Hyper Focused Media's Carl Williams writes, "Microsoft has worked hard to get their Windows platform in the tablet market up to the level that the desktop version enjoys as far as market penetration. The problem that Microsoft is fighting against here is that other operating systems are far more entrenched in the tablet market than those in the desktop world. Part of this competition, something MS is not all too keen on having, is the cheap (to hardware manufacturer’s) Android from Google and the premium hardware from Apple. Microsoft has the Surface tablets to take on the threat from Apple but they have nothing in the same league as Android on the low end. HP is planning on fixing this challenge with their upcoming Stream Tablets which is being accompanied by an equally lower priced set of laptops to battle the Chromebook from Google."
Cheap phones and computers aren’t as capable or as exciting as high-end phones and computers. We tend to focus on the expensive ones here because they’re where new tech usually shows up first, but plenty of people are buying based mostly or entirely on price and not on features.
HP’s take on a extremely low-cost Windows laptop fills a budgeted void.
Full review by Herman "Namreh" Exum on Popzara
It's no secret that people like Chromebooks. That can't be good news for Microsoft, which used to own the market for cheap computers. Not one to take this sort of encroachment lying down, Microsoft came out with a lower-cost version of Windows 8.1 that PC makers could use to build small, lightweight devices inexpensive enough to take on Chromebooks. The HP Stream 11 is among the first of these so-called Engadget - Chromebook killers: an 11.6-inch laptop running full Windows and priced at just $200. For the money, it looks and performs like a netbook, with a colorful plastic shell and an Intel Celeron processor chugging away under the hood. Then again, though, you also have the option of installing traditional desktop apps, which you can't do on a Chromebook, and Microsoft is further sweetening the deal by throwing in a terabyte of OneDrive storage and a yearlong subscription to Office 365. So is this just netbooks, redux? Or does an aggressive price make all the difference?
saw it at the Microsoft store and i must admit, it was very highly tempting, price, design and what you get for the money's worth
let the battle begin, bringing the price down for laptops and tablets.... good for consumers !