HP Stream 11 Laptop, K2L95UA-ABA, Horizon Blue Review

Horizon Blue HP Stream 11-d010nr
via Amazon

Blue HP Stream 11-d010nr is like an improved version of a netbook, rather than a low cost notebook and looks and feels like the latest Chromebooks with its Cloud based storage, 32GB Flash storage, 2GB memory, entry level Celeron processor and in terms of design. It comes with Microsoft Office 365 Personal for 12 months and offers impressive battery life of up to 8.25 hours.

HP Stream 11 comes with the Intel Celeron N2840 processor with 2.16 GHz speed up to 2.58MHz with turbo boost, 2 GB DDR3L SDRAM memory for sufficient multitasking, 32 GB eMMC Solid-State Drive to boot up quickly and wake up from sleep almost instantly plus 1TB cloud based OneDrive storage for a year that lets you have access to your files wherever you are. Operating system is the latest Windows 8.1 with Bing search engine- is a stable platform and helps improve your productivity once you get the hang of it, however 2GB RAM might be a little small for Windows 8 but the overall performance of the Celeron N2840 is more than adequate for everyday stuff like web browsing, Word/Excel, general multimedia and light games but not for very complex software.

11.6 inch diagonal HD Antiglare WLED-backlit display with 1366x768 pixel max screen resolution offers sharp and clear high definition picture and the Bay Trail Intel HD graphics is a bit like the Intel HD 4000 in terms of general performance so you will be fine editing and viewing photos and watching videos as well as playing older less demanding games fluently- I’m sure you weren’t expecting this machine to be a gaming powerhouse. Sound quality is quite good with the DTS Studio that offers you rich audio and dynamic nuances. Webcam is the HP True Vision with a built-in microphone and the large viewing angle lens and you will be clearly visible even in low light when you are chatting on Skype with friends and family.

HP Stream 11 weighs 2.8 pounds and has the dimensions of 8.10 x 11.81 x 0.78 inches so it has a slim and lightweight- compact design and looks quite nice in horizon blue colour. You can be out and about all day long and away from power outlets as you will get an easy 7-8 hours average battery life from its lithium ion battery on a single charge. Keyboard is a 97% size island-style without 10-key numpad due to the size of the PC but has a decent trackpad in the middle and the keys are nicely spaced out and with white colour. Touchpad seems responsive and is optimised for Windows 8 and the keys are reported to feel nice to touch. It has the 802.11bgn wireless connection, 1 x USB 2.0 port, 1 x USB 3.0 port, 1 x Audio-out port- an audio jack and an HDMI port.

Conclusion: HP Stream 11-d010nr is a Chromebook-like netbook replacement machine with 32GB solid state drive instead of a traditional hard drive for snappier overall performance, a decent entry-level Celeron processor and 2GB memory for performing daily tasks efficiently, very long battery life- up to 8 hours and 15 minutes being also an Energy Star qualified machine, 1024GB free cloud based storage for a year, a fan-less design so works quietly, comes with a full 1 year Office 365 Personal with activation code plus a 30 day trial version of McAfee which you may want to replace with AVG Free version. It is not that top of the range very powerful computer with the best specs, features and performance but sure is decent value for money, but if you happen to travel a lot and find yourself without internet access- having access to Cloud storage may be a little challenging. This is more for those that want to spend very little on a computer and would like a light compact laptop with adequate performance for internet, Office and other basic tasks and long battery life.

Click here for a closer look on Amazon