Home laptops....thin client alternative?

[mrbios]

For years here whenever there's been a problematic student who has needs beyond pen and paper or a special family case etc. (I'm unsure of the specifics) we get asked to buy some laptops which other departments pay for, which will then be used by students at home.

 

Problem is, as you can imagine, these get destroyed pretty quickly. So i was thinking it would be nice to have some sort of mobile thin client that nothing is ever physically stored on, i'd want something that would turn on and instantly attempt to connect over wifi or 3G to a server here where they could use a session on a terminal server. This way they're fully protected by our filtering even at home on the school device, they have access to all their work and programs without the need for us to manage anything but some simple settings on the device itself.

 

Does anyone have any suggestions or opinions on this? I'm hoping that such a device for this simple, very basic, task could be nice and cheap.

[chazzy2501]

you can get a laptop thin client. I've never used one as they're more than a regular laptop. How about a chromebook?

 

link to wyse thin client laptop...Wyse X90MW Generation 2 Mobile Thin Client (2GB/2GB) Windows Embedded Standard 2009| 909695-08L | Instant-axess.co.uk Best Buys for WYSE

 

also thin clients can be built into a monitor! (not use one of these either.)

[plexer]

Chromebook?

 

Ben

[dhicks]

i'd want something that would turn on and instantly attempt to connect over wifi or 3G to a server here where they could use a session on a terminal server.

 

You could set pretty much any laptop up like that - have it boot into a small Linux distribution, connect to wireless before the GUI starts (so there's no wireless settings for them to tinker with) and start up an RDP client. You can even remove the harddrive and replace it with a small solid-state one for added robustness, you wouldn't need anything large.

[VeryPC_Colin_M]

Aluminium bodied VeryPC Ultrabook chap. Perfect for the job.

[mrbios]

You could set pretty much any laptop up like that - have it boot into a small Linux distribution, connect to wireless before the GUI starts (so there's no wireless settings for them to tinker with) and start up an RDP client. You can even remove the harddrive and replace it with a small solid-state one for added robustness, you wouldn't need anything large.

 

I've done this with a regular laptop to some extent (using windows thin pc), but i wondered if there was any hardware that was nice and cheap with this or an offset of this idea as its intended purpose? I'm essentially looking for the cheapest possible piece of mobile hardware that will support wifi + 3g. The issue arises when, because they'll be used at home, students need to be able to add their own wifi ssid to it, which is why i thought some sort of mobile thin pc would have been good.

Edited December 3, 2013 by mrbios

[Chris_]

HP have made some 'Mobile Thin Clients' in the past. Not sure what the latest version is and if they support 3g.