HP crashes into the market with a $99 Windows tablet and a $199 Windows notebook

The race to the bottom is back. Echoing the netbook wars of yesteryear, HP followed Toshiba's lead with a $99 tablet and the introduction of a $199 Windows notebook. Expect to see these colorful devices at your local department store to see.

HP hasn't disclosed the specs of these Windows 8 machines. That's intentional and as we've been saying for years the spec is dead anyway. HP is clearly hoping to sell these devices on price alone, although both are a year Office 365 and 60 minutes of Skype calls per month included.

The 7-inch HP Stream 7 costs $99, while the 8-inch HP Stream 8 costs $149 and includes 200MB of LTE data each month. The 11-inch HP Stream 11 notebook costs $199 $, the 13-inch HP Stream 13 is also $229.

These machines are aimed squarely at Chromebooks. With the well-known Windows brand, Microsoft and its hardware partners like HP and Toshiba hope to stem the tide of consumers searching and finding something new in Google's enticing Chromebook hardware.

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