Disadvantaged children across England are set to receive laptops and tablets

[sonofsanta]

Cheered a little cheer today when I received an email saying there are no more devices and they're closing ordering. They've been such awful devices, they are a waste of space in my office.

 

The email does explicitly state "Your setting owns the devices it received through GHwT and is responsible for managing them"; does that mean we can now do with them as we please rather than having to reserve them for students who are self-isolating? Particularly as there's now no legal requirement for said self-isolation. (We're still doing it as a school, but practically speaking we've not handed out more than a handful of these laptops for that for over a year now.)

[localzuk]

There was never a legal requirement to reserve them for self-isolation anyway - the devices were always yours to use as you see fit. For example, here we had already bought a load of devices for that purpose, so these devices then went to other uses that our own money would've been used for originally.

[djm968]

They've been such awful devices, they are a waste of space in my office.

 

For some Schools, these "awful devices" have actually been a very useful additional resource and there is certainly nothing wrong with the iPads. The Windows laptops were never going to be capable of anything more than basic tasks and internet browsing, but that was all they were designed for. My only real criticism was that the Dell laptops never had a ethernet port, which I think was a fundamental omission from the minimum spec.

[atcoates]

We got hundreds of Ipads and have saved my schools a fortune in replacement costs. We've not allocated any out to pupils, we just used them in house to support all pupils.

[Koldov]

We got hundreds of Ipads and have saved my schools a fortune in replacement costs. We've not allocated any out to pupils, we just used them in house to support all pupils.

 

So, that's where they all went...

[enjay]

Cheered a little cheer today when I received an email saying there are no more devices and they're closing ordering. They've been such awful devices, they are a waste of space in my office.

 

The email does explicitly state "Your setting owns the devices it received through GHwT and is responsible for managing them"; does that mean we can now do with them as we please rather than having to reserve them for students who are self-isolating? Particularly as there's now no legal requirement for said self-isolation. (We're still doing it as a school, but practically speaking we've not handed out more than a handful of these laptops for that for over a year now.)

 

They were never exclusively for self-isolating students, they are to support disadvantaged students (a term which DfE never defined). We gave ours to students who don't have (sufficient) technology at home, I know of schools who gave students curriculum laptops so kept the DfE in school to replace them. We're about to launch a 1:1 scheme, so will use some of ours for students who can't afford to buy in to the scheme.

 

If you've got some wasting space in your office, they could come to my office...

[atcoates]

So, that's where they all went...

They ran out eventually!

[Wubbalubbadub]

I have to admit, I was pretty critical at the beginning of the scheme, but then I did get 90 odd GeoBooks...

 

However more recently, we got 300 ipads and 110 dell laptops. The ipads, no complaints there! Then the laptops are not great.. but they are better than the geobooks!

 

So overall.. I'm pretty pleased with what we got!

[Garacesh]

For some Schools, these "awful devices" have actually been a very useful additional resource and there is certainly nothing wrong with the iPads. The Windows laptops were never going to be capable of anything more than basic tasks and internet browsing, but that was all they were designed for. My only real criticism was that the Dell laptops never had a ethernet port, which I think was a fundamental omission from the minimum spec.

 

I have to admit, I've always described these laptops as "Eh, they'll.. do?"

I mean they're not fantastic by any metric, but the 250's were okay. Even better if you got the 255's that had some active cooling on them (the 250's just have a heat sink and no fan)

We forked out a bit of extra dosh for some DDR4 SODIMMs and they're.. good enough? And they're 11-compatible, for if your school is jumping on that.

I wouldn't pick 'em, if I had money to spend because they're more or less what I'd consider 'the minimum acceptable spec' to a tee (once you slap an extra 4GB of RAM into them, anyway), but for nowt, it's better than a kick in the teeth?

 

And the chromebooks are, well, chromebooks. Kinda hard to go wrong with them, as long as they're a recent build. They've been received incredibly well here by the subjects that make heavy use of G Suite.

 

Thankfully, we never got any of the Geobooks. We did get 12 of the Toshiba Dynabook Satellite Pro tablets-with-keyboards and they're.. not really that great. But again, for light use, they'll do. Probably going to hand 'em out to staff that prefer Windows to iOS, as 12 isn't really enough to do anything for the kids with (I'd consider giving them to SEN as the touch might be useful, but they already got a set of brand new chromebooks and they're happy with those)

Those aren't 11-compatible though, which is a shame, but tbh that's about what I'd expect.

 

Edit: We did also get some little Dell's that we can't image because they have no RJ45 socket and our USB converter is a chipset that the laptop doesn't recognise, but I expect they'll also fall into the 'eh, it'll do?' category once we have them up and running too.

Edited March 15, 2022 by Garacesh

[ITGuyNW]

We had our last allocation delivered today, some Dell 3190s. Annoyingly, these are different make and model to our previous deliveries but I'll find a use for them.

[sonofsanta]

We were obviously just unlucky with the laptops they allocated us then--I think I got maybe 2 reasonable HPs with non-terrible CPUs, but the rest were all Atoms and eMMC storage, even the non-Geobooks (of which I also got plenty!)

[Garacesh]

Oof, that's harsh.

Our HP's are celeron-something flavoured, which isn't the best, but as mentioned new enough for W11 so is again 'it'll do'. They also have SATA M.2's in them. Not as fancy as an NVMe, but heck, it's still solid state, so I'll take it.

Pretty sure the Dyabook tablet thingies are going to be eMMC because, well, it's a tablet, isn't it? Chromebooks probably are too. Dunno about the DELLs, not had a rummage around inside them, yet.

Edited March 16, 2022 by Garacesh

[mavhc]

I always waited until the HPs were available

[Garacesh]

Sod it, just took one of the Latitude 3190's apart to look.

