When I worked at Best Buy this was the most returned item in the store. It got so bad managers told us to turn customers away from the device to avoid then returns.
One surprising thing to me is the Celeron N4120 is better than the Atom processor. So, it's not the absolute cheapest and most worthless CPU they could put in the HP Stream. Still, I think a person would be better off using a base model iPad. And a person might even find mobile Microsoft office apps in Apple's App store.@@jimmy3951
@@jimmy3951 Not really.The single core performance at that price point plus the fact that it is an x86 and not an ARM makes a massive difference. One: upggradability, 2: choice of OS. Put Kubuntu or any Linux on it and it run a lot lot better.
@@domoncar6782 I'm a huge Linux guy, and yes a system like this will run better with a lighter Linux distro on it like Solus Budgie that's still using X11, and not Wayland for the compositor, but it won't be much better simply because of the EMMC storage which performs worse than most class 10 Micro SD cards, the weak Intel Celeron CPU, & 4GB of slow ram. In fact sitting in my guest room as a backup laptop, I have a old 15.6in(1366X768 720p screen) ASUS laptop I got from e-waste with an Intel Core i3 2310M hyperthreaded dual core that I upgraded to 16GB DDR3 1333Mhz RAM(24 bucks), new battery(18 bucks), and 256GB Netac SATA SSD(26 bucks) that performs better than these HP streams when running Manjaro Solus, the only thing I'm missing vs. something like an HP Stream here, is USB 3.0, and USB C, which is not a huge deal breaker in my book for something that cost me 68 bucks to fix up, that again performs better, and can handle multiple Chrome tabs even playing back UA-cam, and other content at 720p.
I bought an basic Asus for £280 and slap SSD in making it quite capable machine for basic needs like text editing watching Netflix video calls and some old games (intel celeron n4020 1,1 GHz 8GB RAM DDR4 and intel UHD 600 integrated GPU)
I have an ASUS E410 which basically the same specs I got for $100 at MicroCenter, I tossed in a 1TB NVME SSD that cost just as much as the laptop and honestly Linux Mint was this devices savior. I can actually boot Skyrim at 60fps on this thing and open several tabs in Firefox. Windows 10 or 11 should have NEVER touched these devices with how under-powered with RAM they are.
Thing to consider, I work at a school, we bought these cheaper as we bought in bulk and put chrome flex on them - they work great and actually cost less than the cheapest chromebook.
I remember having one a decade ago in high school. It wasn okay for school reports, and making the occasional power point. I consider it like a first car, it will get you to there eventually without ac.
I have one of these that has been collecting dust on my shelf for the past 7 years. Ran out of space after a few windows updates. This thing was terrible.
I got one from my uncle when he passed away. Yes, had to do a clean windows install from a usb install media to get the latest windows updates on it and it used most of the drive. I'm guessing you have the 32 GB version, 64 GB on the new ones I think would be just enough to at least be able to install updates. I tried linux for a while and it does use less of the drive, but once the drive is full you can't really install software on external media on linux as easily as you can with windows. Linux wants all the packages and everything to be on a single drive partition with the OS. So I went with Tiny10 and it only used like 10 GB of the drive and is debloated so it doesn't max the processor for stupidly long at boot, it's actually semi-usable now but still lags and the eMMC will die at some point.
The thing is that Microsoft could make a stripped back version of windows free of the bloat they include just for low end devices. But they know everyone would install that on higher end PCs too, because no-one wants that bloat. They kinda of already make a stripped back version with the LTSC build but they make it difficult for the average user to legally acquire it.
I got a machine with a similar CPU to this very cheap used and one of the first things I did was dig around the options to disable a lot of the windows spy features and it's unreal just how many they sneak into the OS. turned on by default. I mean, honestly, I have little over 1Ghz to play with. Do I really want to send information about every key press I make off to Microsoft?
They do make one, at least for 10, it's called enterprise IoT LTSC, it's what Tiny10 is based off of. Haven't heard one for 11, I think Tiny11 actually had to strip a bunch of stuff out manually.
Tiny 11. That's what I want cause I got a new low spec laptop with windows 11 s mode. I took it off s mode and after getting everything configured it works great but still it's a new laptop with 4g RAM and a Celeron processor. I don't know how to get tiny 11 or do I just delete everything unnecessary?
@@danieloshea3326 I had a dig in settings to turn all the Microspyware off, there's plenty of guides for that stuff. As for my RAM I doubled it for just £5 by typing in the model code and buying an exact match to the existing 4GB module for the empty slot. A second larger NVME SSD wouldn't hurt either if you have the slot for it.
There is a growing requirement in schools lately to do most of your school work on a computer or tablet. Most families can’t afford high end electronics for their kids so having a cheaper option for children’s school work is good. $100 more to some families is a choice whether you eat or not. But how would you know what that’s like?
My brother in law had one of these.. the 64gb eflash storage or whatever was called was so bad it was slower than some hdds. I tried to install windows 10 and linux on it and there were no functional drivers for the crappy wlan card it had.
I've been using mine for years, and these types of computers have SO MANY issues that i don't recommend getting one, but you have to work with what you buy if its the only thing you can afford. Also, this thing is clearly not made for heavy games but it could probably run most games that was released in the 2000s or 2010s.
hmm that resolution is HD. HD is only 720p, everyone thinks 1080p is HD but thats actually FHD. So yes that laptop does have a HD screen. Granted a bit of a cheap crappy one but its HD. Its meant for a cheap, breakable not losing much idea of a laptop. Like just kids, streaming, etc. If you dont pay the costs, lots of things only stream in HD (720p) not FHD or better. That's why it exists in 2024. But really never meant for anything past word processing at best, which is why it comes with 365. But for the cost, even 200 dollar chromebooks suck. To get good ones, youll be paying probably double that price and that's not a price that everyone can afford, especially for something given to a kid. And used market sucks for laptops, especially for cheap ones, they are usually beat to hell or used so hard things are just shit(damaged, broken, etc). I'd never give a kid a laptop that is 400-500+ for every day use, they destroy everything way too easily and not gonna toss hard earned cash at something for them to break. Rather run risk of losing say 200-250 bucks than say 350-450 for them breaking a fancier cheap laptop/used laptop just because it was "a bit faster." Cheap laptops have a use, even this one, just not a use for everyone. Even 100-150 bucks more is hard for many to afford. That's why lots are using 100-200 dollar or less smartphones that exist because they just can't afford better versions. Is it shit, yep, is it slow, yep, but it will load websites(granted slower), will word process, which is all a school kid needs or anyone who just doesn't do much on a pc.
