, I would never touch any Bay Trail powered device. The only way Intel's low power products have invaded the market is by Intel using dumping prices and also strong-arming manufacturers using the old tactic "If you build AMD systems, your discounts for our Intel CPUs won't be so great anymore and no matter how, we own 85% of the market. You don't want to mess with the discounts for the processors powering 85% the products you manufacture." I've seen this first hand at HP as I've been in this industry for the past 18 years. With AMD's Jaguar or the new Puma chips you get more x86 performance and a lot more 3D performance. Sure Bay Trail gets better battery autonomy, but if more battery life is what you desperately need, you can get an extra Li-Poly battery pack that will get you around 40 hours of continuous power for about 0,9 Kg of weight. Therefore you HAVE an option, but with Bay Trail there is NO option to have more x86 nor 3D performance while the extra 1 or 2 hours of battery life is not enough if you will be working more than a day away from a power outlet. Bay Trail obviously offers no advantage over AMD's products, except for the great price that Intel's sells it at. Just look at the billions lost each trimester by Intel's low power division. How can you lose billions each quarter if you're selling millions of processors and you have literally hundreds of design wins?! Simple, you're using dumping. Sites like Anand's (that I've been reading since way back in 1999) will never touch on this subject as this will get you uninvited from EVERY Intel related events. No more products to review, no more insights, no more "relaxed" NDAs etc. and I don't blame Anand for anything as this is also a business.
In the current age of ultra-light electronics, grams matter, let alone a full kilogram. Consumers don't want to have to carry around 5 pound laptops with 2 pound batteries and 2 pound AC adapters. They want the sleek lightweight package that started with Apple's Macbook Air and culminated in the Ultrabook.
Ultrabooks are very TDP limited. They have small (often not removable) batteries and small heatsinks. At a given level of performance, AMD's processors tend to consume more power and produce more heat than Intel's offerings. That means that someone looking for an AMD laptop with the same battery life and thermal characteristics as an Intel machine will end up with something that performs worse. Maybe that user will also end up spending less money, but Ultrabooks started off as a premium product, one that offered a similarly premium level of performance.
But these Chromebook-level devices are a different story. You can see that HP is using an AMD A4 (granted, a tablet-level variant) in the Stream 14. So I'm not entirely sure what you're complaining about.
AMD's Atom competitor is used quite a lot in low end notebooks, but the question is...why isn't it used in tablets? I think I've read of one or two that do, but never actually seen one in a shipping device.
Hmm, looks like Puma basically uses less power at the same die process than Jaguar...looks like the sort of tweaks to idle power that Haswell brought, almost that type of deal. It sure seems like it would work for tablets...
Based on the data given by AMD, its nowhere enough. It's on par with Haswell's level of system power, and while that's low for Core, its way higher than Atom. On Haswell, 30WHr battery will give you 5-6 hours of battery life. With Atoms, you can get an 8-inch device going down to 15WHr battery achieving 8 hour battery life.
That's not just process alone, since 32nm Atoms did quite well in terms of battery.
I'll confess I don't know much about Puma...probably because Anandtech hasn't covered it that I can recall!
Jaguar (their second gen Atom competitor) launched earlier than second gen Atom, and offers basically Athlon 64 performance at a given clock speed. The CPU performance is a bit worse than second gen Atom (though still good as I recall), but the GPU performance is a bit better.
I'm not sure about power though since AMD's stuck on 28nm while second gen Atom is on 22.
Still, even with Bobcat I remember thinking "why isn't this in a tablet?" Even more so now...I don't think AMD's gotten hardly any tablet wins, and I don't know why. Maybe it just doesn't measure up because of the 28nm process?
Or maybe it's entirely due to the same reasons Athlon 64 was so heavily ignored 10 years ago even when it was clear cut the better CPU design. At any rate, it sure seems like there should be a heck of a lot more AMD based tablets right now. They'd be better for games than Atom, I'd think, and have at worst just slightly worse CPU performance.
Wow, those are really awesome devices and having Bay Trail on board is nice. Great pick for people who don't need the most of performance, yet still need some apps (Chromebook's lack of Skype for instance is a deal-breaker).
