HP Stream 11 review: Still a great bargain

WINDOWS 8.1 AND THE CLOUD

One year of Microsoft Office365 is included with every Stream 11. This also includes 1TB of OneDrive storage, although you’ll have to budget £60 after the first year when the subscription expires if you want to continue using it. Office365 includes Microsoft Office Online, which is an excellent web-based suite with more features than Google’s Docs. If you’d prefer, you can also install the desktop version of the Office suite on your PC as Office365 includes a one-year licence for this, too.

You’ll need to get used to working in the Cloud: with a Spartan 32GB of onboard storage this is about as close to a Chromebook you can get without actually buying one. Windows 8.1 isn’t quite as well suited to working in the cloud as Chrome OS is, although it’s fairly easy to set up folders to synchronise with OneDrive in Windows.

HP hasn’t completely clogged up its laptop with unwanted software, either, although we strongly advise you uninstall the McAfee security suite immediately because it’s intrusive and causes huge performance problems.

PERFORMANCE AND BATTERY

Perhaps the biggest difference between the HP Stream 11 and the Asus EeeBook X205TA is the choice of processors. While the EeeBook uses a quad-core Intel Atom chip, HP has opted for a 2.16GHz dual-core Intel Celeron N2840. While neither laptop is particularly fast, the Celeron is actually a little quicker when it comes to single-core focused tasks, such as basic web browsing. It scored 30 in our old benchmarking tests, 13 more than the Asus. Its overall benchmark score of 15 is four points less than the Asus, though, which is largely due to our benchmark’s multi-core focus that favours processors with more cores. However, because you should only expect to be doing simple tasks on a budget laptop, the faster single-core speed of the HP Stream 11 makes it a better overall proposition. It could only manage 8 overall in our new benchmarks, but we didn’t test the Asus in these conditions so can’t make direct comparisons.

Battery life is great; we managed to get 7h35m in our moderate usage test, so if you’re conservative with screen brightness and media consumption you could realistically get through a full working day.

CONCLUSION

It’s a close-run thing between the HP Stream 11 and the Asus EeeBook X205TA. The Stream 11 has a small performance advantage thanks to its higher clock speed, and the screen is marginally better. However, this comes with a significant 300g weight penalty. Either way, both of the laptops are a steal at £180 and are well worth your cash if you’re on a budget. If the Stream 11 doesn’t quite fit your needs then check out our regularly-updated Best Laptops and buying guide.

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