I bought a Stream 8 a couple of months ago. I was looking for something that I could take notes with in class, and something that could handle a moderate amount of web surfing. I have held off on writing a review to be sure that I had enough real world use of it to go off of, and I think I do.
I paired the Stream 8 with a Belkin Bluetooth keyboard that I had, and it works great. About 85% of the time, I'm using the Stream 8 to take notes in class. Through school, I already have Office 365, and it works great. I like the OneDrive integration. The rest of the time, I'm web surfing. I haven't bothered to download another browser, and I've been using the IE that comes installed. Web sites load pretty quickly and well, but I'm curious what my experience would be with Chrome, maybe. I keep the tablet on Wi-Fi pretty much all of the time, between home and school, and the Wi-Fi radio works great, no complaints. I have heard that other people are struggling with the free T-Mobile data activation (I've got the 5901), but I was able to do it on the first day (it was a little problematic, IIRC...I think I was getting timeouts from the T-Mobile site at first...anyway, I was patient and I got activated, so). I haven't used the T-Mobile data once. I thought it would be cool to have an emergency connective capability, and I guess it is (for what 200 MB is worth), but Wi-Fi is everywhere so I don't know that I'll ever use it. The processor speed is snappy enough, no complaints there. I had already used the Win 8 interface on a touchscreen, so I didn't have any of those "learning curve" complaints. The touchscreen itself is good and responsive. Sometimes it's tricky if, for example, I want to go back a few sentences in my notes and make a text correction - touching to drop the cursor in just the right place...I guess you could expect that with man hands vs. 8" touchscreen. The touchscreen is very reflective, so you're not going to use this tablet much in the sun. Also, the screen accumulates finger smudges in no time. Not a huge deal to me. After I bought the tab, I was concerned that I should have held out for a tablet that had 2 GB of RAM instead of the 1 that you get with the Stream 8, but actually, it's never been an issue for me. Like I said, I just use it for notes in Word and web surfing, so I guess the 1 GB of RAM is plenty sufficient. I read that Stream 8 may get the Win 10 update, and I'm hoping that the RAM remains sufficient when/if that happens. I have heard that other people experience a tinny noise from the tablet when they plug into it for music. I don't listen to music on it, but I've seen enough of those complaints that I'll assume it's true. I've read that the best workaround is Bluetooth headphones, and if I start using the tablet for a lot of audio, I'll go down that road. A minor annoyance is the lack of a powering up % indicator, to let you know where you stand on battery when you've got it charging. Also, if you put it in sleep mode instead of shutting down (which I nearly always do), it's still leaking power, and it'll likely be near dead if you come back to it 10 hours later. I don't really mind that stuff, since my phone needs to be charged nightly; I'm used to it. On a full charge, I can get through an 8 hour school day and still have about 30-40% left when I get home (mind you, I'm taking notes in Word for 85% of that - your mileage may vary).
In any event, I have to say that I'm pretty satisfied, overall. I bought the tab at $150, and I think it's a pretty good value, at that. If you can get it for less, do it, but if 150 is the best you can do, I think that you're getting your money's worth.
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