Austin: 1366x768 looks like garbage on a 14" screen Me: I hear you say that and raise you literally any 32" LCD TV from the mid 2000s. Looking retrospectively from 2025, of course.
As a former bestbuy employee i tried to avoid selling that laptop at all cost even though we were told to push it. I always almost begged customers to spend an extra $100 for a laptop that is 4x better. The only time that laptop to me was a good deal was when they would go on sale for $110. The only thing that made it worth the money was a 1 year membership. Within 3 months it will run slower than a turtle.
You should have bought a 2015-2017 Macbook Air. You can run Windows. You can upgrade the SSD. You can easily swap the battery because it's not glued in.
@@mattstone8878 Those are great devices indeed. Though I think the M1 MacBook Airs are better. And I highly don't recommend the 2018-2020 MacBook Air. Or the 2015-2017 MacBook. Or the 2016-2019 MacBook Pro. Or the 2011-2012 Macbook Pro.
At least you did better than an HP Stream POS, but next time I would just get a refurbished Lenovo Laptop off their outlet store that still has slots for upgradable RAM, and Storage, then you can stick whatever Linux distro you want on it if you don't like Windows as Lenovo certifies many of their models in the spec sheets to be fully Linux comptable.
@@mattstone8878 No thanks, I don't want to be stuck in the Apple ecosystem(yes there Ashi Linux for the Apple M series chips, but It can be a pain to get running, and it's not ready for prime time yet), I like freedom of choice in my OS, and to be able to upgrade my RAM, and Storage, or to be able to replace them if something does fail.
if all you use it for is checking email, word processing, and filling out applications, it gets the job done. If you need to do quite literally anything else. you should get something else. And they do go on sale for close to $100 around black friday. That's when most of them sold when I worked at target, and I did try and convince people to get ANYTHING else.
Is it worth it after the updates stop? We get the left over stock from the US and local vendors are advertising it to students. Since everyone has bank accounts these days and they need peace of mind online, I've been asked if they're safe and I don't feel like buying one just to answer the question.
Those specs are essentially the same as the Gateway GWTC116 series and the Evolve III Maestro laptops that came out in 2019/2020. The laptop is basically a school/college laptop meant to handle very basic functions in a class environment.
A month ago, picked a Lenovo 500w Gen 3 (11" Intel) 2 in 1 Laptop for $180. It was 12" IPS touch display, Pentium N6000 processor, 128GB SSD and 8GB RAM.
Honestly, I absolutely agree this time. Put in even the worst branded 120GB M.2 SSD, any real i3 even if it's 11th Gen and an FHD screen (bonus points for a light version of Linux like Lubuntu, I mean you are only gonna use a browser on that thing anyway) and the experience will be around 5x as good for 50% more cash.
i had this thing as my 1st laptop but it had windows 10, i got it for christmas, at first i thought it was good but issues started appearing everywhere, "Not enough storage" when taking a simple photo was CRAZY, and after being stored for like 2 months its boot time went from approx 30 seconds to OVER 4 MINUTES. Why HP thought it would be a good idea to put an outdated processor in a modern laptop is beyond me. Not even roblox could run at a smooth framerate, even my old ipad 8 at the time outperformed it.
This was my first ever laptop/pc and i remember playing minecraft at 20fps for about 3 or 4 years on it, now i'm running a system i built myself and seeing it again has brought me back to some dark times
advice: if youre looking for a affordable laptop for school or work i would highly recommend buying a used thinkpad. i bought a t430 slim for 40 bucks and its a fantastic machine. a lot of businesses use thinkpads and they get retired eventually when the company replaces laptops, so theres a lot of them for sale for a cheap price. ebay auctions are the best way to buy them.
Maybe they have sooooo many parts unique to that system that they just have to keep producing them until they can scrap the rest of them. I got a decent chromebook during Prime Days one year and it's perfect for the way my husband uses it, and he's actually that target market for this computer - really only needs an internet appliance. His iPad was fine for what he used it for, but got too old for updates and the battery wouldnt' hold a charge, but he did need something. Something told me to shy away from that HP Cheapo.
I had a version of this a few years ago that came with a Ryzen 3 3300U (or something like that), and a 256gb SSD, I slapped an extra ram stick in there for 8gb and it was a surprisingly decent experience. It still couldn't really game much, but it was fine with multitasking to a point, I could have a half dozen browser tabs, a spotify window, and discord running and it was pretty alright.
I had a £300 version of this with an AMD A6-9225 in 2019. Because of the extra £100 than the cheapest W10, it actually ran decent for the price for a year. It should be illegal to sell e-waste laptops, as they just go into landfill in like a year or two, and when you spend more, you get like 5-10 years out of the device
Yes, it's why so many people are pissed at MS for the windows 11 BS "requirements" that aren't actually needed, trying to sell more license keys by forcing people to buy new hardware using security/encryption as an excuse.
One of the schools I would tutor at. They would buy those for the students. They had online text books and it would make it earlier for the schools so the students wouldn’t have to carry a bunch of books Others would do the same but with android tablets and iPads
I honestly forgot about HP streams. I bought one back in 2015 for college. It was relatively terrible, yes, but totally serviceable for the light workload I used it for in freshman classes at a community college.
The one thing you have to remember about these devices a large amount of the people that are buying them or at least get them bought for them have not experienced anything better so they don't know that it's bad
I bought a Lenovo Chromebook for about $160 a couple of years ago, and it is still my main laptop. It has a foldable display with an IPS touchscreen, 8GB or RAM, and i3 processor and I upgraded to the storage myself. There is literally no reason to buy something like this when you can get a Chromebook, I even do light gaming on Steam (Mainly Sims 4 and older games like Bioshock) and via emulation; it has been a very good machine and eye opening for how solid Chromebooks are nowadays.
I bought, about 6 months ago, a Lenovo with a 5500U processor, 8gb of ram, which is upgradable to 16, an NVME drive and an upgradeable wifi chip. For the same price.
Honestly in my opinion to be serving the budget end of the market at this point computer manufacturers need to start doing what car companies do and promote their Certified Refurbished models more heavily. A midrange or flagship laptop from 3-4 years ago with a new battery would probably run circles around these ultra budget models and honestly it would probably save manufacturers and retailers money to not have to maintain as many SKUs or deal with excess returns.
Just to share a fun fact, you can get a 15 inch or 13 inch MacBook Pro from 2013/2014 and use a patcher to get a newer version of MacOS for around $200. It won’t be comparable to the newer MacBooks of the recent years, but it would definitely be better than the HP laptop 14.
