Teacher PC's

[Novalee]

What do you use for classroom teacher PC's? (If you use them rather than laptops of course).

 

Need to replace a few at the moment and wondered what everyone else uses.

 

Last few we bought were Acer Aspire SC-105 (AMD A4 processor 4GB RAM). These seem pretty nippy and nice and compact.

 

Not sure if it's worth splashing out on i5 or equivalent processors in hope of 'future' proofing them or it's not worth it?

[newpersn]

Our old ones are Dell Otiplex 330 and 360 (Pent dual with 2 GB Ram)

 

We got a few which are Stones SFF's (I3 2nd Gen with 4GB of ram) which works nicely as a teacher computers.

[Sagima]

Classroom teacher PCs are the 4-6 year old computers that used to be in the suites - presently that means they are Optiplex 760 and 780 PCs with Core2 processors and 2-4GB RAM. Some have had their HDD replaced with an SSD if it has failed.

We've never purchased a new PC for a classroom. Each time we refresh a suite the oldest PCs in the school get replaced with the suite computers.

 

This year might have been the first time we've bought new ones for the offices as they also used to get the old suite PCs but it might have been a one-off as, coincidentally, they were all for the members of SMT. We bought them i3/8GB/128mSATA NUCs from novatech

[Arreks]

We use laptops, we have 'some' teacher allocated computers but unfortunately they're RM Ecoquiet 215's (they'll be off warranty soon and we can upgrade, yay!).

 

I'd imagine some of the @VeryPC all-in-ones would be right up your street.

[Grey-gear]

We use HP Companq 8200 Elite small form factors

[Dkeen94]

We use Stone USFF for our teacher machines but they are getting on now.

[hallb15]

Ours are 90% Fujitsu Core i3, 4GB, Win 7 pro from a couple of years back when we bought a job lot. I've only had one PSU fail in that time and that was replaced under warranty.

 

Older ones are being replaced with VeryPC Broadleaf which everyone falls in love with when they see the laser etched cases. We've also got a handful of VeryPC All-in-one Panels wall mounted in EYFS classrooms which they really like.

My favourite though is the VeryPC Glide - looks very nice and only has a power cable so is very minimal (despite being a 23" screen) in the Leadership Suite.

VeryPC warranty support is excellent - 5 years included on the Broadleaf.

 

I think I should be on commission or something - eh, how about it @VeryPC Al?

[john]

We used some lovely machines from @ICTDirect_Dave all HP's with his lovely warranty and they were great for teacher PCs

[Stone_Charli]

Thanks for the shout-outs @newpersn and @Dkeen94!

@Novalee, the ITX Space Saver is a bit smaller than our USFF and you can have up to i5 with 4GB RAM: ITX Space Saver | Desktops | Stone Group

 

Alternatively - and depending on your requirements - our NUC could do nicely as a teacher PC. Only 4" x 4", up to i5 and up to 16GB RAM: NUC | Desktop PCs | Stone Group

 

Feel free to drop me a PM if you'd like to discuss further!

[Edu-IT]

We use Stone although when they're due a refresh, we'll shop around as always. Haven't had any problems with Stone thus far though.

[Dkeen94]

Have had nothing but solid service from stone! have bought about 90 devices from them in the past 2-3 months and not one has failed or had problems

[ICTDirect_Dave]

We used some lovely machines from @ICTDirect_Dave all HP's with his lovely warranty and they were great for teacher PCs

 

And what lovely machines they are. Especially since we've got quad core 8200 elites for sub £250 and haswell i3 EliteDesk 800's for sub £300!!

[mrbios]

Curveball: Build them yourself

 

Cheapo cases of around £10-15 (most of which we reused what we already had)

MSI H81M-P33 motherboards - £26

Intel G3220 cpus - £34

Kingston 120GB SSD - £43

8GB ram £49

Corsair 430w modular PSU - £28 (Been using these 3 years, yet to have a single one fail)

DVD Drive - £9.50 (again most of which we used what we already had if they were sata)

 

About £200 per PC. Performance is fantastic, tend to give the IT teachers an i5, but the rest of them don't need the processing power (replaced 25 teacher PCs in the summer, every single one is chuffed to bits with it, no complaints about speed at all) highly expect those to last 5 years at least.

Edited December 9, 2014 by mrbios

[clockend25]

I'd love to have teacher PCs instead of laptops. I cry sometimes thinking about it.

[Novalee]

Thank you all for the great responses. Just taking a look at the Sketch by Very PC and will send you a message @Stone_Charli as the NUC's look pretty good too.

[PotNoodleTech]

IMHO - having SSD drives and 4GB (+) of RAM is more important than any other performance consideration.

 

I'd take an old Core2Duo with 4GB RAM and a 128GB SSD over an I-5 with a mechanical HDD any day!

[jaf]

IMHO - having SSD drives and 4GB (+) of RAM is more important than any other performance consideration.

 

I'd take an old Core2Duo with 4GB RAM and a 128GB SSD over an I-5 with a mechanical HDD any day!

 

Agreed! We did our hardware refresh and wound up with i3s with SSDs rather than i5s with HDDs after we demonstrated to the business manager an old Core2Duo with SSD booting up, logging on and opening programs minutes faster than a brand new PC - i5 with a HDD!

[Chris_]

We've got a mix of teacher PCs of varying ages. We buy a batch each year and replace the oldest. We've been going for i3's lately (the latest generation at the time), 8GB RAM, an SSD and a 21.5" monitor. We decided against the Stone ITX PCs and went for the Stone USFF as they were cheaper and have an internal PSU!

 

Never had an issue with a Stone PC (laptops on the other hand...), but having a 5 year NBD OSW included as standard is brilliant!

[mattianuk]

All of the schools we manage we have brought new Novatech all in one machines, i5, 4gb and 120gb ssd with 22" monitor. I think it's really important to give them decent pcs, and would never give them second hand PCs. Classroom pcs affect every lesson, so they need to be decent, also where we have replaced laptops with desktops, support requests fall massively.

[HTCPCP]

A mix and match between Zoostorms with either a Pentium G850 series processor, varying i3 processors or currently i5 processors as they are cheaper. cheap, cheerful and easy to replace parts if something goes wrong as there is literally nothing in the case except the core components.

 

My primary schools mostly use laptops - i5 for staff who use more intensive stuff, and i3 for students and other staff, and usually a top end i5/low end i7 processor for the front office/head teacher to keep the LEA happy with it running SIMS, although they are mostly bought through the LEA for that one, as they can do the boring set up work for them!