SMART board supplier, fittings and options

[ZeroHour]

Hi
We are looking into possibly moving to SMART based boards from Promethean due to problems with the drivers and general board reliability issues (posted in the forums previously) and I was wondering what schools were doing as a standard configuration for rooms.
E.G. which board model?
With rails (for moving the board higher or lower)?
Extra speakers?
etc...

We like the idea of the corporate boards as they have the integrated non-pc mode which seems like a brilliant thing to have for us. I am just not sure what options are available for the board. We really need to have them rail mounted but it appears on the educational boards have this ability.
Is it possible to rail mount it?
What limitation/issues have you found with the corporate edition?
What limitations/issues have you had with smart in general?
How have you found the software?

If anyone has both SMART and promethean, feedback would be good as well.

Also where you do buy your from? locally or direct? and if so who does the installation?

Cheers

[Oops_my_bad]

We used to get all our smart stuff from roche (www.rocheav.co.uk) but now use IDNS (www.idns.co.uk). I don't see any reason a competent installer wouldn't be able to put a smart board on rails, not sure why you'd want to but if you want it then they should be able to do it. We have all 680's and apart from teacher stupidity they are fine.

[Michael]

In my experience, Smartboards are much better than Promethean. The Smart software/driver isn't perfect, but I've had far less problems setting them up.

Here's some info about the boards I support in schools. The most common is the 660 which is 64" across. From memory, it's the best price/size ratio. They're also very easy to setup. In all schools I have the boards permanently fixed to the wall at an appropriate height (primarily) for the age of the pupils. As regards to speakers, you can use/buy anything really.

[ZeroHour]

Cheers for the info.

Teddy: We want rails primarily for the junior kids to use (aka the board can be lowered to their height)

[Elemtech]

The SMART Board Unifi product you refer to can be mounted on a height adjustable bracket.
If you are not bothered about being able to height adjust, I would personally go for a seperate projector and board as the projector supplied with the SMART unifi is DLP and the image quality isnt great.

[enjay]

Teddy: We want rails primarily for the junior kids to use (aka the board can be lowered to their height)

We've got some that do that, and they're really useful - wouldn't bother in our Secondary, but they're invaluable in Primary.

[SYSMAN_MK]

Another vote for www.rocheav.co.uk

[Domino]

we have used roche in the past, but some of their installs here are ropey as hell.

Recently found infacom to be absolutley brilliant with the stuff they've put in - even in some really tricky rooms

[ZeroHour]

The SMART Board Unifi product you refer to can be mounted on a height adjustable bracket.

Does that include the corporate version though as its that Unifi that we want for the standalone part?

Cheers for all the feedback all

[Elemtech]

Does that include the corporate version though as its that Unifi that we want for the standalone part?

Cheers for all the feedback all

I am not quite sure what you mean by the corporate part?

The smart 600i comes either with a fixed projector & boom or an optional height adjustable bracket makes it all height adjustable:

SMART - 600i for educators

[speckytecky]

we used MaypaceMaypace Systems Limited : Quality-based IT services gave us a good deal and did an excellent job with the installation.

[ZeroHour]

I am not quite sure what you mean by the corporate part?

The smart 600i comes either with a fixed projector & boom or an optional height adjustable bracket makes it all height adjustable:

SMART - 600i for educators

SMART - 600i for corporate users is the "corporate" edition.

[enjay]

Not sure exactly what the difference between the 600i for educators and 600i for corporate is, but for what it is worth, when we bought some we apparently got some of the "corporate" ones (based on those pictures, anyway).

[Elemtech]

I see what you are saying!

The SMART web site is a little mis-leading.

The corporate version is available whilst stocks last. The "education" version will then supercede this model.

The education version has a better quality projector (not difficult as the old one on the corporate version was awful!) and an improved arm.

The height adjustable bracket is optional & I am being quoted 1-2 months lead time.

[Elemtech]

Not sure exactly what the difference between the 600i for educators and 600i for corporate is, but for what it is worth, when we bought some we apparently got some of the "corporate" ones (based on those pictures, anyway).

The education version was launched at BETT in Jan, before that they all looked the same.