Gadgetory

hey guys this is Austin so can you get a decent laptop for under $250 on one hand you could get the Asus Chromebook c300 a 13-inch laptop running Google's Chrome OS on the other you've got the new HP stream 13 a full-blown Windows 8.1 laptop that also comes in at 230 dollars crack open the Chromebook and you'll find the laptop itself along with a compact power adapter unwrap the c300 and you'll see a brushed plastic finish that looks a bit like actual metal and absolutely gets coated and fingerprints the design itself is basic but nice enough it measures in at less than an inch thick and just over three pounds move over to the stream and you'll see it comes with a bigger two piece power adapter along with a link to redeem a Windows Store gift card that isn't quite live yet there's also a year subscription to office 365 which usually costs $100 a very nice addition on a $230 laptop unwrap the stream itself and it is very very blue right now you have the choice between blue and pink which gives a serious contrast with the all-black look of the chrome bulk the stream is a bit thinner however it's also noticeably heavier which probably has more to do with the build quality than anything else open up the lid on the Chromebook and you'll find a 13.3 inch display with a resolution of 1366 by 768 the resolution is basically what you expect at this price point but the colors are poor and the viewing angles are just bad look at the screen at anything besides straight on and everything washes out quickly and on top of that there's some stress behind the panel on my unit causing very noticeable warping on the screen while the size and resolution are the same the display in the stream is a notch above the screen assembly feels much more robust and the viewing angles are better - not amazing but a big improvement when you first boot up a Chromebook it's very straightforward you jump on Wi-Fi and log into your Google account if you already used Chrome it will grab your sync information including bookmarks apps etc on the stream it's typical Windows with a fairly short setup but you'll have to spend a while downloading updates you'll also find some blow we're including McAfee and some HP software all which can be cleared up easily enough with ccleaner with only 17 gigabytes of free space out of the box every little bit helps where the Chromebook has a full sized SD card slot the stream opts for microSD instead which allows you to add an extra 32 gigabytes for less than $20 which is basically a necessity the keyboard on the Chromebook is pretty solid there's a subtle bulging of the spacebar which gives you a comfortable position to type on and since it's running Chrome OS the layout is slightly tweaked including a search key instead of capsule on the strain keyboard is decent but it's a bit mushy er than on the Chromebook and sports an extra row of keys on the right side which can be an annoyance since the home button is right beside backspace the trackpad is unfortunately just disappointing it's not particularly accurate and it doesn't always pick up a tap on the first try not only is the trackpad on the Chromebook bigger but it's also much nicer to use it tracks nicely and supports multi-touch gestures much better than on the stream including swiping with two fingers to go back or to scroll interestingly both laptops are almost identical inside the Chromebook sports a dual-core intel pentium in 28-30 clocked at up to 2.4 gigahertz 2 gigabytes of RAM a 32 gigabyte SSD and a tow 2.11 AC Wi-Fi the stream slightly improves on this with a processor that can run up to 2.6 gigahertz but drops down to wireless-n for Wi-Fi the low-power Pentium allows both laptops to be fanless which combined with SSDs makes them completely silent performance-wise the Chromebook seems to handle the modest specs fairly well playing HD flash video is no problem and with up to 6 or 7 tabs everything stays nice and smooth move over to the stream and it holds up reasonably well however it's clear that running full Windows 8.1 is a bit more demanding in return you're getting a more fully featured operating system basically any Windows application will work on the stream which is a huge plus while you really won't be using this as a hardcore gaming PC the stream can handle lighter games like League of Legends on low settings on the other hand Chrome OS is much simpler if you've never used a Chromebook before it's essentially a lightweight operating system that's entirely built around the Chrome browser for normal web surfing this works great and a lot of apps I use on the desktop are available including Spotify TweetDeck and pocket casts you can also download apps from the Chrome Web Store the work offline like sunrise calendar and even some Android apps like duolingo and vine are now available flash games will work but eating games designed for chrome like Bastion don't always run that smoothly unfortunately if you want to be running full Windows apps on the Chromebook you're out of luck although on the flip side that also means that you don't really have to worry about viruses or bloatware battery life is definitely a highlight for both laptops with such low powered processors you'll easily get a full day abuse out of them and then some if you really think about it it's kind of crazy that you can get a decent laptop for about the same price as a 7-inch tablet while the build quality definitely leaves something to be desired the dual core Pentium and two gigabytes of RAM works well on the Chromebook and the better keyboard and especially trackpad make a big difference in everyday use the screen gives you a much more usable screen more durable build and most importantly full windows performance isn't amazing but being able to run Windows apps is a huge plus so would you pick up the streamer Chromebook definitely be sure to let me know in the comments below anyway I've got to give a big shout out to play vs. for making this video possible play vs. is a cool new app that's all about playing games while supporting your favorite sports team there's a whole list to choose from which are surprisingly fun you've got everything from kicking field goals to an endless runner my favorite part is that they're nice and simple perfect for playing when you've got a couple minutes free best of all you earn points by playing against your friends which you can use to redeem actual prizes like game consoles event tickets and more just by playing definitely be sure to check it out in the link in the description and give it a try play vs. is totally free anyway guys thank you so much for watching and I will catch you in the next one