65" Touchscreens - Recommendations

[Tesla]

Hi all

 

Have been told that we have a fairly hefty chunk of money for our IT this year.

 

Ideally we'd like to go down the touchscreen route...

 

Recommendations?

 

Companies feel free to post on this thread too........

[MatthewL]

Sharp do what they call the big pad. Its 60" or 70" off the top of my head.

[gbiltd]

Smart have just reduced the price of their 4065 by £400, I guess to be more competitive. We have installed quite a few and now seem good value for money.

[localzuk]

Does your school use SMART Notebook? If so, my first port of call now would be the SMART screens. If not, Sahara's CleverTouch would be my choice.

[Tesla]

Does your school use SMART Notebook? If so, my first port of call now would be the SMART screens. If not, Sahara's CleverTouch would be my choice.

 

To a degree we use SMART Notebook.... *insert 11.4 spiel here*

[Joanne]

I've got CleverTouch here. If you use smart notebook though, defo look into smart boards. Although the software that comes with CleverTouch (Lynx) is very similar to smart, so you might be able to convince staff to move over. I'm trying and failing at the moment though... weening them off is hard.

[EvLPhenom]

I have used Clevertouch which haven't had a problem with also Promethean have reduced pricing their new ones if you use Activ software.

[VeryPC_Anthony_L]

Hi @Tesla , and the rest of the edugeek forum,

 

Saying you have a 'Hefty' chuck of money can be dangerous on here..... , although at the same time, it can be quite useful. If you are using SMART notebook then I would highly suggest looking at the SMART range. some things to be be aware of is the hype around 4K screens. unless you have a real need to 4k then stick to 1080p screens as you will find these find.

 

SMART are currently going through a bit of a change in the UK and prices have dropped quite a bit from where they were in previous years. Saying that there are some other really good screens out there on the market from Promethean, BenQ, Vividtouch, etc.

 

The most popular sizes we currently sale and install is the 65" although 70" is becoming very popular as well. Before you purchase any screen, do get a demo of each one. Yes in many ways a screen is a screen but the touch element is the side where many screens start showing how good they are.

 

It is worth noting that SMART are currently adjusting what their notebook software can be used on. For quite a few years Notebook has been available to be used on any panel although this is changing to a model where if you wish to use a 3rd party panel then this will be looked at on a case by case basis. All SMART screens come with SMART Learning suite pre bundled.

 

If you would like any help then please feel free to PM me.

 

 

Anthony

[BenQ_Support]

Hi @Telsa,

 

If you're down in Milton Keynes, I'm only up the road in Northampton. More than happy to show you what we can offer.

 

Always best to get a few products in to see what works for you. Prices have come down a lot over the last few years. We are even putting a lot of 79" screens in to schools where we've put in 65" previously.

 

 

Just drop me a DM and ill give you my contact details.

 

 

Adrian.

[Joanne]

Also Benq ones come with Wordwall which is a mint bit of software!!

[TomHD]

iBoardTouch EL 65+ they are a UK manufacturer with UK support. I have installed 5 of these over the last week and they are brilliant. Not too pricey, just under 2k for base model.

 

I disagree about having smart notebook and buying into smart hardware. Any dev worth their salt will be building compatibility into their competing software. The software from iBoard can handle smart notebook files, and others too, all day long and it appears much better than smart notebook overall.

Edited April 28, 2016 by TomHD

[PotNoodleTech]

*subscribed

 

Anyone using the promethean panels?

[MatthewL]

Think we've just had an CTouch screen installed in an office, doesn't look bad but not had a proper look yet.

 

I was at a trade show last year and came across iBoardTouch got a brochure here, they seem to do a good range of stuff.

Edited April 28, 2016 by MatthewL

[Sylv3r]

We put 5 x 65" VividTouch boards into one of our primaries a couple of months ago. They seem pretty good and come with 5 year warranty and both Smart Notebook software and Wordwall licences. Only slight criticism is that with the soundbar that we got with ours they aren't as loud as I would have hoped. The soundbar isn't part of the product, it's what the installers brought with them so don't let that put you off.

