Microsoft intends to take the fight to Google in the low end laptop market, and the HP Stream could be it.
At an earlier Microsoft partner conference, Microsoft COO Kevin Turner said that HP is planning to release a $199 windows laptop in the year end holiday period.
“We are going to participate at the low-end,” says Turner.
“We’ve got a great value proposition against Chromebooks, we are not ceding the market to anyone.”
Recently, a $199 HP Stream 14 was leaked, and it could be the “Chromebook killer” that Microsoft has been planning.
The HP Stream notebook (model number 14z-z000) measures 13.5 x 9.5 x 0.7-inches, and weighs about 3.9 pounds.
At a glance, it resembles the latest HP Chromebook 14 model, the only 14-inch Chromebook in the market at present.
Indeed, the HP Stream also features a 14-inch screen, and has a 1366 x 768 pixel display.
It also packs a AMD A4 Micro-6400T “Mullins” processor which is a 4.5W quad-core processor with Radeon R3 graphics, 2GB of RAM, and either 32GB or 64GB of eMMC solid state storage.
Other features include 802.11b/g/n WiFi, Bluetooth 4.0, HDMI output, a SDXC card reader, 1 USB 3.0 ports, 2 USB 2.0 ports, four speakers with Beats audio, a 720p webcam, and a 32Whr battery
The HP notebook will run Windows 8.1 software and comes with 100GB of cloud storage for 2 years, courtesy of Microsoft’s OneDrive.
Google is also offering 100GB of Google Drive cloud storage for 2 years on its Chromebooks.
HP has not announced a release date for the Stream, and it remains to be seen if Microsoft can successfully corner the ultra-cheap laptops market.
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