The AMD model was first rumored to be $199. $299 now? And all the cheaper ones are Intel Bay Trail? Right.... Intel cheaper than AMD? Thank God Intel stopped it's monopolistic tactics. Right? Right....
No, Microsoft held up an HP Stream on state at (I believe) their partner conference in Washington D.C. and said it was going to be $199. Then a 14" version was released for $299 first, but the one held up on state was smaller than that, so therefore it was the 11.6" model which is $199. I don't think there are any conspiracies here - just HP not releasing the entire range on a single day.
"It has been a bit painful to see the thin and light Chromebooks popping up over the last couple of years, and it was always especially frustrating that low cost Windows laptops were large, thick, noisy, and had very slow spinning hard disks. It is great to see the Chromebook styling now coming to Windows PCs, and with the Chromebook pricing as well."
I'm not sure it was painful, but is nice to see Windows finally ditch the HD and the extraneous storage when neither are needed for these types of devices. I look forward to seeing performance numbers from these. And given that we now have BayTrail Chromebooks, there should be a good head-to-head article in the works.
But these tablets don't have hdmi output (or SD card for that matter) from what I've read elsewhere. So using that Office subscription on those devices is going to be pretty painful. It's unclear if they are going to support some type of wireless screen sharing. I haven't seen mention of it or full I.D. on the chips used. Not that wireless screen sharing for this kind of purpose has great reviews historically anyway. Does the 365 Personal allow you to install on multiple devices? It might be a nice gimme if you can also install it on an already owned desktop or laptop. Otherwise it seems pretty pointless to include it with 7" and 8" tablets. On the laptops the Office subscription is a nice bonus. How Microsoft thinks it's going to make money on services when it constantly gives them away I don't know. They'll outright pay you to use Bing to search. It's hard to trip and not get up with Onedrive bonus storage shoved in your pockets. And now the Office365 (likely their only actual money maker overall for these types of services) is being given out like candy. I guess they make it up in volume.
OneDrive integrated with Windows 8.1 supports selective sync per file or folder, on-access download and background space reclamation. So you can easily use a 1TB OneDrive with a small storage device as long as you dont try to open a 100GB word document or something similar.
Onedrive does integrate very nicely with modern Windows from what little of it I have tested. Historically Windows tends to balloon itself though. Time will tell if they have nipped this in the bud. Running from compressed files seems to work well enough. I haven't seen much exploration of it but neither have I seen a lot of complaining about speed on devices which I assume to be using it. How it is working in 18 or 24 months is another matter. It's feels wrong to hold the sins of its fathers against modern Windows. But it's also hard to blindly have faith the family trait has been shaken off. Beyond that Redmond likes to point out how Windows doesn't need the cloud to run. Native apps and native storage and all that are implicit in this campaign. Something like ChromeOS is designed to use onboard storage as nothing more than temporary staging ground for the cloud. You can do otherwise but your shouldering against the designed paradigm. Windows though is a different beast. While Onedrive integration is nice the paradigm is still all about having all your bits on the machine. And that is not gonna play super well with very limited storage.
Why is that too much? As compared with what? They're the same price or even cheaper than "Chromebooks" and those things are as crippled as crippled gets. They're priced like other notebooks, but use some flash over a mechanical drive...for some uses they probably make sense (for others not so much...)
Darn it. I would love the blue 13.3" version as a back to school laptop if it came with 4 GB of RAM and 64 GB SSD. Couldn't they up the specs and add $20 to the price? 2 and 32 is just too small for desktop windows.
You guys know that the AMD A4 is not a 15W laptop chip, it's the A4 Micro-6400T Quad Core 4.5W chip aimed at tablet/convertable running at 1GHz with boost to 1.6Ghz
I must say that I love its color, feels so cool to my eyes. Out of all its features, its audio specs caught my attention. I am the kind of person who enjoys listening to music and loves watching videos during spare time. With these quality of audio, I would be able to enjoy music like never before. It is unfortunate that this model does not have the touchscreen capability. I don’t think it would be a stand-out among its competitions. Some newly-released netbooks, featured in the technology blog http://www.realskies.com, look much better and the specs are way more awesome.
