Cheap 32GB Windows 10 Laptops HP Stream etc...

alembicbassman

The run up to Christmas saw many retailers offering deals on Windows 10 Laptops installed with a 32GB solid state memory.

They're sold as having a fast solid state memory, but what they don't tell you is that Windows 10 and the pre-installed apps take up about 22GB of that 32GB

You can buy external drives and USB sticks with more memory, but if you want to re-install Windows to its factory settings or install one of the 'feature' updates from Microsoft you will find it very difficult. You cannot move the operating system files to an external drive. The updates and recovery require a certain amount of space on the C drive.

If you don't have the requisite space it is a hell of a job trying to delete programs and clean the drive to get that space.

If you got one of these for Christmas, take it back before the 30 days return period is up and get at least a 64GB SSD or 500GB SATA hard drive model.

I have had my Acer 2 years now and dread the big Windows updates.

theroamingnomad

I had one of those exact laptops but found the money saved by buying one to be a bit of a false economy and got a nice little 7th gen i5 with 8GB of ram and a 256GB SSD, made by Medion, instead.

The processing power and display tend to be the biggest letdown on those models.

Mr.Generous

Amazing really that 32gb isn't enough space. Op system and essential software all becoming bloated, when you think they don't do much Windows XP did, and a 20gb hard drive was more than enough for most people. I had a 10gb drive on windows ME and a 2.gb drive for my first windows 98 pc.

toshi

alembicbassman wrote: »

The run up to Christmas saw many retailers offering deals on Windows 10 Laptops installed with a 32GB solid state memory.

They're sold as having a fast solid state memory, but what they don't tell you is that Windows 10 and the pre-installed apps take up about 22GB of that 32GB

You can buy external drives and USB sticks with more memory, but if you want to re-install Windows to its factory settings or install one of the 'feature' updates from Microsoft you will find it very difficult. You cannot move the operating system files to an external drive. The updates and recovery require a certain amount of space on the C drive.

If you don't have the requisite space it is a hell of a job trying to delete programs and clean the drive to get that space.

If you got one of these for Christmas, take it back before the 30 days return period is up and get at least a 64GB SSD or 500GB SATA hard drive model.

I have had my Acer 2 years now and dread the big Windows updates.

This is a very decent advice, in addition, the flash memory storage used by these cheap disposable notebooks is called eMMC, which is much slower than SSD. (Solid State Drive)

https://www.howtogeek.com/196541/emmc-vs.-ssd-not-all-solid-state-storage-is-equal/

You really should avoid these cheap and nasty disposable grade devices, (you can get a far better business refreshed notebooks as the same price.)

Happy computing

Dandytf

I purchased Asus win10 32gb approx 1 year earlier.
No more win10updates for past few months.
I have read some guides on using flash drive to increase 32gb thought not a simple solution.
No concern at all from eMMC drive speed-seeems fast enough for browsing/word/excell.
I’ve been there with previous i5 laptop-I can make use of Asus atom 32emmc.
Thought ipadpro 10.5 is since become my primary device.

toshi

Dandytf wrote: »

I purchased Asus win10 32gb approx 1 year earlier.
No more win10updates for past few months.
I have read some guides on using flash drive to increase 32gb thought not a simple solution.
No concern at all from eMMC drive speed-seeems fast enough for browsing/word/excell.
I’ve been there with previous i5 laptop-I can make use of Asus atom 32emmc.
Thought ipadpro 10.5 is since become my primary device.

Thank you for an input, yes, eMMC is still faster than a hard disk. But the biggest problem here is that you have pointed out correctly, eMMC is not upgradable, as the most of cheap notebooks do not have have SATA (or M.2) interface, then this will be significant disadvantage to upgrade to bigger size of an SSD. I expect that the SSD will be cheaper and bigger in near future.

Happy computing

alembicbassman

Mine came with Windows 8.1 which was changed to Windows 10 using the free download in August 2016. It managed that OK.

The large Windows 10 Creator's Update was a challenge.

Microsoft have recently done a Windows 10 Feature Update (officially launched in October but taking a while to roll out) which has just taken me 5 attempts to load.

A clean install of Win 10 requires at least 8GB of free space on the C drive. Even then it's touch and go whether it takes it.

I still have a 2009 HP desktop running Win 10 (although I have a set of Windows 7 install discs for backup)

You can still perform a clean install of Win 10 on that machine after reformatting back to Win 7 provided you upgraded to Win 10 during the free period.

toshi

Just before another black Friday, quick reminder, don't buy cheap and nasty disposable junks.


Well, as I have to say again, just get an SSD. Wow, 500GB around 50-70 pound!! How lucky you are. No more new computers, Get an SSD, be happy! save big money:A

misterbarlow

My sisters bought a HP stream between them for my son last xmas...
As soon as we booted it up and saw the 32Gb drive I knew it would cause problems..

Like you said, within a few months with some big windows updates it was slowing up totally, my son kept moaning about lag, task manager showed disk at 100% all the time, it was trying to download an 8Gb update with only 3gb drive left and would run out of space and just freeze up.

I did everything I could but could not free up enough space to get the update downloaded most I ever got it down to was about 23Gb....

In the end I 'found' a copy of Win10 "lite edition" online and was forced to install that!
I don't know whats stripped out, but it was the latest build, and once installed it only takes up 15Gb and seems to work fine...