Hitachi or Smartboard?

[Kyle]

Which of the above IWB would you choose and why?

[kylewilliamson]

Only one pen to loose with Hitachi! Pathetic I know, but they seem more suited to our needs.

The Promethean software looks excellent in any case, especially ACTIVprimary.

[FN-GM]

I prefer the Smartboard software myself but the Promethean boards.

Z

[outeast]

But the SMART Board pens can be 'replaced' with anything if you lose them - you dont 'need' them to use the board as with other IWBs... and, a complete replacement set of pens is just $10 (US)...

SMART Notebook software is the best out there, in my opinion...
What do you prefer about the Promethean board? I still think it is key to have touch with the boards... the pen-only enabled boards seem kind of awkward (when I want to move something, it seems weird to use a pen). I like with a SMART Board that I use my fingers to move stuff and pick up a pen when I want to write - seems more natural...

[kylewilliamson]

Well - we've had smartboards and found that the pens have worked out better in the classroom - at least the pen gives you control.

[rrichmond]

We have 10 x 78" ACTIVboards. We have found they work very well. I was at first concerned about the Pens and cost as well, but we have had no teacher loose any of the pens, and each board comes with two pens...so we have a generous supply.

We purchased 2 ACTIVslates as well. These seem to work well,

The advantage of having a pen over touch (which I did not really think about until after we got the ACTIVboards) was related to the way it works. You see a lot of the younger grades tend to touch the board with their arm, or other hand when they are using it. This would cause all types of problems if it was a touch sensitive board.

So I think we made the right choice. We have the software in a central location and it seems to work well for opur junior school. Next year we are looking into adding another 10 of these boards into the Middle school.

My only suggestion is to look into a bracket setup top allow the boards height to be adjusted for the younger grades.

[K.C.Leblanc]

Go for smartboard, unless you can forsee furniture being bounced off it.

Very easy to use.
Very reliable (we've got about 50, and only had 2 fail).
Software is in MSi and easy to push out.

EDIT: Edit, I've heard horror stories about the price of Hitachi pens.

[outeast]

I agree about the height adjustment when mounted on a wall - check out www.whiteboardrails.com - they make a great mounting system...

[ZeroHour]

I hate activboard now. We have had no support and we ordered a LOT this summer and we have nothing but pain. Tech support have pretty much dropped us from there list of things to fix and we are left with more then 2 dozen boards all with random issues. They randomly drop off (as in stop responding) in the middle of a class and the only cure is a reboot. I have tried tons of different driver versions and nothing helps. Promethean support dont seem to care now that they have our money. We are going to strongly recommend we never buy them again and go down smartboard route at this stage if we dont get a solution soon.

[DMcCoy]

I have been having issues with Activboards too, one would appear in device manager but would never use a driver.

This turned out to be not enough power going to the rear usb sockets, in the front socket it complained about power use but then also worked and identified the device correctly

I much prefer our smartboards.

[patty.oflynn]

I've used both SMART and Hitachi, and I prefer my Hitachi. This is my third year using Hitachi in my classroom and I love it. My students also use our Hitachi Starboard to create "mathcasts"; if you'd like to learn about that please visit http://www.pattyoflynn.com and click on mathcasts.

BTW, I was able to preview the new Hitachi Duo board in August and it can be used with a pen or without. It hit the market about a month ago. It also allows two users to use the board simultaneously which is very cool.

[Grommit]

We have over 50 Promethean Activeboards and they are great.... Promethean suuport is great, and the projector repair and bulb replacement is great...

Had chairs chucked at them and they are toughh were as the smartboards would have been destroyed

[rrichmond]

Ahh... You use USB...

We use one of the com ports. for our setup..It proved to be much more reliable... (For us anyway..Long data traveling length)

Try connecting it this way (If you have a com port). I bet you have a lot less problems with it.

[ZeroHour]

Nape we using Serial here as well for the same reasons.

I wish our experience was as good as yours grommit. When did you last deal with tech support (just curious)?
We seem to have better reliability out of our oldest promethean boards but the ones in the last 2 years have been terrible.

[Kyle]

Just wanted to bump this up a little one more time before i have to put an order in at the end of the week for 5 of one or the other.