14 Inch HP Stream

I know I haven’t posted much of anything entertaining other than an occasional poem over the last few months.  I am working on my new books, but I have also been painting rocks of late.  Painting rocks has led back to me also working with oil paints, a light box, pencil sketches, photography, and water colors.  (Check out my Pinterest board to see some of the works)

Awhile back, I made this here fancy graphic to check out how Stencil’s interface worked.  LOVE IT!  Of course, I meant to also write the post that went with it.  Uhm.  I *am* doing that now.

I wanted to share with you a fantastic little gadget that I have fallen in love with.  I was very lucky to catch this on sale for under $200.00 back in March.  I have traveled with it and used it on many sleepless nights.  What is it you ask?  My 14″ HP Stream laptop.  Why do I love it so much?  It’s cheap, it’s portable…it’s everything I wanted the Chromebook to be and everything those horrible netbooks from the ancient past should have been!  It’s like the Galaxy S7…when I missed my 5’s features, but I wanted the power of the 6.  BAM!  In walks the S7.

There are a lot of reviews out there about this computer.  Some good, some not so good.  I don’t think people understand that this is NOT a primary laptop.  One negative review I read said “if you only want to write and get on the internet it might be good.”  Well considering that is what it is was designed for, you should have given the computer a 5 star rating!

I ran into this device when I was lamenting that I couldn’t afford a Surface.  (OMG.  I want one, but not for that much.)  I wanted portability that was a better experience than Chromebook or Netbooks had given me; I wanted to run the MS Word app and write while on the go.  Sure, I had my phone with Office apps, but it wasn’t really big enough to do what I wanted even with a keyboard.

I would like to have had a Surface for the ability to run the .exe files and the ability to port it around, but I was not going to pay that price.  This also meant no Ipad!  During my research, I found a fab tablet that said it was almost as good as the Surface, but was like 130.00.  Then, somehow, I ran into this little computer when doing research on Windows 10 and supported devices.  I had seen these machines at Walmart on display many times over the last few years.  I thought they were just cheap plastic computers brought out for Christmas.  Eh, turns out they really are quite fun and useful *IF* you know what they are for.

This machine is for somebody looking for an easy way to surf the web, write, and check e-mail.  It is also for someone that longs to have a device that can back up not only to an internal source, but also access the mighty cloud.  This is for those of us who love our Chromebooks, but want to be able to use the actual Microsoft Word app!

This little bugger comes on in 13 seconds, runs full programs, and comes with the awesome Microsoft 365 free for one year!   I love the MS cloud.  I love the MS apps.  I love how Windows 10 and these apps allow me to move from one computer to the next almost seamlessly.  So, now I CAN have that file on my phone, my Stream, and my desktop without packing around a jump drive.  All I have to do is sync.

The cons are you almost have to buy an SD card b/c the internal memory is abysmal.  It is slow when it is updating in the background, but you can still work on one thing and be OK.  You need to have wifi handy to sync.  Sometimes if you haven’t turned the computer on in awhile it wants to check your credentials, which is a pain if you don’t have wifi or what you do have is shady.  I do know that it WILL work offline with full functionality if you keep it updated pretty regularly.  I let mine go a month without being turned on and it didn’t like that when I tried to use it at the library.  Word wouldn’t even let me save!  I was also able to get my Norton to run on it with hardly any problems or slow down.

So, if you are a writer that wants portability, a larger screen, a low price, all with the feel of a laptop, you should check this out.  I also think this would be great for my daughter who only really plays online games, does some basic school work, and likes app store games.  If I were in college, this would be an economical solution to an expensive computer for writing and email that I wouldn’t have to worry too much about the cost of replacing if it died.

 

 

 

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