I must say that I love its color, feels so cool to my eyes. Out of all its features, its audio specs caught my attention. I am the kind of person who enjoys listening to music and loves watching videos during spare time. With these quality of audio, I would be able to enjoy music like never before. It is unfortunate that this model does not have the touchscreen capability. I don’t think it would be a stand-out among its competitions. Some newly-released netbooks, featured in the technology blog http://www.realskies.com, look much better and the specs are way more awesome.
I must say that I love its color, feels so cool to my eyes. Out of all its features, its audio specs caught my attention. I am the kind of person who enjoys listening to music and loves watching videos during spare time. With these quality of audio, I would be able to enjoy music like never before. It is unfortunate that this model does not have the touchscreen capability. I don’t think it would be a stand-out among its competitions. Some newly-released netbooks, featured in the technology blog http://www.realskies.com, look much better and the specs are way more awesome.
Thanks for posting such a great article on the new steam laptops. Reading this article really shed some light on some of the pros and cons of these units. I might consider another route.Has anyone heard of those rugged toughbooks? I was considering trying one of those toughbooks out. I saw a good deal at http://www.toughbookdepot.com. Anyways... looking for some more feedback :)
Thanks for posting such a great article on the new steam laptops. Reading this article really shed some light on some of the pros and cons of these units. I might consider another route.Has anyone heard of those rugged toughbooks? I was considering trying one of those toughbooks out. I saw a good deal at http://www.toughbookdepot.com. Anyways... looking for some more feedback :)
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johncuyle - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
Do either of the tablets have built in GPS?Minion4Hire - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
It seems very unlikely that 7" Atom-based tablet that retails for $100 would offer GPS. You could claim that there is a possibility that the 8" version at $150 could have it, but lets be realistic. Margins are slim enough on these devices as is. There's no way GPS is included.Regardless, a $100 Windows RT tablet is definitely something worth thinking about, even just from the inclusion of Office. It could be great for your kids. The Nexus 7 arguably has a much more appealing ecosystem, but it is also twice the price. HP and Microsoft are definitely trying to offer the ultimate value proposition, and they may have just done exactly that.
johncuyle - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
The excuse that I've generally seen for most Bay Trail tablets which don't include GPS is that it is typically integrated with LTE radios, and adding a separate GPS would increase the BOM. And that LTE radios typically significantly increase the BOM. But one of these tablets comes with free LTE data, which suggests that it probably has an LTE radio in it. It seems plausible that if GPS is integrated with that, the tablet will have GPS. It also seems plausible that if they're going to integrate LTE radios into one such tablet, it isn't impossible that they integrated a cheaper, standalone GPS module into the other one.savagemike - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
But cheap Android tablets without LTE have quite typically had GPS over the past couple years. So...Penti - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
Windows doesn't really have any GPS-software either way.johncuyle - Wednesday, October 1, 2014 - link
Other than the in-box maps, 3d maps preview, HERE maps, AutoRoute, Streets and Trips, and probably a dozen others, sure. This is Windows. There's 50 of everything.Jodiuh - Wednesday, October 1, 2014 - link
Here maps for Bus is a THIRD party app that has caused me to miss MANY a rides. It is probably one of the biggest factors in my terribly hilariously horrible experience I had w/ the Nokia 635 as the app REFUSES to multitask. If I go back, it resets to the start...but not without forcing me to stare @ resuming...resuming... for a little while. If Tmo doesn't want it back, it's getting a bullet.Paul Tarnowski - Monday, October 6, 2014 - link
The way WP8 deals with things like support apps is a damned shame. I really wish they had some way of making those apps actually work in a way that was useful and kept at least a portion of the relevant information not only in memory but actively updated and sending toast messages as appropriate.craighamilton - Saturday, December 6, 2014 - link
The HP Streams series for laptops and tablets are The Xperia series is not very popular within consumer based rankings (just see http://www.topreport.org/tablets/ for example...) and they arenowhere to be found within the top.
encryptededdy - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
These tablets are running standard Windows 8.1, not Windows RT (hence the x86 Intel Atom CPUs)Minion4Hire - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
You are quite correct. Reading too quickly. And also assuming cheap tablets = RT.If Microsoft fully abandons the RT environment the world will be a better place.
