windows The HP Stream is a Chromebook-killer Windows 8.1 laptop with a higher-end price

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After weeks of teasing and leaks, HP and Microsoft's super affordable Chromebook killing Windows 8.1 laptop is finally here.

Meet the HP Stream laptop. It's an affordable little machine sporting a 14-inch, 1,366 x 768 resolution display. Underneath the machine's plastic exterior lies an AMD AR Micro-6400T Quad APU that delivers both computing power and drives the graphics engine.

The budget laptop is also equipped with 2GB of Memory and 32GB in SSD storage, which thankfully can be expanded though a MicroSD card slot. In a Google-like move, Microsoft is offering Stream laptop owners two years of free OneDrive storage amounting to an additional 100GB of online disk space.

Throw in the speculated 6 hours and 30 minutes of battery life plus a one-month trial of Microsoft Office 365, and this seems like a Chromebook killing deal…except it's not.

So much for a plan

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The only problem with the HP Stream is it actually costs $300 (about £186, AU$322), which is proportionally steeper than the $200 (about £124, AU$215) price tag Microsoft COO Kevin Turner first posited at the Redmond company's Worldwide Partner Conference in July.

Even with the higher price point the HP Stream is still a fair deal for any Windows laptop. However, there are more than a handful of Chromebooks users can get for less including the touchscreen equipped Acer C720P and the premium looking Samsung Chromebook 2.

Last week at IFA 2014 even HP announced a new Chromebook competitor that comes in at the same price as the Stream. Called the Chromebook 14, this will be HP's second 14-inch Google cloud-powered laptop, except the internals have been upgraded to an Nvidia Tegra K1 processor with a purported nine-hour battery life.

But before we get too down about the HP Stream's higher than expected price, we'll have to reserve our final judgment for our review. The Stream ships on September 24.

• The horizon is looking bright for Windows 9

Via PC World

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