How US$319 Pavilion and US$179 Stream Mini with Windows 8.1 and OneDrive Cloud is a Chromebook killer

HP (Hewlett Packard) made a big splash at CES (Computer Electronics Show) 2015 in Las Vegas, Nevada with a Mac Mini small product.

I’m of course referring to the now well known US$319 Pavilion Mini and the US$179 Stream Mini desktop PC that are super small and super cute desktop computers as described in the article “HP Shrinks the Desktop With 'Mini' Pavilion, Stream PCs”, published JANUARY 5, 2015 08:00AM EST BY JOEL SANTO DOMINGO, PC Magazine.

Available since Wednesday January 14th 2015, the Pavilion Mini and the Stream Mini are portable, always-connected Windows 8.1 PC replacements for Desktop PC.

They're meant to be the next evolution in the Desktop Pc but are also designed to take on the Google Chromeboxes as stated in “HP takes on Chromeboxes with $180, Windows-based Stream Mini PC”, published Jan 5, 2015 5:00 AM by Gordon Mah Ung, PCWorld and come with lots of computing muscle and Cloud Storage courtesy of Microsoft OneDrive and Dropbox.

They represent the continuation of Microsoft partnership with HP to make the Stream series of Windows 8 computers that are cheaper and competitive pricewise when compared to the Google Chromebook and Chromebox devices.

They're already launched the US$200 11.6" HP Stream Notebook and the US$230 13.3" HP Stream Notebook and then a pair of budget Windows 8.1 Tablets, the US$100 7" HP Stream 8 Tablet and the US$150 8" HP Stream 8 Tablet as reported in my blog article entitled “US$200 HP Stream Netbooks and Tablets – Microsoft floating Windows 8.1 on Free 1TB Microsoft OneDrive Cloud against Google's Chromebooks”.

So for US$180, is this a better deal than a US$179 Dell Chromebox as described in the article “Dell brings Google's Chrome OS to desktops with new Chromeboxes”, published Sep 4, 2014 1:41 PM by Agam Shah, PC World.

Well for one, it’ll bring you the power of Microsoft Windows 8.1 plus the Cloud at a cheaper price

HP Pavilion Mini and the Stream Mini - Microsoft Windows 8.1 Desktop with OneDrive Cloud

The specs of the Pavilion Mini and the Stream Mini are quite impressive as one would expect that they'd be severely scaled down PC. Instead, they have the full computing power of fourth-generation Intel Processors, enabling them to do wonderful thing and yet still be a pack-up-and-go type of experience, the closest thing to portable.

The Pavilion Mini sports dimensions of 5.08 cm 14.478 cm square (2" by 5.7" square) and weighs in at about 0.765kg (1.5lb). Under the hood the Pavilion Mini revs up with a fan cooled Intel Pentium 3558U Processor that's supported by 4GB of RAM and a small 500GB Hard-drive, at least by standards measured in 1TB sizes. It only uses 45 W, so that fan may be a bit noisy.

Oh, and it has a silver chassis.

The HP Stream Mini is the exact same size, but its chassis is coloured blue and not silver. Still, it's a lot faster than it's sibling, spotting a Intel Celeron 2957U Processor with support from a 2GB RAM but a super-fast 32GB SSD (Solid State Drive).

So that's plenty fast Virtual page read and read/write Hard-drive times for the HP Stream Mini when compared to its Hard-drive totin' sibling, the Pavilion Mini.

Good to note here you get nice ports and accessories as noted in the article “HP shrinks the desktop into the Pavilion and Stream Mini”, published January 5, 2015 5:00 AM PST by Dan Ackerman, CNET News.

Both the Pavilion Mini and the Stream Mini come with the following ports:

1.      DisplayPort

2.      Ethernet port

3.      HDMI port

4.      four (4) USB 3.0 ports

The presence of the DisplayPort and HDMI port suggest that you can connect multiple HD Monitors without the use of a Y-shaped DisplayPort adapter. Interestingly, Internet connectivity is baked into these portable desktop replacements and it's the superfast kind, 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi. Bluetooth 4.0 assures you that this produce is not only windows 8.1 friendly but Smartphone ready.

Good thing it come with Wi-Fi, as the limited Storage of both of these machines means that Cloud is a must.

Though faster, the limited local SSD Storage means that the Stream Mini is meant for online streaming and working on files in the Cloud. To facilitate this, HP includes 200GB of Microsoft OneDrive Storage for two (2) years for the HP Stream Mini and 25GB of Dropbox Storage for six (6) months for the Pavilion Mini.

So do you see a US$319 Pavilion Mini and the US$179 Stream Mini desktop PC in your future? If yes, then the price is right for Windows 8.1 on a Steam portable Desktop PC floating into the OneDrive Clouds!

US$319 Pavilion Mini

US$179 Stream Mini