Microsoft prepping $199 Windows laptops to fight rise of Chromebooks

During the Worldwide Partner Conference on Monday, Microsoft announced that extremely cheap Windows 8.1 devices will be launched by PC makers Acer, Toshiba and HP. Microsoft COO Kevin Turner revealed that notebooks by the brand HP under the “Stream” series will sell for as low as $199, taking on the Google Chromebook head-on at least by price. Microsoft did not reveal the specs of the Stream laptop nor mentioned if it would run Windows 8.1 RT or the full version of Windows 8.1, but it does look like the fight against Chromebooks has begun within Microsoft. Acer’s low-cost laptop will ship with a 15.6-inch screen and a 2.16GHz Intel Celeron processor, while Toshiba’s will include a 11.6-inch display. According to The Verge, the notebooks running on Intel Celeron chips will help Microsoft’s PC partners push out cheaper devices in the race to the bottom. Google's Chromebooks dominate the low-cost PC segment and as announced by the company at I/O, they will soon get the ability to run some Android apps. The Acer Aspire Switch 10 starts at $ 379.99, along with the $278 Aspire Aspire ES1, as WPCentral mentioned. Turner also revealed that HP is planning to release 7- and 8-inch versions of its "Stream" tablets for $99 during the holiday season. The Acer Aspire ES1 is already available on Amazon. Chromebooks are great PC alternatives for those who need a notebook only for light web browsing or running apps within the browser.  They can also handle a few out-of-the-browser apps and games, however, the hardware limitations such as lack of full-blown office and productivity apps hurt this class of notebooks. With Microsoft making way for cheap Windows notebooks it might fill this gap, making it a viable option over Chromebooks for students and entry-level notebook users. We only hope that in order to keep the prices low, Microsoft does not release underpowered netbooks that we saw before the Ultrabook age.