I purchased a steam in 2015 as my first laptop and it actually kickstarted a lot for me. Although I remember it came with 32gb or storage and came with windows 10. I’m forever grateful to it even though if it broke down two years later
Man I wanted a netbook SO bad when they came out. A full featured OS in something that small. Now it’s super laughable. Side note I just sold a laptop for $15 on Facebook marketplace. Bout it for $20 so I could run some update software on a laser cutting machine that’s software wouldn’t run on MacOS and I didn’t want to haul my desktop PC to the laser. I had forgotten how bad of a build quality so many budget laptops have. It was so plasticy and awful from trying to open it, to the keyboard and clicking the trackpad. I’ve been pampered by Apple products and higher end PC stuff for years. I didn’t realize that companies still made stuff that low quality.
I used to work at OD around the time these came about and they were what made me want to ro stop being a salesperson. I had no qualms about telling people it was a bad purchase, especially as long-term product, even on a tight budget. I would always push Chromebooks or even mid-level tablets for school work. The fact they're still making these in today's day and age speaks volumes about how HP and other "reputable" brands push crappy products above everything.
Got my significant other through undergrad back in 2013-2016. Needed Google docs and notepad basically. Back then you could get it on sale at like 100-150 during black Friday. This replaced her dying 17" MacBook. She was happy with it as it was way lighter, battery life was ridiculous and she commuted to and from school. I'm going to have to dig it out and run Linux on it maybe
I actually bought the original Stream 13 for school after watching your video (has it really been 10 years? Seesh!) and it worked fine for a few years, until a version of Windows 10 completely destroyed the performances (I think it was 1703 or 1709, but don't quote me on that). 2GB of RAM was pretty terrible, but it was workable. It's crazy that that laptop is still being sold today with barely more RAM and CPU, it's just a scam at this point.
as an owner of one of these, ill say the only reason i keep it is because its sd card slot for soft modding older things like 3ds‘ or wiis. takes like 30 minutes to download the files but get past that and its alr.
Important to point out that this price segment, outside of Chromebooks, almost never has USB-C/USB-PD charging. While Google mandated it years ago, Microsoft never has - so it's another corner they can and will cut. It saves them probably no more than a dime on the Bill of Materials, but if they sell 200,000 of these, that's $2 million! As an additional 'benefit' to HP, it means that a destroyed power cord will likely be a new machine purchase.
I think I can give some context to how slow a system with 4GB of RAM and a celeron is in 24'. I have a Windows 11 laptop with an i3, 16GB of RAM, 256GB SSD, and still Windows crawls into a halt sometimes. And when I used a Chromebook back in highschool, we prob spend 25%-50%(class time) just logging in. Either case, ChromeOS is demanding but Windows is very demanding.
I believe over at Microcenter they have a 14" Gateway Windows 11 laptop with a Ryzen 7 3700U, 16gb of memory and a 1TB SSD for like $300 which is an alright and could play some games well enough.
i think i bought the laptop austin mentioned in this video years ago in 2019 for like 300 euros and used it for years and had always been frustrated with it
I recently bought an HP Victus gaming laptop for $800 on sale with an i7 12th gen and 16GB ram, I used to have a $330 Lenovo Laptop and it was great until windows 11 hit it, my mom would not buy me an HP Stream because of the way it was and the specs of the HP stream gave me shivers…. It’s not good…
I loved my HP Stream when I got it in 2014. Was perfect for just a tiny laptop I could throw in a bag. It ran linux with xfce perfectly and 2G was *just* enough to do even HD youtube back then and light multitasking. I'm still a big fan of the netbook 11-13 inch form factor, hopefully ARM will make them more viable in the future.
I think the hardware decoding was more why youtube might work more than linux. Linux /helps/ but it can't pull off miracles. I tried linux for a while, but once the drive is full linux doesn't really let you install software on external drives, you can store documents sure, but you can't install stuff from the repo onto an external drive as easily as you can windows. I ended up going to Tiny10, and while it wouldn't work for the 2 GB model as it uses 2 GB just running it does work on the 4 GB model and I could upgrade the ram for like $11 if I /really/ wanted to, but I have other computers to use besides a stream and only have it in the first place because it was my uncles and I don't like throwing away /technically/ working equipment. It's not really good for much though. I have it setup to run an autoclicker on a clicker game just to have it doing /something/ usable, and I will say it's /very/ light on power-consumption, like ~7 watts under load with the screen on low brightness, only like 5.5 watts with the screen closed.
64 GB of eMMC makes this thing less useful than a Chromebook. They often don't have more than that either, but the difference is that Chrome OS is designed to be minimal. Windows absolutely is not, and just with time that'll fill up to the point where you won't be able to install Windows updates anymore without doing a dance every time manually clearing temp data, it's just not worth the hassle. And if you dare to install programs and actually try to use it like a normal laptop, you'll run out of space immediately.
You know, it's funny...I was looking for reviews for this laptop before ordering one, and couldn't find anything negative. Now that I've ordered it, I'm getting actual reviews suggested to me by UA-cam. Strange how that works...
I had bought a Lenovo with similar specs years ago, open box deal at a store so even cheaper. It ran Windows poorly, so I installed Ubuntu on it and it ran just fine for a couple of years until certain keys on the keyboard stopped working.
The thing he doesn't realize if you haven't used a laptop that is faster then you don't realize its slower. I know people that use older laptops and they think its just fine cause they've never used something faster and haven't got used to not waiting for things.
I had an OG HP Stream untill like a couple years ago and it fully met my needs! It could play downloaded videos (I mostly used it for watching videos in bed) and some retro games. Web browsing was a struggle, but it ran parsec just fine, so I usually just used parsec to stream a web browser running on my desktop pc (a little latency is fine when you're just browsing UA-cam).
I have an HP Stream myself, I got it from the thrift store for a few dollars. Only 32GB Storage. Windows was pretty much unusable, but Linux Mint runs great on it. I use it for watching movies and TV Shows stored on my file server.
I got my HP Stream for free a couple of years ago from a woman who used it for about 6 months until it's Windows 10 updates bogged it down to the point that it would shut down a few seconds after starting it. For kicks and giggles, Recently I decided to put Linux Mint 22 LTS with the XFCE environment on it. Believe it or not, it's turned out to be a pretty good little computer for what it is. I'm typing this reply on it right now.
I bought an Acer Cloudbook in 2016 because my laptop died unexpectedly. Lower specs than the Stream, but came with Windows 10. It worked well for a year or two. I could even play Stardew Valley on it. But the more Windows 10 became bloated, the worse the Cloudbook became. Now, I just use it to see what Linux distros I can get to run on it.