 

First of all, props for the build quality. Not-quite-but-kind-of rubber edges presumably to dampen any shocks, 7 screws to remove the bottom cover, none of which are hidden underneath feet/labels/etc, and they're all the kind of screws that don't actually fully come out, so you can't lose them. And then then by the looks of it, the screws for the keyboard etc are on the inside, although it looks like they might be under the motherboard. All standard screws though, and all parts are connected by ZIF ribbons or various flavours of chamfered push-fit connectors. Grade A- for repairability, keyboard access could be easier, but overall incredibly easy to frankenstein parts.

 

... exceeeept, it looks like they're eMMC too, which sucks if there's ever a storage failure. There's a big 'SSD' label on the motherboard with connections for an M.2 port nicely graphed out, even pre-soldered/tinned, but there's no actual port soldered on. Weirdly there is a screw in the mounting rod that would usually be at the other end of the M.2, too. There's also no traditional sata connector so if there is a storage failure we can't bodge through it by slapping a 2.5" SSD in there.

Edited March 16, 2022 by Garacesh

[MrEprise]

I also took apart one of our 3190's since I wondered if they were eMMC but was surprised to find that our ones had m.2 slots which were actually populated, and assumed they'd all be like that. Seems not.

 

I'd mentioned before somewhere that our GeoBooks also had m.2 slots when I took one apart, except these weren't populated and they'd opted for eMMC storage instead.

[2097]

Are we now meant to use another site to get the login passwords etc

 

https://computacenterprod.service-now.com/dfe

 

^ That site is now down and i cant login

 

Looks like its all under the Gov website now . My email address wasn't recognized ( The heads was ) , but i emailed them and they set me up quite quickly.

[Koldov]

Can anyone tell me what the original OS was on these (I didn't even start one up, just wiped with our own image)?:

 

HP 245 G8 - 14" - Athlon Silver 3050U - 4 GB RAM - 128 GB SSD

 

I've looked on the Computacentre site and it says 'Operating System - Win 10 Pro 64-bit National Academic' (so, Windows 10 Education?)...

 

Also, will it automagically activate?

Edited April 25, 2022 by Koldov

[newpersn]

Can anyone tell me what the original OS was on these (I didn't even start one up, just wiped with our own image)?:

 

HP 245 G8 - 14" - Athlon Silver 3050U - 4 GB RAM - 128 GB SSD

 

I've looked on the Computacentre site and it says 'Operating System - Win 10 Pro 64-bit National Academic' (so, Windows 10 Education?)...

 

Also, will it automagically activate?

It will be Windows 10 Pro for Education.

 

There is a away of viewing the product key from the Bios but im not near a computer to find the script

[Rob446]

Edit: We did also get some little Dell's that we can't image because they have no RJ45 socket and our USB converter is a chipset that the laptop doesn't recognise, but I expect they'll also fall into the 'eh, it'll do?' category once we have them up and running too.

 

If you can load the driver for the USB network adaptor into your imaging solution, that generally works.

 

I just booted them from a vanilla Win 10 USB image, then added software from ninite.

[Garacesh]

If you can load the driver for the USB network adaptor into your imaging solution, that generally works.

Nah this one is the BIOS of the laptop that's the issue. It just won't recognise when it has a network adapter attached. Apparently some BIOS' will just flat out not recognise certain chipsets, because, reasons?

Someone put me on to one they have that works with them a while ago but I haven't bought one yet.

[mavhc]

For a usb not C ethernet connectors the drivers have to be in the bios, not sure about C versions.

 

Other option is to boot the wds boot.wim from usb, and connect to the network from that

[mullet_man]

Does anyone know if it's possible to unlock the Huawei 4G routers, we've got a few that were never collected and they've gone past the date the DfE said they needed to be "reset" by. Just thought I could use them as emergency routers or for staff to use if they go on trips but resetting them don't seem to fully reset them and they are locked to I think the o2 network.

 

Shame as I've got a few that are now just paper weights and are going to be added to yet more e-waste.

Edited May 6, 2022 by mullet_man

[DrBeaker]

Does anyone know if it's possible to unlock the Huawei 4G routers, we've got a few that were never collected and they've gone past the date the DfE said they needed to be "reset" by. Just thought I could use them as emergency routers or for staff to use if they go on trips but resetting them don't seem to fully reset them and they are locked to I think the o2 network.

 

Shame as I've got a few that are now just paper weights and are going to be added to yet more e-waste.

I bet a LOT of schools haven't even considered this with the routers....don't even know if the admin got ours back, that was down to them and SLT not IT.

 

We know the HP laptops 4GB/128GB are essential scrap once kids break the keyboards. As the time and materials to replace them is more than the cost of the devices.

[mullet_man]

I bet a LOT of schools haven't even considered this with the routers....don't even know if the admin got ours back, that was down to them and SLT not IT.

 

We know the HP laptops 4GB/128GB are essential scrap once kids break the keyboards. As the time and materials to replace them is more than the cost of the devices.

It seems once it's gone past a certain date they are device locked, I have the admin passwords given to us by the DfE but even if I get in and reset the device it doesn't fully reset it and still has some the DfE specific settings in mainly the APN network so putting in a different sim doesn't work.

 

Shame as we could have made use of them, I wasn't made aware they were never collected so missed the cut off reset date.

 

I think I got 1 back that was reset and given back out.

[mavhc]

I bet a LOT of schools haven't even considered this with the routers....don't even know if the admin got ours back, that was down to them and SLT not IT.

 

We know the HP laptops 4GB/128GB are essential scrap once kids break the keyboards. As the time and materials to replace them is more than the cost of the devices.

 

Same with every HP laptop these days, sigh.