Crap, So/So, or Great. Depending on who you ask.
My opinion for a person who does not own one but has been reading reviews and looking at the testing metholdogy, the Battery Life is not great if you look at this subjectively (like a human would do through daily use). But you are getting what you pay for (It is $80, and it may get a $25 windows store credit)
This is what notebook check said about the battery
HP Stream 7 Notebook Check Review
Testing Mythology
Battery Life
We have to congratulate HP on a job well done as far as power management is concerned - and the run times on battery confirm it. We were able to browse the Internet for over 10 hours and could watch HD videos for about 9 hours. The other competitors don't even come close. The fact that the HP Stream 7 doesn't offer the longest battery life under full load doesn't really matter, since that scenario is not relevant on a daily basis.
Battery Runtime
- 15h 26 min Idle (without WLAN, min brightness)
- 10h 03 min WiFi Surfing (around 150 nits brightness, script that changes webpages every 40 seconds)
- 08h 56 min Big Buck Bunny H.264 1080p
- 01 h 54 min Load (maximum brightness)
Me comments on notebookcheck's info
Yes you read this correctly.Less than 2 hours under load.
Why does this happen?
The max screen brightness is 461 nits combine with a small battery and a power hungry cpu and you can go through the 3000 mah battery. This is roughly 5 to 6 watts power consumption if the battery is roughly about 11 watt hours and you get 2 hours under load.
3000 mAH is the battery size for the HP Stream 7.
Tablets Comparison
- 3910 mAH ASUS 7 ME176CX, 2014 model. Note this CPU is the z3745 while the Stream is the similar z3735 and both have a 1280x800 ips screen
- 3950 mAH Nexus 7, 2013 model
- 4100 mAH Nvidia Note 7, 2013 model
- 4830 mah Dell Venue 8 Pro, 2013 model, 8 1280x800 ips 8 screen with Atom Z3740
- 6400 mah Lenovo Yoga Tablet 8 2014/2015 model, This has the weird cylinder plus stand on one side. 1920x1200 8 with Atom Z3745
Phones Comparison
- 3000 mah Asus Zenphone 2, Not released yet 5.5 Atom Moorefield
- 3220 mah Nexus 6 Phone, 2014 model, Snapdragon 805
- 4000 mah Lenovo Vibe 2 Pro 6 Phone, 2014 Model, Snapdragon 801
So as you can see getting the battery life it gets is great considering how small the battery is and the screen can go up to 450 nits. For comparison the Asus Vivotab Note 8 windows tablet max brightness is 253 nits, and most window 8 tablets are in the 300 to 350 range.
But if you are going to use the brightness at max levels the battery will suck, if you keep it respectable and compare apples to apples (150 nits) then the battery life is not bad, not great but not bad. The nexus 7 2013 had the same problem for it had a max brightness of 548 nits according to notebook check, 583 nits on anandtechs review model, and most android tablets are in the 200 to 350 range depending on which price range. Thus amazing battery life in anandtechs review for they figure out which every setting is 200 nits while many people like having higher brightness for we use things indoors or during daylight.