I have used a similar laptop like this for about 3 years. it was the best i can have at the time due to financial limitations. it's absolutely painful and criminal to go through that experience. these things are unbelievably BAD. didn't technology advance far enough to have better low-end laptops for cheap? why this garbage is still being manufactured?
@@bestcreate1417 it was a long time ago though I was a colleague student at the time and I needed anything to get by. because the old laptop i was using was very beat up. And I barely had any money left. Anyway I now have a gaming PC.
I paid💰that amount on an 11” touchscreen Chromebook Flip (octacore Intel processor & 8gb ddr4 RAM) that turns into a Google tablet. Love ❤️ it. You have to actively look 👀 for that spec & pricing, but I’ve replicated it 3 times (twice for family members that saw mine & wanted).
My mom bought one because her Lenovo one from a few years ago was starting to die. Well imagine our surprise when this one was somehow way worse. It barely worked and was so laggy. My mom got ripped off and that was before shit hit the fan with other things. Screw HP for putting this cheap garbage out there
I’m sure some parents pick this as baby’s first laptop, but I think old people are the real reason these devices are still on the market. As a former Best Buy employee, I can tell you they get a lot of elderly customers looking for the cheapest laptop available, usually declaring to the salesperson that they’re not a gamer. Anyway GamePass would probably work fine if you stick to cloud gaming.
People with incredibly tight budgets tend to make bad decisions because the only thing they value is the price tag and not the product itself. That's how you get a market that'll buy literal garbage if it's cheap enough. Couple that with a "free" 1 year trial of Office 365 and you've got the perfect laptop for unassuming parents to buy for their children and scold them afterwards for complaining that the laptop is trash. It's still sold because people buy it. It's unfortunate that there might never be a steep enough decline in the people buying this to justify better marketing strategies from HP.
There is a market for laptops like this: light productivity, office work, and light web. Maybe it can be used for light media consumption. If you already have a Windows device at home, I would say to get a cheap Android tablet, like the Lenovo M11 and a keyboard/trackpad case instead of this HP laptop. If you don't have a Windows device at home, and $200 is your budget with tax, then this laptop may be all you have to get and you'll just have to take the sacrifices. As long as you know this laptop's limitations, you'll be fine. The problem is that stores are selling it to do more than it can and that's the problem.
I recently found an admittedly used Dell Latitude 3440 for $280. $100 more than this laptop in the video. *The Dell Latitude has a 13th gen i5 in it, came with 8gb ram, and a 256gb SSD.* I say this to say that even though I spent $100 more, the used market is the best option for laptops under $300 IMHO.
yeah second i saw it was an HP Stream i already knew how it was gonna go. That being said if you install Linux on them they actually do perform noticeably better (Had an Asus Flip with the N4020 mounted to the wall for accessing inventory)
man I forgot about netbooks... I got one for Christmas in 2009 or 2010 it was my first pc I didn't have to share with my whole family and I definitely pushed the limits of what it could handle doing lol
My only usable computer is an old ASUS Laptop with literally 3 GB of ram while even my phone has 12 GB and I can't even browse the web with such a slow machine
Out of my mind that i wouldve seen my daily laptop getting reviewed lmao. Please note the HP 14 Is just the general selling name but it was sold with VARIOUS different innards according to its serial number. Mine happens to have i7 128GB+1TB w/ 8GB, saw some even ship with Ryzen 5 or 7, HP just throw everything they had at these decaying shells (i said decaying as these has notorious long term hinge issues)
My grandma got my mom one of these a few years ago. I think it had full win10 installed. it had a 32gb eMMC. Windows not being in S-mode had that drive unable to install a win update in less than a year. My mom never installed anything else either. So we could not fully update the included OS 😐. I spoke with MS and I was explaining my issues with updating and they were shocked that it didn't come with S-mode instead. They even said windows 10 needs more storage than that and not sure why it was ever installed by HP like this. So, it is now running a very lite Linux version and is my garage PC. It was the worst example of ewaste.
When I worked at Best Buy this was the most returned item in the store. It got so bad managers told us to turn customers away from the device to avoid then returns.
Thomas Crooks is back.
This thing is legit weaker than a $200 smartphone wtf
It’s probably weaker than an iPhone 5s from 2013 which is WILD
One surprising thing to me is the Celeron N4120 is better than the Atom processor. So, it's not the absolute cheapest and most worthless CPU they could put in the HP Stream. Still, I think a person would be better off using a base model iPad. And a person might even find mobile Microsoft office apps in Apple's App store.@@jimmy3951
@@jimmy3951 Not really.The single core performance at that price point plus the fact that it is an x86 and not an ARM makes a massive difference. One: upggradability, 2: choice of OS. Put Kubuntu or any Linux on it and it run a lot lot better.
@@domoncar6782 3 bigger screen which we knows wins over majority non tech savvy people lol.
@@domoncar6782 I'm a huge Linux guy, and yes a system like this will run better with a lighter Linux distro on it like Solus Budgie that's still using X11, and not Wayland for the compositor, but it won't be much better simply because of the EMMC storage which performs worse than most class 10 Micro SD cards, the weak Intel Celeron CPU, & 4GB of slow ram.
In fact sitting in my guest room as a backup laptop, I have a old 15.6in(1366X768 720p screen) ASUS laptop I got from e-waste with an Intel Core i3 2310M hyperthreaded dual core that I upgraded to 16GB DDR3 1333Mhz RAM(24 bucks), new battery(18 bucks), and 256GB Netac SATA SSD(26 bucks) that performs better than these HP streams when running Manjaro Solus, the only thing I'm missing vs. something like an HP Stream here, is USB 3.0, and USB C, which is not a huge deal breaker in my book for something that cost me 68 bucks to fix up, that again performs better, and can handle multiple Chrome tabs even playing back UA-cam, and other content at 720p.
I'm kinda in the mood to go out and buy an HP Stream...
Buy an HP 14 Laptop and upgrade the ram to 16gb.
I have one totally would recommend
I bought an basic Asus for £280 and slap SSD in making it quite capable machine for basic needs like text editing watching Netflix video calls and some old games (intel celeron n4020 1,1 GHz 8GB RAM DDR4 and intel UHD 600 integrated GPU)
same
I have an ASUS E410 which basically the same specs I got for $100 at MicroCenter, I tossed in a 1TB NVME SSD that cost just as much as the laptop and honestly Linux Mint was this devices savior. I can actually boot Skyrim at 60fps on this thing and open several tabs in Firefox. Windows 10 or 11 should have NEVER touched these devices with how under-powered with RAM they are.