Andrew7783 - Saturday, October 4, 2014 - link
I think they pretty much have abandoned RT. I think pretty much every Windows tablet released in the last year, even budget ones, have had full 8.1.bakedpatato - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
I can't find the reference in the WHQL docs (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/ha... but IIRC if you have mobile broadband in order to pass Windows 8 logo cert you need to have an A-GPS. as you noted most broadband chips come with GPS anyway as A-GPS needs an internet connection to work it's best.timon_comment - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
Comparison Atom processors by Intel arkModels, Clock Speed/Burst Frequency, Memory Size/Bandwidth, SDP, TRAY (Sep 6 2014)
Z3740, 1.33 GHz/1.86 GHz, 4 GB (dual-channel)/17.1 GB/s, 2Watt, $ 32.00
Z3745, 1.33 GHz/1.86 GHz, 4 GB (dual-channel)/17.1 GB/s, 2Watt, $ 30.00, (somewhat castrated)
Z3745D, 1.33 GHz/1.83 GHz, 2 GB (single channel)/10.6 GB/s, 2.2Watt, N/A, (somewhat castrated)
Z3735F, 1.33 GHz/1.83 GHz, 2 GB (single channel)/10.6 GB/s, 2.2Watt, $ 17.00, (more castrated)
Z3735G, 1.33 GHz/1.83 GHz, 1 GB (single channel)/5.3 GB/s, 2.2Watt, $ 17.00, (badly castrated)
Intel will never give you a pie cheaper and without a cause, some features:
Only for Z3740, Intel Quick Sync Video
Only for Z3740, Intel Clear Video HD Technology
Only for Z3740, Intel Insider (Intel Insider delivers premium HD content to an UltrabookTM or PC)
Only for Z3740, Secure Key
Only for Z3740, Anti-Theft Technology
Only for Z3740 and z3745, Intel Wireless Display (WiDi)
Only for Z3740 and z3745, Intel Identity Protection Technology
Only for Z3740 and z3745, AES New Instructions
Also,
The I/O total number of the Z3735F and Z3735G have been reduced to 367 from the 620+ (z3740).
The image processor, audio ports are reduced to two from three.
Video decoding and encoding are originally the four 1080p, three / one 4K but reduced to two 1080p.
Also, USB 3.0, USB HSIC, LPC are no longer supported.
USB 2.0 has also reduced to 2 x host and 1 x device from the 4 x HCI.
The 7 x I2C and 2 x SPI of the low-power port was reduced to 5 x I2C and 1 x SPI.
The Video output is also greatly diminished.
In the lowest-end 8" Windows tablets The WiFi does not support 5 Ghz, and with the cheapest low-end chips come from Formosan vender, like Realtek WiFi and Bluetooth module, etc..., or even is no GNSS/GPS, nor an HDMI port. And use a worse quality screen.
Currently these 8-inch Windows 8.1 tablets, Toshiba WT8-A 32GB/64GB ( dynabook tab VT484) is still a better choice, although not perfect enough, (launched in the end of 2013), GNSS/GPS, HDMI, e-Compass provided. (Note: this is not Encore 2 WT8-B this fall)
Toshiba VT484/WT8-A gotten the decent components and parts inside, Atom z3740 comes with dual channel memory (2x64bit) maximal 4GB, which the VT484/WT8-A employs 2x1GB modules, say the WLan, Bluetooth and GNSS are all of Broadcom chips, and WiFi supports for 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz.
Related read
http://forums.toshiba.com/t5/Encore-Tablets/Encore...
