The HP Stream 14 2021 is just another budget laptop in the market and is not really something that will amaze you. Though you should consider giving it a look if you are looking to buy a budget laptop.
Body and Build
The Hp stream 14 2021 laptop comes with a full plastic body like most of its competitors. But the way it stands out is with its grippy texture that is present on both the inside and the outside of the laptop.
The chassis is not robust. You can feel a bit of deck flex around the keyboard while typing, but I won’t say it’s a deal-breaker.
The HP Stream 14 2021 has two grippy feet that further continue the grippy theme of this laptop.
Keyboard, Trackpad, and Speakers
Keyboard
Though the keyboard has spaced-out keys that allow you to type easily, The keys are flimsy and have a very thin travel.
That would make you feel that these keys would fall out if you shake the keyboard hard enough or if you strike the keys a bit harder.
And as mentioned before, the keyboard also has a bit of flex. So the keyboard is not its strong suit.
Trackpad
The trackpad is also wide and responsive and does the job just fine. But it’s not good at palm rejection. and it’s better to turn off multitouch features and gestures because it seems to not do a good job at registering gestures.
So overall, the trackpad is just okay.
Speakers
The speakers are what you expect. They lack bass, and it’s just mids with high-sounding teeny. And do not max out the sound on these speakers as they will start to sound distorted.
In short, these are fine for watching a youtube video but don’t plan to listen to music unless you have a pair of headphones.
Specs
The specs are what you can expect from this laptop. It comes with a peasant Intel Celeron N4020 that is clocked at 2.6 GHz. The Celeron is not a good choice if you are looking forward to game on the HP Stream 14 laptop.
Celeron is a lower-end option from Intel, and it’s powerful enough to do basic tasks like word processing e.g. MS Word, and basic web browsing.
Even light titles like Minecraft can cripple this poor little Celeron, and this situation is further not helped by the fact that it has Intel Integrated Graphics.
But even at this price point, I didn’t expect this laptop to have a dedicated GPU either.
The HP Stream 14 has 8GB RAM, which is a welcomed addition. There is a model with 4GB RAM, but I won’t recommend it. This is because the experience is not good on windows with just 4 GB of RAM.
But even if you get the 4GB version, you could easily upgrade it with no problem. But I won’t recommend it going beyond 8GB RAM because the Celeron can not handle more than 8GB RAM.
What is not upgradable is the storage on this laptop. I mean, it is kind of upgradable, but it’s not the traditional way. You can not upgrade it via installing a 2.5-inch drive or an M.2 drive.
You can upgrade its storage via installing an SD card that is slow compared to SATA and NVME, which can significantly affect your experience negatively.
Many users report experiencing slowdowns and freezing, but I think that it shouldn’t be that bad because as long as you do normal basic tasks like web browsing, etc. you should be fine.
The HP Stream 14 2021 does have your average WiFi 5 and Bluetooth 5. Along with a 720p webcam that does the job on occasional Zoom calls.
The laptop 41Wh helps it shine that last long, and you could spend the entire day with it on a single charge and can easily last 8 hours with this HP Stream 14 2021 laptop.
The Celeron, while not being much of a powerhouse, helps significantly as it just sips power at 6W of consumption.
Display
The 720p display is awful. The HP Stream 14 2021 laptop has too much glare and doesn’t get bright enough. So don’t plan to take this out on a sunny day, or else you would barely be able to see something.
This is further worsened by the fact that it has washed out colors. So don’t plan to watch videos and movies on it as it’s completely not for media consumption.
Future Upgradibilty and Expansion
The HP Stream 14 2021 comes with Windows 11 out of the box. This should be fine for the most part, though the main issue is the storage and the lack of a SATA or NVME drive. Which option sucks since an SD card is usually slow.
It’s better than nothing; as long as you use the storage to store files, it should be fine.
Other than that, the HP Stream 14 has upgradable RAM, but you shouldn’t do that because the Celeron struggles with more than 8GB ram. But it’s nice that the RAM is replaceable since you can change it out if, in some cases, it goes out.
Software
The HP Stream 14 2021 comes with Windows in S mode. This means you can only install apps with the Windows store.
Which you can get out of and get access to full unrestricted Windows. And I highly recommend that because Windows store is a dumpster fire.
Other than that, I prefer to do a clean install of windows if you know how to do that.
The HP Stream 14 2021 has bloatware that affects its performance, so delete unnecessary software like McAfee, HP utility apps, etc.
But for the most part, just do a clean install. Also, this laptop comes with 1 free year of Microsoft office 365, which is a nice addition.
Conclusion
So, should you buy this? Though what I have said up till now about the HP Stream 14 2021 may give the impression that this laptop is awful.
However, it’s not that bad because most of the things I pointed out about this laptop can only be noticed by tech-savvy people.
So this laptop would be just fine for giving to kids and the elderly. Who may only use it for basic web browsing and occasional zoom calls.
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