Thing to consider, I work at a school, we bought these cheaper as we bought in bulk and put chrome flex on them - they work great and actually cost less than the cheapest chromebook.
That doesn't mean they should be sold at Best Buy
@@mkkohls they should make it to school only, not to be sold by retailers.
@@Kenzie_Delvey they can't anymore. Chrome books made a monopoly with many American states
Yeah but think about performance. Time is important for kids
@@JeskidoYT they should at least bump the specs from a emmc 5.1 to an ssd and 128 min and the ram should be 8 gigs
6:23 Austin the laptop chiropractor
Austin Evans finally stopped using an entire can of hairspray🙏
lol
Austin without hair products looks like he's been going though some things 😂
@@Mr_Mcfeely yeah covid, its on his threads
The ozone layer likes this comment
@@C_C-who uses threads? 💀
I remember having one a decade ago in high school. It wasn okay for school reports, and making the occasional power point. I consider it like a first car, it will get you to there eventually without ac.
Nothing against the rest of the crew, but this style of solo Austin content has been incredibly refreshing to see!
I have one of these that has been collecting dust on my shelf for the past 7 years. Ran out of space after a few windows updates. This thing was terrible.
I got one from my uncle when he passed away. Yes, had to do a clean windows install from a usb install media to get the latest windows updates on it and it used most of the drive. I'm guessing you have the 32 GB version, 64 GB on the new ones I think would be just enough to at least be able to install updates. I tried linux for a while and it does use less of the drive, but once the drive is full you can't really install software on external media on linux as easily as you can with windows. Linux wants all the packages and everything to be on a single drive partition with the OS. So I went with Tiny10 and it only used like 10 GB of the drive and is debloated so it doesn't max the processor for stupidly long at boot, it's actually semi-usable now but still lags and the eMMC will die at some point.
180 new is indeed very little but you can get a thinkpad for that price. And not even an insanely old one, you can get a t470s for that
Exactly. And thinkpad laptops are insanelly upgradeable.
I remember watching your video on that blue HP Stream back in the day and here we are today😅
The thing is that Microsoft could make a stripped back version of windows free of the bloat they include just for low end devices. But they know everyone would install that on higher end PCs too, because no-one wants that bloat. They kinda of already make a stripped back version with the LTSC build but they make it difficult for the average user to legally acquire it.
I got a machine with a similar CPU to this very cheap used and one of the first things I did was dig around the options to disable a lot of the windows spy features and it's unreal just how many they sneak into the OS. turned on by default. I mean, honestly, I have little over 1Ghz to play with. Do I really want to send information about every key press I make off to Microsoft?
They do make one, at least for 10, it's called enterprise IoT LTSC, it's what Tiny10 is based off of. Haven't heard one for 11, I think Tiny11 actually had to strip a bunch of stuff out manually.
Tiny 11. That's what I want cause I got a new low spec laptop with windows 11 s mode. I took it off s mode and after getting everything configured it works great but still it's a new laptop with 4g RAM and a Celeron processor. I don't know how to get tiny 11 or do I just delete everything unnecessary?
@@Wehiremonkeyscan you tell me how to optimize my low spec new laptop?
@@danieloshea3326 I had a dig in settings to turn all the Microspyware off, there's plenty of guides for that stuff.
As for my RAM I doubled it for just £5 by typing in the model code and buying an exact match to the existing 4GB module for the empty slot.
A second larger NVME SSD wouldn't hurt either if you have the slot for it.
10:53 don't buy that, the hinge will brake in 6 months
There is a growing requirement in schools lately to do most of your school work on a computer or tablet. Most families can’t afford high end electronics for their kids so having a cheaper option for children’s school work is good. $100 more to some families is a choice whether you eat or not. But how would you know what that’s like?
HD = 720p full HD / FHD = 1080p
What makes Chromebooks better in my opinion is that ChromeOS is designed to run on a low end machine, and as a result, it runs smoother
E-waste straight from the new box.
Yep a 2006 or 2008 MacBook Pro is way better
My brother in law had one of these.. the 64gb eflash storage or whatever was called was so bad it was slower than some hdds. I tried to install windows 10 and linux on it and there were no functional drivers for the crappy wlan card it had.
I've been using mine for years, and these types of computers have SO MANY issues that i don't recommend getting one, but you have to work with what you buy if its the only thing you can afford.
Also, this thing is clearly not made for heavy games but it could probably run most games that was released in the 2000s or 2010s.
hmm that resolution is HD. HD is only 720p, everyone thinks 1080p is HD but thats actually FHD. So yes that laptop does have a HD screen. Granted a bit of a cheap crappy one but its HD.
Its meant for a cheap, breakable not losing much idea of a laptop. Like just kids, streaming, etc. If you dont pay the costs, lots of things only stream in HD (720p) not FHD or better. That's why it exists in 2024. But really never meant for anything past word processing at best, which is why it comes with 365.
But for the cost, even 200 dollar chromebooks suck. To get good ones, youll be paying probably double that price and that's not a price that everyone can afford, especially for something given to a kid. And used market sucks for laptops, especially for cheap ones, they are usually beat to hell or used so hard things are just shit(damaged, broken, etc). I'd never give a kid a laptop that is 400-500+ for every day use, they destroy everything way too easily and not gonna toss hard earned cash at something for them to break. Rather run risk of losing say 200-250 bucks than say 350-450 for them breaking a fancier cheap laptop/used laptop just because it was "a bit faster."
Cheap laptops have a use, even this one, just not a use for everyone. Even 100-150 bucks more is hard for many to afford. That's why lots are using 100-200 dollar or less smartphones that exist because they just can't afford better versions. Is it shit, yep, is it slow, yep, but it will load websites(granted slower), will word process, which is all a school kid needs or anyone who just doesn't do much on a pc.
at this Budget buy used. you can find good options (atleast better than the hp stream) for that price.
Buy used then. Why would you lower your standard to "budget" options when you can have better experiences with yesterday's fine offers?
some $300 chromebooks have good specs for that price
Austin: 1366x768 looks like garbage on a 14" screen
Me: I hear you say that and raise you literally any 32" LCD TV from the mid 2000s. Looking retrospectively from 2025, of course.
I really enjoy this kind of video style. It's changes up things compared to your regular "table content" :)
As a former bestbuy employee i tried to avoid selling that laptop at all cost even though we were told to push it. I always almost begged customers to spend an extra $100 for a laptop that is 4x better. The only time that laptop to me was a good deal was when they would go on sale for $110. The only thing that made it worth the money was a 1 year membership. Within 3 months it will run slower than a turtle.