AppleCrappleHater2 - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
A recent unfortunate event, that obviously did not happen to me, sort of filled my cup of bitterness regarding HP, as a company, but most of all as a laptop manufacturer (stay far from their printers too). During the last 7 years, I’ve seen people cry, sware, go red, blue, then green, all of which while holding an HP laptop in their trembling hands. Most of the time, it’s already been the n’th problem they were experiencing with their “beloved” HP. During all these 7 years, I’ve fixed and chucked out more HP’s than all the other brands all-together. It first I was like “ok, unfortunate coincidence”, which then turned into “weird” and finally “this gotta stop!”Now, as much as this seems to some of you like a counter-campaign against HP, it’s not. It is merely sharing my 7 year experience, putting all the pieces together and proving why HP is NOT a good choice. I could turn this into “vs. article”, and say go buy DELL, Sony Vaio, Toshiba or ASUS. I am not going to do that. The choice is still going to be your’s, and I certainly don’t want to promote other laptop manufacturers either. It’s not my goal. My goal is to paint a real picture of HP and their omnipresent laptops.
Lots of you have HPs. Why? Everybody sells them. You can buy an HP at Tesco’s for God’s sake. It’s one of the biggest manufacturers on this God-forsaken planet. BUT biggest does not = best. It’s amazing how few people get that. Biggest does NOT = best! Remember Pioneer and NEC optical drives? No. Well, those were one of the best, while most of you had problems with LG and Asus, which at that time were the biggest in the optical drive industry. The fact that someone makes something in humongous volumes, does not imply or mean, they’re actually doing a very good job. Stop thinking that because HP is so well-known, it must also be damn good, or even the best.
Price-wise HP, while apparently ranks well, it’s kind of a lie, and it does not. True, you do find really cheap HPs, which are in fact Compaq Presarios (300-400$), on the market, but that does not make an entire line of products a good choice. Just during the last year I’ve seen 3 HP Pavilions go nuts out of the blue. One of those was irrecoverable. Mind you, those were expensive laptops (900-1000 euros). Mother-board crashes, BIOS fails, CPU stops working, fans go rogue, screen goes into labour and dies on the table, and I could continue. Sure, all laptops face these problems, more or less. I am not saying these are strictly HP issues (although some actually are), but the sheer number of unsatisfied and disappointed HP customers is way beyond acceptable. Yes, I’ve seen DELLs HDD or RAM die, yes I did. No manufacturer is perfect. No electronic device is perfect. Hell, I’ve seen all sorts of defects on all laptop manufacturers, but losing a HDD (if you have sensitive and important data, learn to back-up) or RAM is so not a big problem, compared to losing the laptop itself. HDDs and RAMs are the cheapest, and can be replaced by almost anyone who has minimal hardware knowledge.
HPs are so mass-produced that they seem to completely fail when it comes to quality and durability. Opposed to general belief, people do not buy a laptop every 2 years. Most of us like and hope to use it for around 4-5 years, and when you spend 800 or 1000 grand on a device, that expectation is more than justifiable. HP users tend to double that amount, or at least live a life full of frustration and the physical absence of the laptop itself considering the amount of time it spends in service. With an unjustifiable price, that also comes with almost assured tears and frustration, probably even the price of some new component if not the price of another laptop itself, HP not only that it does NOT seem like a good choice, but an extremely risky one as well. Unless it’s really cheap and has good warranty (2-3 years), under no circumstances do I see HP laptops as being a logical, technically and economically sane choice.
So, to answer the question in the title, HP is too mass-produced to still be able to offer quality over quantity. Also, in reality it’s never been as good as some folks try to convince their clients. You always hear HP this, HP that, the brand-name is out there, but ask yourself, how often was it about how durable or high quality their laptops are. Going with HP is a risky step, far riskier than going with a Toshiba or DELL. That step is certainly your’s to take, but ask yourself, what’s more important, to have an HP laptop or a good laptop?
Minion4Hire - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
This was needlessly long.It is likely that you are suffering from some sort of confirmation bias. The fact that you repair a lot of HP computers does not mean they intrinsically have the highest failure rate. But it does mean that a lot of people buy HP computers.
Once upon a time I worked in a Dell call centre. Some people there were convinced that Dells were horrible because all they heard all day were callers with broken laptops. Of course that's your experience, because that's your job!
It's silly to state that the largest PC manufacturer also has the highest number of failures. That should be expected.
