I'm writing this review from this very laptop I've had for all of 2 hours. First and foremost, I already have firefox downloaded and the S mode disabled. Took like 10 minutes. Went to mozilla, tried to download, then a popup asked me if I wanted to disable S mode for free. Select yes, let it do its thing and now I have regular windows 10. Peasy.
This thing is a miniature version of our HP15. The keyboard is great quality, nearly identical to our HP15 which doesn't have the premium keyboard. But it lacks the 10 digit numerical pad to the right side, which I don't particularly miss. There are number keys 1-0 up top here. I don't do a lot of data entry, and I'm sure as hell not going to be doing any mobile banking in the middle of a Starbucks. U do that stuff at home where no one can see your keystrokes anyway, or hack your computer. I'm really able to use it well as a touch typist, it supplies a light click touchback with predictable force across the different keys. Touch typists know this can be important. Little things like sticky or wonky keys can really mess up your flow. It's pleasantly quiet with a polite click rather than the intrusive clack clack of some keyboards. The mousepad is quite responsive. Not top notch, mind you, but for this little thing, very good and quite usable. It does two finger scrolling more precisely than the more expensive HP15, which is to say, not stellar but ok. You can also left and right click with light touch or with pushing the mouse pad like a button. This feature is quite sensitive and impressively functional for this size and price. Though do what everyone else does and get a good wireless mouse.
It of course, is much smaller, lighter than the HP15 (which I use as comparison because we happen to own it, and its similarity to this model) and great for on the go. No DVD/CD drive, fewer ports and smaller 11.5" screen are mostly responsible for that. But perhaps most significantly, so is the lack of a real hard drive. It has solid state memory (sturdier, lighter than "normal" hard drives with discs and moving parts inside), which also means it doesn't have very much. 32gb built in. Pretty underwhelming. It does have a micro SD expansion slot, and some of these micro cards pack quite a bit of memory, depending on how much you want to pay, and they can get pricey. I've seen them go up to 400 GB. Keep in mind that some essential programs - like Windows - can only be stored on internal memory and can't use an SD card. It has 2 USB ports and an HDMI port, so you could use an external hard drive or a flash drive for extra memory if you wanted. Comes with 1 yr free Microsoft cloud storage with up to 1 TB. Never used it, haven't signed up for it. No idea how much it costs after 1 yr. Not sure I trust it, either...but anyway, its an option.
It also comes with 1 year of microsoft office, which is pretty darn sweet cuz that sweet suite is expensive. Haven't used the most recent iteration, so can't comment on that, but if its anything like it was in 2010-2012 should be good stuff.
It looks like it can run 2-3 apps at the same time, depending on the app of course. I wouldn't use it for anything but "light" gaming. It can struggle with its whopping (read: not whopping) 4 GB RAM. Has an intel celeron N4000 processor, so about 1.1ghz. Fast, but quite limited by its unimpressive 4 GB. Which, I wouldn't get any laptop that had less than that, and many of the competitors do have less at very similar prices. If you're looking for a powerhouse, high performance machine, look elsewhere. My intended use is for on the go light browsing, checking emails, voice chatting without lugging a large heavy laptop around. I barely notice the weight in my bag. It seems to fit the bill perfectly so far. I'll try to come back and make comments as I have it for a bit longer.
5/2/19 Update: Still loving this thing. Corrected some mistakes above like the processor speed. I have been using this thing, surfing, typing, changing settings for the past 1.5 -2 hrs from full battery, and is now at 88%. This battery is really impressing me so far. Half expecting that as I use this more, and the battery becomes more drained, how fast the battery drains changes. You've likely noticed these battery inconsistencies in your devices before. You know that after XX% on the battery, its all downhill from there, discharges quickly after that. We'll see if this does that. Will leave on standby overnight, see where the % is tomorrow. Also have yet to try camera for skype, alexa, etc.
5/21/19: No battery inconsitency. Speed of drain seems constant and predictable. I have left this thing on standby for over a week with only about 12% drop in power. Very impressive. The HP15 would have been dead after a few days on standby. Also, the more I use the mouse and keyboard, the more impressed I become with them. I said above the mouse in particular is "not stellar but ok". I take this back. Like a new phone, it takes a little getting used to, but I now find myself using a wireless mouse less and less and just using the built in mousepad. Sensitive and accurate. I highly recommend this laptop, I've been very impressed with it so far. Just be sure you know what you'll be using it for and its limitations and you shouldn't be disappointed. I would buy it again in a heartbeat.
| Standing screen display size | 11.6 Inches |
|---|---|
| Screen Resolution | 1366x768 |
| Max Screen Resolution | 1366 x 768 |
| Processor | 1.1 GHz celeron |
| RAM | 4 GB SDRAM |
| Memory Speed | 2400 MHz |
| Hard Drive | 32 GB Emmc |
| Graphics Coprocessor | Intel UHD Graphics 600 |
| Chipset Brand | Intel |
| Card Description | Integrated |
| Graphics Card Ram Size | 2 MB |
| Wireless Type | Bluetooth, 802.11ac |
| Number of USB 2.0 Ports | 1 |
| Number of USB 3.0 Ports | 1 |
| Average Battery Life (in hours) | 12.5 Hours |
