Hp Stream 14 Laptop 14 Intel Celeron N4000 Performance Review

Our Verdict

The HP Stream xiv is affordable and fun to look at, but its build and brandish quality could be better.

For

• Long bombardment life
• Eye-catching, colorful design
• Solid battery life

Confronting

• Flimsy construction
• Dim display
• Underwhelming performance

Laptop Magazine Verdict

The HP Stream 14 is affordable and fun to look at, simply its build and display quality could be amend.

Pros

• +

  Long bombardment life

• +

  Eye-catching, colorful blueprint

• +

  Solid battery life

Cons

• -

  Flimsy construction

• -

  Dim display

• -

  Underwhelming operation

If you've browsed the electronics departments of Walmart or Target, chances are adept that the HP Stream 14 ($219.99) has defenseless your eye, whether because of its candy-colored blueprint or its ultra-affordable price. HP has been making the cheap Stream laptop for a few years now, presenting the low-powered budget laptop every bit a Windows-based competitor to Chromebooks. The Stream 14 is larger than HP's Stream offerings in previous years (the largest model used to be 13 inches), but not much else has changed.

Similar a Chromebook, the Stream 14 keeps the price low by sticking to the blank essentials: a low-powered CPU, minimal RAM and 32GB of flash memory for storage. Unfortunately, that may not exist plenty to support the sort of Windows experience you expect from even a upkeep laptop.

Design

The Stream xiv has a lightweight plastic chassis, measuring 13.three 10 viii.9 x 0.70 inches and weighing just 3.11 pounds. The plastic structure feels hollow and flexes a flake with every keystroke and tap on the trackpad -- an issue we didn't encounter when we tested the smaller HP Stream 11. The palm rest has a textured pattern and gets a dash of two-toned style cheers to the white keyboard. This is similar in both size and weight to other xiv-inch systems in this price range, like the Lenovo Ideapad 100S-xiv, which measures xiii.3 ten 9.3 x 0.vii inches and weighs 3.2 pounds.

The Stream line has always sported bright candy colors, and although the unit nosotros reviewed was bright blue, you can too get it in majestic. Competing machines, similar the Lenovo Ideapad 100S-fourteen, keep it simple with black plastic construction.

Display

The Stream 14 has a fourteen-inch display with a 1366 x 768 resolution, which isn't uncommon in this ultrabudget price range. When I watched the trailer for Thor: Ragnarok, the colorful trailer looked OK. The Hulk'southward pare looked to be the correct shade of green, explosions flared orangish and the lightning crackling off of Thor looked bluish white.

HP's laptop can produce 81.5 percent of the sRGB color gamut, which is almost identical to the scores from the Dell Inspiron xiv 3000 (81 percent) and the Lenovo Ideapad 100S-14 (84 pct).

The display'southward color accuracy isn't perfect, with a Delta-Eastward rating of 3.86 every bit measured with our colorimeter (0 is ideal). That'south pretty much what we await in this cost range, as both the IdeaPad 100S-14 (iii.85) and the Inspiron 14 3000 (3.4) had similar color accurateness.

The display was also pretty dim, averaging 186 nits of brightness. That's meliorate than the Inspiron xiv 3000 (135 nits) and similar to the IdeaPad 100S-14 (188 nits), simply we adopt a panel brighter than 200 nits.

Audio

The HP Stream 14 has a pair of downwards-firing speakers, but on this laptop, you'll desire to utilize a pair of headphones. When I listened to the Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Dark Necessities," I heard the lyrics clearly and could make out percussion well, but Flea's aggressive bass line was muted. The DTS Studio Sound utility, which offers some audio presets, is preinstalled, but none of the presets did much to improve the anemic sound from the minor speakers.

Keyboard and Touchpad

The HP Stream 14's keyboard has white tile keys, which have 1.32 millimeters of travel and require 72 grams of pressure to register a keystroke. Despite the heavy pressure required for each keystroke, the keys themselves felt low-cal and flimsy, and I briefly worried that they would come off if they were banged around in a laptop bag. On the 10FastFingers.com typing exam, I managed to bang out 65 words per minute, falling a bit brusk of my usual 80 wpm.

The touchpad measures 3.7 x 2.5 inches, and has the same bright-blue color as the surrounding chassis. The matte plastic cease may not be luxurious, but it registered every click and gesture without trouble. The HP Imagepad uses clickable zones in the lower corners instead of detached mouse buttons, and supports multitouch gestures.

Ports

The port selection is a bit slim on the Stream 14, merely it'south adequate for basic utilize. Along the left side of the chassis, you'll find a full-size HDMI port, two USB 3.0 ports, one USB 2.0 port and an SD card slot. You'll also discover a Kensington lock slot and an sound headset jack. On the right side of the laptop is a power connector. The Stream 14 has no Ethernet port, so you lot'll be dependant on Wi-Fi.

Performance

Equipped with a 1.6-GHz Intel Celeron N3060 processor, Intel HD Graphics 400, 4GB of RAM and 32GB of eMMc wink storage, the Stream 14 has nearly the aforementioned components seen in the Ideapad 100S-14 and the Inspiron fourteen 3000, but with an additional 2GB of RAM. It'due south also identical to the Samsung Chromebook 3, which highlights the Stream 14's position every bit a Chromebook competitor.

While this Windows-based organization may offer a more familiar Bone environs and (ostensibly) support the programs and apps you're used to, the performance just isn't there. When I ran through basic aspects of testing, like snapping a photo with the webcam, there was noticeable lag for very bones functions, and when I tried running multiple browser tabs, things slowed and stuttered with only five tabs open.