Rocket321 - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
Since you mentioned "the last 7 years" I have to bring up "solder gate" (the use of faulty solder on HP motherboards) - I know of tons of HP laptops that failed from the faulty solder (issues presented in a very specific way), which HP never admitted to and generally wouldn't repair. I got burned on HP (plus they killed Palm!) so I'll look elsewhere. Also, everyone needs to stop making those awful 1366x768 screens. Like, literally, just stop making them.bsd228 - Wednesday, October 1, 2014 - link
No - he's right. HP is in a league of its own for crap. No other brand is more closely associated with the phrase "notebook cpu fan that will never shut up."nandnandnand - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
Bay Trail sounds a lot more interesting than an A4. But how do they compare on graphics?nathanddrews - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
Overall, Atom is much more powerful than anything ARM currently offers, but the GPU is a little weak. Better to wait for Cherry Trail.http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/1212?vs=120...
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/999?vs=973
Stephen Barrett - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
the A4 mentioned in this article is an AMD A4 CPU not an ARM CPUEast17 - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
Since AMD launched Jaguar processors, I would never touch any Bay Trail powered device. The only way Intel's low power products have invaded the market is by Intel using dumping prices and also strong-arming manufacturers using the old tactic "If you build AMD systems, your discounts for our Intel CPUs won't be so great anymore and no matter how, we own 85% of the market. You don't want to mess with the discounts for the processors powering 85% the products you manufacture." I've seen this first hand at HP as I've been in this industry for the past 18 years. With AMD's Jaguar or the new Puma chips you get more x86 performance and a lot more 3D performance. Sure Bay Trail gets better battery autonomy, but if more battery life is what you desperately need, you can get an extra Li-Poly battery pack that will get you around 40 hours of continuous power for about 0,9 Kg of weight. Therefore you HAVE an option, but with Bay Trail there is NO option to have more x86 nor 3D performance while the extra 1 or 2 hours of battery life is not enough if you will be working more than a day away from a power outlet. Bay Trail obviously offers no advantage over AMD's products, except for the great price that Intel's sells it at. Just look at the billions lost each trimester by Intel's low power division. How can you lose billions each quarter if you're selling millions of processors and you have literally hundreds of design wins?! Simple, you're using dumping. Sites like Anand's (that I've been reading since way back in 1999) will never touch on this subject as this will get you uninvited from EVERY Intel related events. No more products to review, no more insights, no more "relaxed" NDAs etc. and I don't blame Anand for anything as this is also a business.dabotsonline - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
Interesting points!Minion4Hire - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
In the current age of ultra-light electronics, grams matter, let alone a full kilogram. Consumers don't want to have to carry around 5 pound laptops with 2 pound batteries and 2 pound AC adapters. They want the sleek lightweight package that started with Apple's Macbook Air and culminated in the Ultrabook.Ultrabooks are very TDP limited. They have small (often not removable) batteries and small heatsinks. At a given level of performance, AMD's processors tend to consume more power and produce more heat than Intel's offerings. That means that someone looking for an AMD laptop with the same battery life and thermal characteristics as an Intel machine will end up with something that performs worse. Maybe that user will also end up spending less money, but Ultrabooks started off as a premium product, one that offered a similarly premium level of performance.
But these Chromebook-level devices are a different story. You can see that HP is using an AMD A4 (granted, a tablet-level variant) in the Stream 14. So I'm not entirely sure what you're complaining about.
Wolfpup - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
AMD's Atom competitor is used quite a lot in low end notebooks, but the question is...why isn't it used in tablets? I think I've read of one or two that do, but never actually seen one in a shipping device.Hmm, looks like Puma basically uses less power at the same die process than Jaguar...looks like the sort of tweaks to idle power that Haswell brought, almost that type of deal. It sure seems like it would work for tablets...
IntelUser2000 - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
"http://images.anandtech.com/doci/7974/Screen-Shot-...Based on the data given by AMD, its nowhere enough. It's on par with Haswell's level of system power, and while that's low for Core, its way higher than Atom. On Haswell, 30WHr battery will give you 5-6 hours of battery life. With Atoms, you can get an 8-inch device going down to 15WHr battery achieving 8 hour battery life.
That's not just process alone, since 32nm Atoms did quite well in terms of battery.
