Here's that "faster and easier way", in case you ever face a situation. Windows 8 has two similar features -- Restore and Reinstall. Once upon a time, re-installing Windows was a horrifying process. Not only because it took so long, but you had to reload all of your programs and settings. With "Reinstall," the process only took about 20 minutes (I don't know exactly how long, because I wandered off for a half hour and let it simply run in the background). And because now when you install you sign in with your Microsoft Account - all of the programs and apps you have from the Microsoft Store get automatically reloaded, along with the settings! I ended up with a clean installation and only had to re-load three programs I had put on myself. It was as easy as could be, worked like a charm, and is a great feature. The Stream 7 is sort of a companion product to the Stream 11. And it's another remarkable product from HP for many of the same reasons. 99. No, really. I mean it.
29. For a full, Windows 8.1 tablet. Keep in mind, too, that with the Office 365 subscription, you can install Office 365 on a desktop computer, as well. And you get that same gargantuan 1 terabyte of OneDrive cloud storage. I'm almost tempted to stop there. 29) should be enough for most people to know if it's something that interests them. But I'll go on a bit more. I found the Stream 7 very responsive. It boots up quickly, though I found I had to hold the Power button for a few seconds. Apps load very fast, and swiping and switch between the Start screen and Desktop and near-immediate. Storage and memory is limited. There's 32 GB of storage and 1 GB of memory, but I haven't found that a problem. Even after installing Office 365 and a few other Windows programs (something possible because, remember, this is a full Windows device) I still had over 10 GB of storage yet. It also uses the Atom processor, which is very lower power, though allows for a longer battery life. I found that battery life to be pretty good, though not tremendous.
It depends on what you're doing, but for basic usage I found the Stream able to get 5-6 hours. The Stream 7 is light, just 12.3 ounces (compared to the iPad mini which is 12 ounces), but in a sort of twist of illusion, it feels heavier. Perhaps that's because it's thicker - it's not "thick," just 1/3-inch - or because of the solid build. Not a bad thing, of course, and ultimately it is just about the same weight, but that's the perception. It's not the highest resolution, at 1280x800 pixels, so you're not getting a Retina display, but I found the resolution crisp and clear and good. For security, I wanted to have a lock screen block access whenever I hit the Power button. It was easy to configure that through Windows, but the lock screen wouldn't appear. After a bit of research, it turns out that this is because of a feature of Windows (not a fault of the tablet), and incredibly easy to fix - but you have to know it.
The short explanation is that because the tablet is configured for FastOpen, allowing it to boot up quickly, the tablet never officially shuts down, even though you think it is. There's a trickle of power still on. But for the lock screen feature to be enabled (and many other like-features) they require an actual re-boot. So, what you do is not use the "Shut down" option for Windows, but a manual shut down by just holding the Power Button for something like 5 seconds. The completely shuts down the tablet. When I booted up after that, the lock screen appeared just as I wanted. I think most tablets are impressive devices. The iPad is great, and I have an Android tablet. But they've never interested me all that much, because they're more entertainment devices for email, browsing, playing games and watching movies. Windows systems, tablets included, are productivity devices. They run on actual Windows, after all.
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