[ajevanu2]

Hi Tesla,

 

I started with a big BenQ board a couple of years ago and was impressed. We have rolled out panels across most of the site, when projectors have died. I also got a good deal on some Promethean Panels last year through Askelite who were great. Speak to David Parker or Jordan Twist, who can help you out. We have had some tricky installs with walls & locations in buildings and the advice we got was great. If you have a big room it's going in, get a sound bar as well.

 

Strongly suggest trying a few but more importantly get all the staff having a go. Most our staff use ActiveInspire but I personally use OneNote and quite a few staff have adopted using that. Depends on what software your staff are used to but most kit on the market is very intuitive these days. As long as it open's Smart's notebooks / Promethean flipcharts from TES and other resource sites, you can't go far wrong.

 

Hope this helps....

[dhicks]

Anyone using the promethean panels?

 

Yes, we are. We've found them to be affordable and good-quality - they do proper 10-point multi-touch and Windows recognises them as a generic human input device, so there's no drivers to install, you just plug them in. They do also have an OPS slot for a suitible OPS PC that turns on with the single power button on the front of the screen, so you can have a completly self-contained unit with no external PC needed and no need for the teacher to have to remember to switch multiple devices on.

[Tesla]

This thread seems to be bubbling along nicely, thanks for the input so far.

 

The sum of money is a lot for us, but with it we ideally want to set up a rolling replacement program, we've never had enough money to plan this in the past, its always been a "hope it doesn't break and if it does hope we have $budget"

 

Ideally we are looking for a very solid/durable/tough piece of kit, i don't think we need oodles of functionality from the boards (software we tend to use can be quite limited due to us being a special school)

 

The ability to lock down/freeze the screen/board would be nice, we have a couple of clevertouch boards that you can freeze but the moment you press a button on the board it unfreezes, which with our kids causes issues....

[Joanne]

The ability to lock down/freeze the screen/board would be nice, we have a couple of clevertouch boards that you can freeze but the moment you press a button on the board it unfreezes, which with our kids causes issues....

 

I've not had this with mine. 6-12 months old.

[BenQ_Support]

This thread seems to be bubbling along nicely, thanks for the input so far.

 

The sum of money is a lot for us, but with it we ideally want to set up a rolling replacement program, we've never had enough money to plan this in the past, its always been a "hope it doesn't break and if it does hope we have $budget"

 

Ideally we are looking for a very solid/durable/tough piece of kit, i don't think we need oodles of functionality from the boards (software we tend to use can be quite limited due to us being a special school)

 

The ability to lock down/freeze the screen/board would be nice, we have a couple of clevertouch boards that you can freeze but the moment you press a button on the board it unfreezes, which with our kids causes issues....

 

 

The latest BenQ's have a control panel lock and also an IR remote lock. Built like tanks as well.

[PotNoodleTech]

Yes, we are. We've found them to be affordable and good-quality - they do proper 10-point multi-touch and Windows recognises them as a generic human input device, so there's no drivers to install, you just plug them in. They do also have an OPS slot for a suitible OPS PC that turns on with the single power button on the front of the screen, so you can have a completly self-contained unit with no external PC needed and no need for the teacher to have to remember to switch multiple devices on.

 

Thanks Dai boy. Reason I ask is that we are all promethean boards and I think it would be a massive uphill struggle to make people use new software especially as some of them have gigabytes of flipcharts they've created over the years.

[itdaveh]

Hi All, We have started to install 65" Clevertouch Pro boards and the supplied software is really easy to use and any smart notebook can be opened on the clever touch

[Joanne]

Hi All, We have started to install 65" Clevertouch Pro boards and the supplied software is really easy to use and any smart notebook can be opened on the clever touch

 

I'm struggling to get Lynx to open any other formats! Is that what you are using?

[Clevertouch_Rob]

I'm struggling to get Lynx to open any other formats! Is that what you are using?

 

Drop me a PM and i will look into the Lynx issue!

[Clevertouch_Rob]

As other manufacturers have said on here i would suggest you get demo's of all the screens and make up your mind what works for you. If you want any specific Clevertouch info i will be able to help you.

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