Solo Austin is back!!
When your phone outperforms this thing:
I almost bought this thing because I was in the market for a light work device. I went with an android tablet with a keyboard attachment instead.
You should have bought a 2015-2017 Macbook Air. You can run Windows. You can upgrade the SSD. You can easily swap the battery because it's not glued in.
@@mattstone8878 Those are great devices indeed. Though I think the M1 MacBook Airs are better. And I highly don't recommend the 2018-2020 MacBook Air. Or the 2015-2017 MacBook. Or the 2016-2019 MacBook Pro. Or the 2011-2012 Macbook Pro.
At least you did better than an HP Stream POS, but next time I would just get a refurbished Lenovo Laptop off their outlet store that still has slots for upgradable RAM, and Storage, then you can stick whatever Linux distro you want on it if you don't like Windows as Lenovo certifies many of their models in the spec sheets to be fully Linux comptable.
@@CommodoreFan64 Or buy a something with an M1 if you can stretch
@@mattstone8878 No thanks, I don't want to be stuck in the Apple ecosystem(yes there Ashi Linux for the Apple M series chips, but It can be a pain to get running, and it's not ready for prime time yet), I like freedom of choice in my OS, and to be able to upgrade my RAM, and Storage, or to be able to replace them if something does fail.
if all you use it for is checking email, word processing, and filling out applications, it gets the job done. If you need to do quite literally anything else. you should get something else. And they do go on sale for close to $100 around black friday. That's when most of them sold when I worked at target, and I did try and convince people to get ANYTHING else.
I have a windows chromebook from 2016💀
Same 😂
I have 3 and they are great
Is it worth it after the updates stop? We get the left over stock from the US and local vendors are advertising it to students. Since everyone has bank accounts these days and they need peace of mind online, I've been asked if they're safe and I don't feel like buying one just to answer the question.
@@hamzasultan96 Yes it’s worth it. My windows chromebook can run a windows 11 vm
Those specs are essentially the same as the Gateway GWTC116 series and the Evolve III Maestro laptops that came out in 2019/2020. The laptop is basically a school/college laptop meant to handle very basic functions in a class environment.
A month ago, picked a Lenovo 500w Gen 3 (11" Intel) 2 in 1 Laptop for $180. It was 12" IPS touch display, Pentium N6000 processor, 128GB SSD and 8GB RAM.
12:37 My 1GB HP netbook with an atom processor running Windows 10 is actually faster than that thing 💀
It really isn't
@@CpslwIt is since windows 10 sucks.
Honestly, I absolutely agree this time. Put in even the worst branded 120GB M.2 SSD, any real i3 even if it's 11th Gen and an FHD screen (bonus points for a light version of Linux like Lubuntu, I mean you are only gonna use a browser on that thing anyway) and the experience will be around 5x as good for 50% more cash.
i had this thing as my 1st laptop but it had windows 10, i got it for christmas, at first i thought it was good but issues started appearing everywhere, "Not enough storage" when taking a simple photo was CRAZY, and after being stored for like 2 months its boot time went from approx 30 seconds to OVER 4 MINUTES. Why HP thought it would be a good idea to put an outdated processor in a modern laptop is beyond me. Not even roblox could run at a smooth framerate, even my old ipad 8 at the time outperformed it.
This was my first ever laptop/pc and i remember playing minecraft at 20fps for about 3 or 4 years on it, now i'm running a system i built myself and seeing it again has brought me back to some dark times
Didn't know you could buy a laptop at a 24 hour fitness :O
I want a video on that
advice: if youre looking for a affordable laptop for school or work i would highly recommend buying a used thinkpad. i bought a t430 slim for 40 bucks and its a fantastic machine. a lot of businesses use thinkpads and they get retired eventually when the company replaces laptops, so theres a lot of them for sale for a cheap price. ebay auctions are the best way to buy them.
Maybe they have sooooo many parts unique to that system that they just have to keep producing them until they can scrap the rest of them. I got a decent chromebook during Prime Days one year and it's perfect for the way my husband uses it, and he's actually that target market for this computer - really only needs an internet appliance. His iPad was fine for what he used it for, but got too old for updates and the battery wouldnt' hold a charge, but he did need something. Something told me to shy away from that HP Cheapo.
I had a version of this a few years ago that came with a Ryzen 3 3300U (or something like that), and a 256gb SSD, I slapped an extra ram stick in there for 8gb and it was a surprisingly decent experience. It still couldn't really game much, but it was fine with multitasking to a point, I could have a half dozen browser tabs, a spotify window, and discord running and it was pretty alright.
I had a £300 version of this with an AMD A6-9225 in 2019. Because of the extra £100 than the cheapest W10, it actually ran decent for the price for a year. It should be illegal to sell e-waste laptops, as they just go into landfill in like a year or two, and when you spend more, you get like 5-10 years out of the device
This thing supports windows 11 but my $1k custom built pc from 5 years ago doesn’t? Huh?
Yes, it's why so many people are pissed at MS for the windows 11 BS "requirements" that aren't actually needed, trying to sell more license keys by forcing people to buy new hardware using security/encryption as an excuse.
One of the schools I would tutor at. They would buy those for the students. They had online text books and it would make it earlier for the schools so the students wouldn’t have to carry a bunch of books
Others would do the same but with android tablets and iPads
I honestly forgot about HP streams. I bought one back in 2015 for college. It was relatively terrible, yes, but totally serviceable for the light workload I used it for in freshman classes at a community college.
The one thing you have to remember about these devices a large amount of the people that are buying them or at least get them bought for them have not experienced anything better so they don't know that it's bad
I bought a Lenovo Chromebook for about $160 a couple of years ago, and it is still my main laptop. It has a foldable display with an IPS touchscreen, 8GB or RAM, and i3 processor and I upgraded to the storage myself. There is literally no reason to buy something like this when you can get a Chromebook, I even do light gaming on Steam (Mainly Sims 4 and older games like Bioshock) and via emulation; it has been a very good machine and eye opening for how solid Chromebooks are nowadays.
I bought, about 6 months ago, a Lenovo with a 5500U processor, 8gb of ram, which is upgradable to 16, an NVME drive and an upgradeable wifi chip. For the same price.
Honestly in my opinion to be serving the budget end of the market at this point computer manufacturers need to start doing what car companies do and promote their Certified Refurbished models more heavily. A midrange or flagship laptop from 3-4 years ago with a new battery would probably run circles around these ultra budget models and honestly it would probably save manufacturers and retailers money to not have to maintain as many SKUs or deal with excess returns.
