HP’s Chromebook Killer Kills Itself with a $299 Price Tag

When the HP Stream was revealed earlier this year as a laptop that was to be used primarily for online use by connecting to cloud databases, its promised $199 price point made it quite the competitor for the Chromebook.

While the price was originally promised by Microsoft, HP revealed today that the price will actually be placed at $299.

But unlike Chromebooks, who can only use Chrome-based apps and services, the HP Stream is loaded with Windows 8, so the price point should even itself out, right?

Not exactly.

At $299, the specs of the HP Stream are a little disappointing as they are nearly identical as that of $199 Chromebooks. They include a 1.6GHz AMD A4 processor, 2GB of RAM and a 32GB SSD for storage.

The problem with these specs is the fact that you can purchase a fully-fledged Windows 8 laptop with higher specs for less than $299. This includes the ASUS Model # X551MAV-RCLN06, a laptop that comes with a 2.16GHz Intel Celeron processor that has the potential to boost itself up to 2.41GHz, if need be, 4GB of RAM and a 500GB hard drive.

The price of this laptop? $229 at Best Buy.

Originally intended to be a high competitor, or Chromebook killer, for the many Chromebooks that exist today, the simple move to a $299 price tag makes this laptop a poor alternative to the budget-oriented devices.