The Stream 14 scored one,817 in the Geekbench 4 overall performance examination, which is a pilus ahead of the Inspiron xiv 3000 (ane,807) and just behind the Ideapad 100S-14 (1,880), which was expected because the Stream'southward low-powered Celeron processor. Although it costs a good bargain more, at $350, the Acer Aspire E 15 (E5-575-33BM) (5,408, Intel Core i3-7100U) gives you essentially better performance while still coming in at well nether $500.

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The Stream 14 uses 32GB of eMMC storage -- flash memory similar to an SD carte, instead of a true solid-state drive -- but it performed adequately on the Laptop Mag File Transfer test, transferring 4.97GB of mixed media files in 3 minutes and 28 seconds. That works out to 24.7 MBps, which is slower than both the Ideapad 100S-xiv (43.49 MBps) and the Inspiron fourteen 3000 (69.72 MBps), despite the similar storage setup.

In our OpenOffice spreadsheet test, the Stream fourteen matched 20,000 names and addresses in xiii minutes and 4 seconds. That's faster than both the Ideapad 100S-14 (14:35) and the Inspiron 14 3000 (fourteen:22), but a notebook with a Core i3 CPU, like the Aspire Due east 15, will take less than half the time.

The Stream fourteen does compare well with Chromebooks in comparable tests, similar the JetStream JavaScript benchmark, scoring 58.85 compared to the Samsung Chromebook 3 (49.7) or the Lenovo Flex 11 Chromebook (58.6, MediaTek MT18173C processor). It also compares well to Windows-based competitors, like the Ideapad 100S-14 (58.05) and theInspiron 14 3000 (35.nine).

Graphics

The integrated Intel HD Graphics 400 on the HP Stream 14 tin stream videos from YouTube and Netflix or run simple games, like Candy Crush Soda Saga, only non much more than that. In 3DMark Ice Storm Unlimited, information technology scored xix,073, which is better than the Ideapad 100S-xiv (13,568) and the Inspiron 14 3000 (xi,967).

Bombardment Life

The Stream fourteen's power-sipping CPU helped stretch the Stream xiv'due south battery life to 7 hours and 4 minutes on the Laptop Mag Battery Test, which simulates continuous web surfing over Wi-Fi. That's enough to become a student through a full day of classes, and outlasts the Ideapad 100S-14 (5:51). You will get slightly better bombardment, though, from the Inspiron fourteen 3000 (9:01) or the Samsung Chromebook 3 (9:44).

Webcam

While nosotros don't have loftier expectations for any webcam in the sub-$300 laptop range, the Stream 14's webcam is withal very grainy, with a lot of racket in the image. Information technology managed to capture color fairly well, just fine details got lost in the brume.

Rut

The slim Stream xiv manages to stay comfortably cool. Subsequently nosotros streamed online video for xv minutes, the touchpad measured 73.5 degrees Fahrenheit, and the keyboard reached 80.5 degrees, both of which are well below our 95-degree comfort threshold. The underside stayed pretty cool, measuring 75.five degrees in the centre, simply it did have a hotspot that reached 92 degrees on the left-manus side of the laptop, where the processor is.

Software and Warranty

Microsoft offers manufacturers plenty of help in appealing to the upkeep crowd with the Stream and other Chromebook competitors. In addition to offer companies the OS for gratuitous on models in a certain price range and configurations, Microsoft bundles in some bonny extras. The Stream xiv comes with a complimentary ane-year subscription to Microsoft Office 2016, which includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote. The Stream 14 also comes with 25GB of cloud storage via Dropbox and a 30-mean solar day costless trial of McAfee LiveSafe.

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HP preinstalls a few helpful utilities and apps, similar HP Orbit, which lets yous share files between your laptop and your smartphone. Unfortunately, it as well comes with a lot of bloatware that you'll likely want to remove right away, like a collection of game trials from WildTangent and apps from Amazon and Priceline.com.

HP covers the Stream 14 with a standard 1-yr warranty. See how HP stacked upward in our ranking of the Best and Worst Laptop Brands survey and Tech Support Showdown.

Bottom Line

When every penny matters, the HP Stream 14 is a colorful selection with a budget-friendly toll. It offers a 14-inch display, all the basic ports you'll need and practiced-enough performance that will get you browsing the web and typing up papers in no time. Even so, the Lenovo Ideapad 100S-xiv has a much better keyboard and superior build quality, though it has shorter battery life and less RAM. If you lot're willing to spend just a bit more than, consider the $350 Acer Aspire East 15 (E5-575-33BM), which remains our tiptop pick for budget laptops.

But it's also worth repeating that this is a bare-bones, budget laptop that was designed to compete with Chromebooks, and a system such as the Samsung Chromebook 3 could be a ameliorate answer for budget-minded shoppers. However, if you desire an inexpensive xiv-inch laptop with decent battery life, capable operation and a touch of color, the HP Stream fourteen is a solid option.

Credit: Shaun Lucas/ Laptop Mag

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HP Stream 14 Specs

Make	HP
CPU	Intel Celeron N3060 (1.6GHz)
Visitor Website	www.hp.com
Brandish Size	xiv
Graphics Card	Intel HD Graphics 400
Hard Drive Size	32GB
Highest Bachelor Resolution	1366 x 768
Operating Organisation	Windows 10 Home
Ports (excluding USB)	USB three.0, Sound-in, Kensington Lock, SD carte slot, USB ii.0
RAM	4GB
Size	13.3 x eight.ix x 0.lxx inches
Touchpad Size	3.vii x two.5 inches
Warranty/Back up	1-year standard warranty
Weight	3.eleven lbs.
Wi-Fi Model	Intel Dual-Band Wireless Ac 7265, Bluetooth

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Source: https://www.laptopmag.com/reviews/laptops/hp-stream-14

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