That wallpaper brought back a lot of memories 😅
Just to share a fun fact, you can get a 15 inch or 13 inch MacBook Pro from 2013/2014 and use a patcher to get a newer version of MacOS for around $200. It won’t be comparable to the newer MacBooks of the recent years, but it would definitely be better than the HP laptop 14.
I purchased a steam in 2015 as my first laptop and it actually kickstarted a lot for me. Although I remember it came with 32gb or storage and came with windows 10. I’m forever grateful to it even though if it broke down two years later
6:23 the laptop wasn't even clipped in properly 💀💀💀💀💀
Man I wanted a netbook SO bad when they came out. A full featured OS in something that small. Now it’s super laughable.
Side note I just sold a laptop for $15 on Facebook marketplace. Bout it for $20 so I could run some update software on a laser cutting machine that’s software wouldn’t run on MacOS and I didn’t want to haul my desktop PC to the laser. I had forgotten how bad of a build quality so many budget laptops have. It was so plasticy and awful from trying to open it, to the keyboard and clicking the trackpad. I’ve been pampered by Apple products and higher end PC stuff for years. I didn’t realize that companies still made stuff that low quality.
I used to work at OD around the time these came about and they were what made me want to ro stop being a salesperson. I had no qualms about telling people it was a bad purchase, especially as long-term product, even on a tight budget. I would always push Chromebooks or even mid-level tablets for school work. The fact they're still making these in today's day and age speaks volumes about how HP and other "reputable" brands push crappy products above everything.
Laptops with screen resolution of 1366x768 are still extremely common here in South Africa. And some of these laptops are not exactly cheap in price.
Got my significant other through undergrad back in 2013-2016. Needed Google docs and notepad basically. Back then you could get it on sale at like 100-150 during black Friday. This replaced her dying 17" MacBook. She was happy with it as it was way lighter, battery life was ridiculous and she commuted to and from school. I'm going to have to dig it out and run Linux on it maybe
My dad got me one sometime around 2021/2022. It was equipped with AMD Ryzen and Radeon for some reason. It started crapping out this year.
It actually became usable if you can upgrade the ram to atleast 8 gb
I actually bought the original Stream 13 for school after watching your video (has it really been 10 years? Seesh!) and it worked fine for a few years, until a version of Windows 10 completely destroyed the performances (I think it was 1703 or 1709, but don't quote me on that). 2GB of RAM was pretty terrible, but it was workable. It's crazy that that laptop is still being sold today with barely more RAM and CPU, it's just a scam at this point.
as an owner of one of these, ill say the only reason i keep it is because its sd card slot for soft modding older things like 3ds‘ or wiis. takes like 30 minutes to download the files but get past that and its alr.
Load Linux Mint
Slap Debian with XFCE onto it and it'll run like a dream.
Yeah but.... run what?
Important to point out that this price segment, outside of Chromebooks, almost never has USB-C/USB-PD charging. While Google mandated it years ago, Microsoft never has - so it's another corner they can and will cut. It saves them probably no more than a dime on the Bill of Materials, but if they sell 200,000 of these, that's $2 million! As an additional 'benefit' to HP, it means that a destroyed power cord will likely be a new machine purchase.
I run an electronics department at a walmart.. these sell well for school and i had to order up an additional 20 for back to school/college sell
i had a turquoise 2016 hp stream when i was 10 years old back then and i strongly hated it.
i destroyed it into bits in November 2020
I bought a similar hp 14 laptop as yours and after 2 years the keyboard chassis breaks in the corner due to the hinge being lifted when needed
I think I can give some context to how slow a system with 4GB of RAM and a celeron is in 24'. I have a Windows 11 laptop with an i3, 16GB of RAM, 256GB SSD, and still Windows crawls into a halt sometimes.
And when I used a Chromebook back in highschool, we prob spend 25%-50%(class time) just logging in.
Either case, ChromeOS is demanding but Windows is very demanding.
I believe over at Microcenter they have a 14" Gateway Windows 11 laptop with a Ryzen 7 3700U, 16gb of memory and a 1TB SSD for like $300 which is an alright and could play some games well enough.
10:30 so true you can buy cheap stuff but hate it the next day it's not worth it
Erm... ChromeOS Flex comes in clutch here!
i think i bought the laptop austin mentioned in this video years ago in 2019 for like 300 euros and used it for years and had always been frustrated with it
I recently bought an HP Victus gaming laptop for $800 on sale with an i7 12th gen and 16GB ram, I used to have a $330 Lenovo Laptop and it was great until windows 11 hit it, my mom would not buy me an HP Stream because of the way it was and the specs of the HP stream gave me shivers…. It’s not good…
I loved my HP Stream when I got it in 2014. Was perfect for just a tiny laptop I could throw in a bag. It ran linux with xfce perfectly and 2G was *just* enough to do even HD youtube back then and light multitasking.
I'm still a big fan of the netbook 11-13 inch form factor, hopefully ARM will make them more viable in the future.
I think the hardware decoding was more why youtube might work more than linux. Linux /helps/ but it can't pull off miracles. I tried linux for a while, but once the drive is full linux doesn't really let you install software on external drives, you can store documents sure, but you can't install stuff from the repo onto an external drive as easily as you can windows. I ended up going to Tiny10, and while it wouldn't work for the 2 GB model as it uses 2 GB just running it does work on the 4 GB model and I could upgrade the ram for like $11 if I /really/ wanted to, but I have other computers to use besides a stream and only have it in the first place because it was my uncles and I don't like throwing away /technically/ working equipment. It's not really good for much though. I have it setup to run an autoclicker on a clicker game just to have it doing /something/ usable, and I will say it's /very/ light on power-consumption, like ~7 watts under load with the screen on low brightness, only like 5.5 watts with the screen closed.
64 GB of eMMC makes this thing less useful than a Chromebook. They often don't have more than that either, but the difference is that Chrome OS is designed to be minimal. Windows absolutely is not, and just with time that'll fill up to the point where you won't be able to install Windows updates anymore without doing a dance every time manually clearing temp data, it's just not worth the hassle. And if you dare to install programs and actually try to use it like a normal laptop, you'll run out of space immediately.
my work still uses pagers which became popular in the 1980's. So yeah that beats the stream
That's so strange I've never seen this laptop here in germany.
But it looks like we're not missing much.
You know, it's funny...I was looking for reviews for this laptop before ordering one, and couldn't find anything negative. Now that I've ordered it, I'm getting actual reviews suggested to me by UA-cam. Strange how that works...
I had bought a Lenovo with similar specs years ago, open box deal at a store so even cheaper. It ran Windows poorly, so I installed Ubuntu on it and it ran just fine for a couple of years until certain keys on the keyboard stopped working.
