First StreamBook is out, not from HP but from Asus, the guys who made netbooks popular. Asus is even using the Eeebook moniker, which denotes netbook (and is something they own instead of StreamBook which they do not)
http://liliputing.com/2014/09/asus-eeebook-x205-netbook-reborn-199-euro-noteb...Asus EeeBook X205: the 2.2 pound all day life "netbook" reborn as a $199 notebook "The EeeBook X205 features an Intel Atom Z3735 Bay Trail processor, a 1366 x 768 pixel display, 2GB of RAM, 32GB to 64GB of solid state storage, and up to 12 hours of battery life.
It’s basically what you’d get if you took the guts of a cheap Google Chromebook and threw Windows on it instead of Chrome OS… or possibly what you would have seen by now if netbooks had evolved into laptops instead of sort of fading away for a few years."Asus has swung pretty much low end on the unit, making up a netbookish take on the StreamBook.
However, Asus
can make a very slim profit on this unit, which may or may not play true with the 14" HP StreamBook when it comes out with its better specs, keyboard and screen size.
Reviews are pending awaiting arrival of the units. Unless Microsoft has done something to BingOS to make it run a lot better on smaller resources
folks are anticipating Chromebooks to run a lot better/quicker than the similar priced BingOS units.
Also note that with everyone going to MS Office On-Line and bookmarking the pages for Word, Excel and Powerpoint on their Chromebooks, so having Microsoft out there saying that you can't do Office on a Chromebook is pretty much not true any more.
Microsoft will likely now try to somehow exclude Chromebooks from using their free Office On-Line web pages and that will get them a lawsuit or two pretty quick like.
Plus, there are Chrome store apps already in the Chrome Store that allow your Chromebook to identify itself as an old version of Windows IE to those sites that try to say "we only support MS products" or "this site can be best viewed by Internet Explorer".
The Chrome wars are up and going now, with two vendors now placing matching cased Chrome and Windows warriors out there on the very low end of the fighting field. Their swords are still sheathed though as they haven't reached the reviewers yet.
Once again, very good direct comparisons will be able to be made as Asus makes the exact same unit in a Chromebook.
Microsoft has now joined Intel in "staying in existence" by loss leader spending. In both cases, the companies MUST come out with a competitive product soon before their loss leader spending runs their bank accounts dry.
Neither company is making any real profit from their mobile forays, and now their low end laptop businesses have gone under water too.
Both are resorting to bribes, free products and loss leader spending.
Bribes and free products can only keep you going for so long, eventually you will have to make a customer acceptable OS version (or some inexpensive integrated chipsets) with a low enough cost posture that allows you to make a real profit doing it.
Both companies have had to cannibalize their low end (profitable) product lines as the march of ARM and Open Source has begun eating them up from below the knees like piranha in a shallow stream crossing.
What is scary is that consumers are realizing that phones, tablets and Chromebooks/netbooks can indeed do 95%+ of what the family needs done on a regular basis.
One (1) old style full Windows desktop/laptop unit (the family antique) sitting in the den hooked up to a scanner and a wifi E-printer can supply the remaining elephant power for what the family only occasionally needs.
And as the net based stuff keeps getting better and better and better, that required "occasional elephant use" will decline until the old den unit can be thrown out as unneeded.