Wolfpup - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
I'll confess I don't know much about Puma...probably because Anandtech hasn't covered it that I can recall!Jaguar (their second gen Atom competitor) launched earlier than second gen Atom, and offers basically Athlon 64 performance at a given clock speed. The CPU performance is a bit worse than second gen Atom (though still good as I recall), but the GPU performance is a bit better.
I'm not sure about power though since AMD's stuck on 28nm while second gen Atom is on 22.
Still, even with Bobcat I remember thinking "why isn't this in a tablet?" Even more so now...I don't think AMD's gotten hardly any tablet wins, and I don't know why. Maybe it just doesn't measure up because of the 28nm process?
Or maybe it's entirely due to the same reasons Athlon 64 was so heavily ignored 10 years ago even when it was clear cut the better CPU design. At any rate, it sure seems like there should be a heck of a lot more AMD based tablets right now. They'd be better for games than Atom, I'd think, and have at worst just slightly worse CPU performance.
victorson - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
Wow, those are really awesome devices and having Bay Trail on board is nice. Great pick for people who don't need the most of performance, yet still need some apps (Chromebook's lack of Skype for instance is a deal-breaker).yannigr2 - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
The AMD model was first rumored to be $199. $299 now? And all the cheaper ones are Intel Bay Trail? Right.... Intel cheaper than AMD? Thank God Intel stopped it's monopolistic tactics. Right? Right....PS The AMD is also fanless.
tipoo - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
Also a smaller screen size, though I doubt that makes the $100Brett Howse - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
No, Microsoft held up an HP Stream on state at (I believe) their partner conference in Washington D.C. and said it was going to be $199. Then a 14" version was released for $299 first, but the one held up on state was smaller than that, so therefore it was the 11.6" model which is $199. I don't think there are any conspiracies here - just HP not releasing the entire range on a single day.Brett Howse - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
state=stage not enough coffee when I posted that.IntelUser2000 - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
"The add-ons offered by HP are pretty strong, with the Office 365 Personal costing almost as much as the tablet itself,"Not really from HP. The Office 365 one year license is PART of the Windows + Bing plan. I do like the Stream 8 with LTE costing only $150 though.
BackInAction - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
"It has been a bit painful to see the thin and light Chromebooks popping up over the last couple of years, and it was always especially frustrating that low cost Windows laptops were large, thick, noisy, and had very slow spinning hard disks. It is great to see the Chromebook styling now coming to Windows PCs, and with the Chromebook pricing as well."I'm not sure it was painful, but is nice to see Windows finally ditch the HD and the extraneous storage when neither are needed for these types of devices. I look forward to seeing performance numbers from these. And given that we now have BayTrail Chromebooks, there should be a good head-to-head article in the works.
savagemike - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
But these tablets don't have hdmi output (or SD card for that matter) from what I've read elsewhere. So using that Office subscription on those devices is going to be pretty painful. It's unclear if they are going to support some type of wireless screen sharing. I haven't seen mention of it or full I.D. on the chips used. Not that wireless screen sharing for this kind of purpose has great reviews historically anyway.Does the 365 Personal allow you to install on multiple devices? It might be a nice gimme if you can also install it on an already owned desktop or laptop. Otherwise it seems pretty pointless to include it with 7" and 8" tablets.
On the laptops the Office subscription is a nice bonus. How Microsoft thinks it's going to make money on services when it constantly gives them away I don't know. They'll outright pay you to use Bing to search. It's hard to trip and not get up with Onedrive bonus storage shoved in your pockets. And now the Office365 (likely their only actual money maker overall for these types of services) is being given out like candy. I guess they make it up in volume.
Stephen Barrett - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
OneDrive integrated with Windows 8.1 supports selective sync per file or folder, on-access download and background space reclamation. So you can easily use a 1TB OneDrive with a small storage device as long as you dont try to open a 100GB word document or something similar.savagemike - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
Onedrive does integrate very nicely with modern Windows from what little of it I have tested. Historically Windows tends to balloon itself though. Time will tell if they have nipped this in the bud. Running from compressed files seems to work well enough. I haven't seen much exploration of it but neither have I seen a lot of complaining about speed on devices which I assume to be using it.How it is working in 18 or 24 months is another matter. It's feels wrong to hold the sins of its fathers against modern Windows. But it's also hard to blindly have faith the family trait has been shaken off.
