Cloudbooks are taking over the market as the go-to entry level machines and giving Chromebooks a run for their money. These laptops feature a very affordable price tag and a set of specs that make them good at entry level tasks as well as the best "travel laptops" available, bringing you the best of Windows 10 in a small yet compelling form factor.
Today we're determined to get to the bottom of one of HP's latest bets in this segment; the HP 14-an010nr. This cloudbook comes with a polished design, 32GB of eMMC storage, 4GB of RAM and Windows 10 home. Now, without further ado, let's take a look at our review of the HP 14-an010nr.
Pros: Quad core AMD processor, 4GB of RAM, lightweight design, 14 inch HD display, low price, a lot of connectivity options.
Cons: 32 GB of eMMC storage.
HP 14-an010nr In depth look at an affordable cloudbook
Display and Design
The HP 14-an010nr arrives with a curious form factor of 14 inches. This is odd since generally we either see 13 or 15 inch laptops but very rarely 14 inches. That said, 14 inches of display delivers the best compromise between screen size and ultimate portability, making them an ideal fit for those users who aren't comfortable with the "conventional sizes".
The build quality is pretty good as it reminds us of some of the upper-end HP models with a brushed metal design that separates this model from other cheap cloudbooks in the market.
The display is a 14 inch HD WLED-backlit display with Brightview technology. It's pretty much the same technology you'll find on most laptops within this price range.
Finally, the weight is pretty compact, and though this laptop comes close in size to its 15 inch counterparts, the weight of it is much closer to that of the 13 inch models, weighing roughly 3.8 pounds.
Let's talk performance
Performance on the HP 14-an010nr is based on an AMD Quad-Core E2-7110 processor clocking in at 1.8 GHz. This is a pretty good processor with 2MB of caché and four cores (as you might've inferred by the name). Overall, it's a very low voltage CPU (15W) that can be compared to an Intel Core i3 4th generation in terms of brut performance.
System memory isn't too bad either with 4GB of LPDD3 SDRAM. This is more than enough RAM for an entry level system or a travel laptop. Unless you're planning on running several apps at any given time on this machine then 4GB should be more than enough to offer you a reasonable multitasking experience without expecting it to behave like a top of the line notebook.
By reasonable I mean a good 3-4 apps running at the same time without much issue. Sure, it's not the ideal setting for programmers or graphic developers but for people who are intending on using this laptop to get some work done on the go, watch movies, browse the web and other "average activities", this laptop should be more than capable of footing the bill.
Finally, as you'd expect given the price tag, this is not a gaming laptop. With an AMD Radeon R2 graphics chip this is about as far away from a gaming laptop you're gonna get next to DDOS laptops. That said, stuff like SIMS 3 and simple 2D games could run well but we do not recommend this laptop for heavy gaming.
eMMC storage and a strong battery life
Storage on the HP 14-an010nr we're reviewing is based on a single 32 GB eMMC Solid Drive. This is a solid state storage but it's not to be confused with the traditional SSD drives that you'll find on the upper end of the market (or even the mid range if you know where to look).
Overall, it beats traditional hard drives but it falls short from the performance found on SSD storage options.
In terms of battery life, it's pretty good with up to 6 hours of battery life. This is due to the low consumption CPU as well as the fact that there are no mechanical parts operating in this laptop. That said, it's always healthy to expect a but less so we're gonna assume that actual battery life is around 5 hours which still sounds pretty good for an entry level netbook.
Anything else I should know?
In wrapping this review we should also point out towards the connectivity options which, to our surprise, are quite abundant. In this regard we've got an HDMI output, VGA output, ethernet port, audio jack as well as a couple of USB 2.0 ports and a standalone USB 3.0 port for fast data transfers.
There's also an advanced webcam as well as DTS sound technology, pretty good for video chatting. As we mentioned previously, the 14-an010nr comes pre-installed with Windows 10 so you'll get a chance to work with all the standard Windows apps available.
Closing statements: Is this cloudbook worth it?
Of course this is an entirely subjective question. That said, after our review of the HP 14-an010nr we can safely say that this is a pretty good cloudbook that doubles as an excellent entry-level laptop or even a secondary laptop for when you don't wanna carry around a hefty 15 inch model around.
We're pretty happy with the CPU in place as well as the battery life and abundant connectivity options. Storage is a bit on the lower end of things but this can be easily solved by using an external hard drive to store all the important information you don't wanna lose. All in all, this seems like a pretty solid choice for a wide gamut of users in search for an affordable laptop on the go.