I would give this six stars if possible. I haven't owned a device made by HP in some time (more than 10 years), so it's nice to see relevant, current, useful and capable products in their lineup again (that aren't printers). I purchased this to be my HTPC (Home Theater PC) and as an installer, I've seen, built and repaired just about every possible version of HTPC. This was completely painless and required very little in the way of upgrades to be a very capable core device for my home entertainment setup.
Understand that this is no gaming powerhouse, it's a minimalistic design and packaged accordingly. It has a Celeron processor and 2GB of RAM, which does not make for a smooth or fast Windows 8 experience. So two upgrades are required to make this a truly functional, fast Windows PC.
First, upgrade the RAM to 8GB. I found 2 X 4GB DDR3 laptop memory (1600 MHz) here on Amazon for $55. The system will accept up to 16GB, but the processor speed will mitigate the usefulness of that much memory, so 8GB was a good (inexpensive) compromise.
Second, the installed wireless card is terrible. Sitting less than 10 feet from my router, there were throughput issues when streaming video content (and signal levels were mediocre at best). I followed a recommendation and installed an Intel AC7260 card and all of the throughput issues disappeared. I also no longer have trouble connecting a Bluetooth device while WiFi is enabled. The new AC7260 card is also capable of WiDi (wireless display), which was not possible with the original card. I found the wireless card here on Amazon for $35.
While it is possible to upgrade the 32GB SSD hard drive, I chose not to. After completing the Windows 8 setup and uninstalling the bloatware (of which there was very little), there was over 18GB of user space. Plenty enough for the programs, apps and downloads I'll need. I also chose to use a 2TB external hard drive for storage, which allows me to take my media when I travel. If you choose to upgrade the hard drive, bear in mind that the Stream Mini has no SATA connection for a standard 2.5" drive (although it has the same mounting tray as the Pavilion Mini)... so a more creative solution will be required for a standard drive (along with copying the recovery partition to the new drive).
I know that the Intel NUC and Zotac fans will scoff at this review, but that's OK. I spent less than $280 for a fully capable, smooth, fast PC with a 64 bit OS... that is a win all day. I have been using Kodi (formerly known as XBMC) for my media front end and it has performed flawlessly on this PC. Along with browsing and some light gaming, I can't find any flaws. There are four USB 3.0 ports, a full size HDMI port, ethernet port as well as a display port (yep multi display capability built in), so there are plenty of options for connectivity and fast data transfer.
| Standing screen display size | 5 Inches |
|---|---|
| Processor | 1.47 GHz Celeron_2957U |
| RAM | 2 GB DDR3 |
| Memory Speed | 1600 MHz |
| Hard Drive | 32 GB SSD |
| Graphics Coprocessor | Intel Integrated HD |
| Chipset Brand | Intel |
| Card Description | Integrated |
| Wireless Type | 802.11bgn |
| Number of USB 3.0 Ports | 4 |