Beyond that Redmond likes to point out how Windows doesn't need the cloud to run. Native apps and native storage and all that are implicit in this campaign. Something like ChromeOS is designed to use onboard storage as nothing more than temporary staging ground for the cloud. You can do otherwise but your shouldering against the designed paradigm. Windows though is a different beast. While Onedrive integration is nice the paradigm is still all about having all your bits on the machine. And that is not gonna play super well with very limited storage.
Wolfpup - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
That's a shame if the tablets don't have SD card slots of some sort...although if they're otherwise good they might still be great cheap tablets.flyingpants1 - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
They were supposed to be $199. And even that's too much.Wolfpup - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
Why is that too much? As compared with what? They're the same price or even cheaper than "Chromebooks" and those things are as crippled as crippled gets. They're priced like other notebooks, but use some flash over a mechanical drive...for some uses they probably make sense (for others not so much...)eteexrm - Friday, October 3, 2014 - link
You had me at eMMC. This thing is dead to me. There's a good non-cost related reason all Chromebooks come with SSD and not eMMC.sonicmerlin - Tuesday, October 7, 2014 - link
Darn it. I would love the blue 13.3" version as a back to school laptop if it came with 4 GB of RAM and 64 GB SSD. Couldn't they up the specs and add $20 to the price? 2 and 32 is just too small for desktop windows.Tikcus9666 - Thursday, October 9, 2014 - link
You guys know that the AMD A4 is not a 15W laptop chip, it's the A4 Micro-6400T Quad Core 4.5W chip aimed at tablet/convertable running at 1GHz with boost to 1.6GhzMitchJames - Monday, October 20, 2014 - link
I must say that I love its color, feels so cool to my eyes. Out of all its features, its audio specs caught my attention. I am the kind of person who enjoys listening to music and loves watching videos during spare time. With these quality of audio, I would be able to enjoy music like never before. It is unfortunate that this model does not have the touchscreen capability. I don’t think it would be a stand-out among its competitions. Some newly-released netbooks, featured in the technology blog http://www.realskies.com, look much better and the specs are way more awesome.MitchJames - Monday, October 20, 2014 - link
I must say that I love its color, feels so cool to my eyes. Out of all its features, its audio specs caught my attention. I am the kind of person who enjoys listening to music and loves watching videos during spare time. With these quality of audio, I would be able to enjoy music like never before. It is unfortunate that this model does not have the touchscreen capability. I don’t think it would be a stand-out among its competitions. Some newly-released netbooks, featured in the technology blog http://www.realskies.com, look much better and the specs are way more awesome.MitchJames - Monday, October 20, 2014 - link
I must say that I love its color, feels so cool to my eyes. Out of all its features, its audio specs caught my attention. I am the kind of person who enjoys listening to music and loves watching videos during spare time. With these quality of audio, I would be able to enjoy music like never before. It is unfortunate that this model does not have the touchscreen capability. I don’t think it would be a stand-out among its competitions. Some newly-released netbooks, featured in the technology blog http://www.realskies.com, look much better and the specs are way more awesome.jwalker9876543 - Thursday, October 23, 2014 - link
Thanks for posting such a great article on the new steam laptops. Reading this article really shed some light on some of the pros and cons of these units. I might consider another route.Has anyone heard of those rugged toughbooks? I was considering trying one of those toughbooks out. I saw a good deal at http://www.toughbookdepot.com. Anyways... looking for some more feedback :)jwalker9876543 - Thursday, October 23, 2014 - link
Thanks for posting such a great article on the new steam laptops. Reading this article really shed some light on some of the pros and cons of these units. I might consider another route.Has anyone heard of those rugged toughbooks? I was considering trying one of those toughbooks out. I saw a good deal at http://www.toughbookdepot.com. Anyways... looking for some more feedback :)lokikaos - Saturday, November 8, 2014 - link
Does anyone know if you can play steam games on the hp stream tablet?