The thing he doesn't realize if you haven't used a laptop that is faster then you don't realize its slower. I know people that use older laptops and they think its just fine cause they've never used something faster and haven't got used to not waiting for things.
In Geoff Peterson's voice:
"Windows 11 aśśmöde"
Both my parents have one… when you go above two tabs in edge it complains that cpu usage is too high XD
Basically, this is for people who only use the web. They may be college students who don't game and simply use it for Office and to stream.
I had an OG HP Stream untill like a couple years ago and it fully met my needs! It could play downloaded videos (I mostly used it for watching videos in bed) and some retro games. Web browsing was a struggle, but it ran parsec just fine, so I usually just used parsec to stream a web browser running on my desktop pc (a little latency is fine when you're just browsing UA-cam).
Still feeling under the weather? Hope you gwt well soon man. Thnx for the upload
I have an HP Stream myself, I got it from the thrift store for a few dollars. Only 32GB Storage. Windows was pretty much unusable, but Linux Mint runs great on it. I use it for watching movies and TV Shows stored on my file server.
I got my HP Stream for free a couple of years ago from a woman who used it for about 6 months until it's Windows 10 updates bogged it down to the point that it would shut down a few seconds after starting it. For kicks and giggles, Recently I decided to put Linux Mint 22 LTS with the XFCE environment on it. Believe it or not, it's turned out to be a pretty good little computer for what it is. I'm typing this reply on it right now.
A feel like at some point it is better to test the used market than getting new e-waste
I (we) almost buy some random hp compaq dm1, and end up with thinkpad x200t instead
I bought an Acer Cloudbook in 2016 because my laptop died unexpectedly. Lower specs than the Stream, but came with Windows 10. It worked well for a year or two. I could even play Stardew Valley on it. But the more Windows 10 became bloated, the worse the Cloudbook became. Now, I just use it to see what Linux distros I can get to run on it.
I have used a similar laptop like this for about 3 years.
it was the best i can have at the time due to financial limitations.
it's absolutely painful and criminal to go through that experience. these things are unbelievably BAD.
didn't technology advance far enough to have better low-end laptops for cheap? why this garbage is still being manufactured?
U could then buy a used laptop. I also have financial issues, but have bought a gtx 960M Asus ROG wityn i7 that will smoke any sub $500 for only 200
@@bestcreate1417 it was a long time ago though I was a colleague student at the time and I needed anything to get by. because the old laptop i was using was very beat up. And I barely had any money left. Anyway I now have a gaming PC.
As I said at that time U could just have bought a used gaming laptop
@@CertifiedMVP also, congrats for the PC bro
I paid💰that amount on an 11” touchscreen Chromebook Flip (octacore Intel processor & 8gb ddr4 RAM) that turns into a Google tablet. Love ❤️ it. You have to actively look 👀 for that spec & pricing, but I’ve replicated it 3 times (twice for family members that saw mine & wanted).
My mom bought one because her Lenovo one from a few years ago was starting to die. Well imagine our surprise when this one was somehow way worse. It barely worked and was so laggy. My mom got ripped off and that was before shit hit the fan with other things. Screw HP for putting this cheap garbage out there
I’m sure some parents pick this as baby’s first laptop, but I think old people are the real reason these devices are still on the market. As a former Best Buy employee, I can tell you they get a lot of elderly customers looking for the cheapest laptop available, usually declaring to the salesperson that they’re not a gamer. Anyway GamePass would probably work fine if you stick to cloud gaming.
I have the same one but higher end! I never knew how low end they could possibly get!
Ps mine has an 11th gen Intel core i5 and 8gb ram and 256gb ssd
People with incredibly tight budgets tend to make bad decisions because the only thing they value is the price tag and not the product itself. That's how you get a market that'll buy literal garbage if it's cheap enough. Couple that with a "free" 1 year trial of Office 365 and you've got the perfect laptop for unassuming parents to buy for their children and scold them afterwards for complaining that the laptop is trash. It's still sold because people buy it.
It's unfortunate that there might never be a steep enough decline in the people buying this to justify better marketing strategies from HP.
There is a market for laptops like this: light productivity, office work, and light web. Maybe it can be used for light media consumption. If you already have a Windows device at home, I would say to get a cheap Android tablet, like the Lenovo M11 and a keyboard/trackpad case instead of this HP laptop. If you don't have a Windows device at home, and $200 is your budget with tax, then this laptop may be all you have to get and you'll just have to take the sacrifices. As long as you know this laptop's limitations, you'll be fine. The problem is that stores are selling it to do more than it can and that's the problem.
I recently found an admittedly used Dell Latitude 3440 for $280. $100 more than this laptop in the video.
*The Dell Latitude has a 13th gen i5 in it, came with 8gb ram, and a 256gb SSD.*
I say this to say that even though I spent $100 more, the used market is the best option for laptops under $300 IMHO.
yeah second i saw it was an HP Stream i already knew how it was gonna go. That being said if you install Linux on them they actually do perform noticeably better (Had an Asus Flip with the N4020 mounted to the wall for accessing inventory)
man I forgot about netbooks... I got one for Christmas in 2009 or 2010 it was my first pc I didn't have to share with my whole family and I definitely pushed the limits of what it could handle doing lol
My only usable computer is an old ASUS Laptop with literally 3 GB of ram while even my phone has 12 GB and I can't even browse the web with such a slow machine
Retailers near me seem to be offering the N4020 as a standard low end processor, the Dual core variant of the N4120 in this video 💀
In fact, you get the computer for free, you only pay for Office 365 and the operating system and one month of the Game Pass is a good deal
While it might suck to run windows, it'd probably run Debian or Arch just fine.
Out of my mind that i wouldve seen my daily laptop getting reviewed lmao. Please note the HP 14 Is just the general selling name but it was sold with VARIOUS different innards according to its serial number. Mine happens to have i7 128GB+1TB w/ 8GB, saw some even ship with Ryzen 5 or 7, HP just throw everything they had at these decaying shells (i said decaying as these has notorious long term hinge issues)
My grandma got my mom one of these a few years ago. I think it had full win10 installed. it had a 32gb eMMC. Windows not being in S-mode had that drive unable to install a win update in less than a year. My mom never installed anything else either. So we could not fully update the included OS 😐. I spoke with MS and I was explaining my issues with updating and they were shocked that it didn't come with S-mode instead. They even said windows 10 needs more storage than that and not sure why it was ever installed by HP like this. So, it is now running a very lite Linux version and is my garage PC. It was the worst example of ewaste.