HP Stream laptop's price tag $100 higher than expected

The HP Stream was one of the new budget priced laptops boasted about at Microsoft's Worldwide Partner Conference in mid-July. We reported upon that price assault plan, facing off against Google Chromebooks, and the subsequent unearthing of the official data sheet describing this new HP Windows 8.1 laptop and its components.

Microsoft COO Kevin Turner - HP Stream $199

This 'Chromebook Killer' was expected to be launched among the other HP products at IFA last week but it was postponed until Monday. PC World magazine reports that the 14-inch HP Stream has now belatedly shown up and is priced at $300 upwards, depending upon configuration. While that $300 price doesn't sound as groundbreaking as $199 for such a Windows laptop, it is noted that HP prices its 14-inch Chromebooks around the same level. In another comparison we have recently seen the 14-inch HP Slatebooks (running Android and including touchscreens) launched at $429.

HP Stream with grass green accent

Other than the price, the spec we did have on the HP Stream laptop seems to be correct. The beating heart of the HP Stream is an AMD Mullins A4 Micro-6400T which is a 4.5W TDP quad core processor running at 1.6GHz. It's a 14-inch 1,366 x 768 pixel display equipped machine. Looking at its memory, it includes 2GB of RAM and 32GB of fixed storage. Sockets and connectivity includes a microSD slot, HDMI out, one USB 3.0 and two USB 2.0 ports, 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. Its moderately portable at 17.8mm thick and 1.75Kg in weight. We are also told to expect about six and a half hours of computing on the go, thanks to the 3 cell 32WHr battery.

The HP Stream laptop will go on sale in the US from 24th September and will be made available in a choice of accents; Grass Green, Modern Silver, and Neon Purple.

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PC World magazine reports that the 14-inch HP Stream has now belatedly shown up and is priced at $300 upwards, depending upon configuration.

If that US$300 doesn't get directly translated to £300 then it's not a disaster - since a quick Google of the current exchange rate and adding VAT gives £223, which is higher than I'd like, but still not ridiculous.

£199 inc VAT would be a good price point to hit with this - especially with Christmas coming up.

On the other hand, if the US$300 gets converted at 1:1, and then you add VAT you get £360, which'll get you an A8 or i3 powered “conventional” laptop from HP (prices taken from PC World), in which case I'll argue that the Stream will fail.

Big “if” there, though, crossy.

But even if it does, it just went from “very interesting” to “a bit ho-hum” for me.

Re: Crossy/Saracen. My thoughts exactly – at sub-£200, this was shiny. If the price goes to anywhere near a full laptop, I wouldn't consider it.

Thing is, in the article's first link, we have Acer and Toshiba notebooks at $249. The whole point of the Stream was to undercut these, at the “magical” $199 price point. What good is a flagship low-cost laptop if it costs more than the current best-sellers?

Or perhaps it was nothing more than an overblown statement made on stage by Kevin Turner to try and (in the short-term, at least) dent Google's creep in to notebook territory by making people hold off to get cheaper Windows laptops, that backfired when HP couldn't deliver what MS told us it could, despite whatever partnership/subsidy HP was receiving for this promotion. Yep, that sounds about right for the corporate world (which is a sad statement in and of itself).

MaverickWill
Thing is, in the article's first link, we have Acer and Toshiba notebooks at $249. The whole point of the Stream was to undercut these, at the “magical” $199 price point. What good is a flagship low-cost laptop if it costs more than the current best-sellers?

Or perhaps it was nothing more than an overblown statement made on stage by Kevin Turner to try and (in the short-term, at least) dent Google's creep in to notebook territory by making people hold off to get cheaper Windows laptops, that backfired when HP couldn't deliver what MS told us it could, despite whatever partnership/subsidy HP was receiving for this promotion. Yep, that sounds about right for the corporate world (which is a sad statement in and of itself).

You're probably right in that Stream is an attack on Chromebooks (a product that I still can't see the usage case for). On the other hand that $199 price point is, when you look at it, a VERY aggressive one. Looking at the various BoM costings around, the Stream laptop is basically being made at a loss at best, or at least at minimal profit.

Then again, we should maybe hold fire on condemning it as lost cause until we get a firm price in the UK.

HP Stream laptop's price tag $100 higher than expected

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