Netbook Replacement

[localzuk]

Quad core is as good as it gets for the Celeron chips I think.

 

You're right on the wireless - it is an a/b/g/n card only, no ac.

[witch]

So....any other alternatives?

For once, money is less of a problem as the school has just found some more so I am open to ideas

[Norphy]

Don't worry about them being "only" quad core, most of our desktops and laptops are dual core and that's plenty good enough. You won't find computers with more than four cores outside of high end workstations and/or servers.

 

11ac is also a "nice to have" option rather than a "OMFG WE MUST HAVE THIS!!!!oneonoeeleven". Even if you have the access points to support it, you won't get that much more performance out of them as they're pretty low end.

 

Have you looked at the HP Stream 11s?

 

Don’t call it a netbook (or a “Chromebook killer”)—HP’s $200 Stream 11 reviewed | Ars Technica

 

They're about £180, relatively small disk but solid state rather than spinning rust. Quite nice looking units too.

[witch]

The reason I am asking is that this is the last pot of money we are likely to have for some considerable time and I am going to update the wireless at the same time for the same reason. With 70 units, I cannot see us EVER having the money to replace more than 20 or so every year so some of them may well have to last quite a few years. Then there is the IT suite and the server...

[localzuk]

How about something like this? HP Pavilion 13 x360 Convertible Laptop - HP Store UK

 

Should be about £450 without VAT, probably less if buying 70.

 

Not 802.11ac wireless, but the CPU is a lot better. Also, battery life should be about 6 hours according to the interwebs. There's an AMD version also, which appears to a little cheaper for about the same performance - Buy HP Pavilion x360 13-a052na Convertible Laptop, AMD A8, 8GB RAM, 1TB, 13.3" Touch Screen, Silver | John Lewis.

[DrCheese]

Have you looked at the HP streams? Tis what I'm thinking of replacing our netbooks with.

Only downside is the 32gb ssd in the 11ins, 64gb in the 13. You have to run Windows 8.1 really using the wimimage compression thingy really

Edited January 27, 2015 by DrCheese

[witch]

Any more?

The Lenovos look so nice - but will they last (spec-wise)?

[Norphy]

They will be powerful enough to run Windows 10 and the next version of Office. They should be able to handle web browsing for the foreseeable future.

 

You'll never be able to run Photoshop or AutoCAD comfortably on them but I think they should be good enough for "general" usage if you'll forgive the vague term. If you want something a bit more long lasting, you may have to look at bigger laptops running i3s from the likes of Dell, Stone and Very. You could probably get something reasonable for £450

[Stone_Charli]

Sorry for the delayed response... still recovering from BETT! @witch we launched a new 11.6" device at the show (you might have seen it if you visited our stand), which run Celeron processors, and ac wireless cards are available at an additional cost.

Please feel free to drop me a PM and I can get you a quote

[Bev]

We went with Chromebooks. They required a complete rethink from the staff, we now very rarely use Office and have moved to Google Docs for almost everything. Even when on the desktop. Google Docs has loads of advantages anyway, kids can do work at home and it is available here. I can't remember the last time a child appeared with a memory stick with their homework on it. They can also do collaborative work, and you can share documents between staff/students etc.

 

We have Samsung Chromebooks which we have had for 18 months. They were a bit tricky to set up, but that turned out to be some issue with our wifi at school, as eventually I took them home and set them all up within an hour! Since then, they have been fab. I rarely have to look at them. I was really opposed to getting more laptops, as our previous trolley caused me no end of bother, but these are very easy. The only thing I occasionally have to do is reset a password, as they need to log into their google account to use them.

[witch]

I did suggest chromebooks and office 365 but the head doesn't want to go down that road although I will mention it again

[witch]

The head definitely wants small, robust laptops. Leaning towards the quad-core Lenovos but wondered if the Dell or any one else's offering is as fast or as robust for comparison purposes

[Norphy]

If I were you, I'd get friendly with an account manager from somewhere and see if you can blag a couple of evaluation units. If you're going to be buying 70 of them, they should be willing to do this and there is no better way of comparing hardware than getting some examples in your hands.

[Dkeen94]

The Stone N130's are brilliant! Saw them at BETT and will be purchasing 5 of them as soon as we can get our hands on them!

[jmak]

Sigh...... And here we go again.

 

I am looking at buying about 30 windows devices to replace our 4 year old netbooks. Budget is fixed, option is to buy fewer devices of higher spec. I was quite set on the Lenovo 11e machines and would be able to buy around 25, so would need to somehow nurse a few old netbooks along for another year. Then yesterday, it was suggested that touch screen would be beneficial and when I thought about it, I think I might agree - we'll still be using them in 2019, by which time I think I can expect quite a lot of software will be touch orientated.

 

So.............. Has anyone got any Acer devices out there? The Acer TravelMate B115-MP looks good in terms of spec: Touch screen 4GB RAM, GB Ethernet, with either a Intel Pentium Quad Core N3520 at £265 ex VAT or a Celeron 2830 at £200 ex VAT

 

Which leads on to: For general MS Office and Internet Browsing, would there be much difference between the processors - same speed, both Intel HD graphics, but the Pentium is quad core. I could upgrade to an SSD with the price difference.....

 

We've had consumer grade netbooks in the classrooms for the last 4 years and very few physical breakages (2 broken screens and 2 dropped HDDs)

 

Thanks

[3s-gtech]

Haven't got those Acers, but have got some HP Pavilion X2s with the same specs. The N3520 is a great CPU - surprisingly quick for what it is and copes with everything the staff throw at it like SIMS, Office 2013, video playback and recording, etc.