Teacher Laptops - Replace Macbooks

[Liam]

Hi, i am looking to start replacing a macbooks for teachers to a solid Windows Machine. Its important that i get this right. The staff have all used macbooks for years, but our whole trust strategy now means we need to start looking to transition to Windows.

I'm all for user experience. I don't want staff to be negative the second i hand them a machine. There has already been mistakes made before my time with some choice of devices and its really created some resistance. I'm just curious to see what devices are handed out to staff in other schools. I think i am leaning towards a Lenovo model having used them before but i am open to suggestions. The budget is about £750.00 per device.

This will be a phased approach so i need to ensure some consistency if possible over a 12 month period.

 

Any help would be appreciated.

[hardtailstar]

A school near us just installed Windows on their macbooks when they decided to go just Windows and not hybrid Windows/Mac.

 

So you could repurpose the macs if you have any recent ones.

[synaesthesia]

Lenovo L14s here - lovely machines, sturdy, light and excellent feedback from staff so far.

[3s-gtech]

We've got a load of Lenovo E495 here which have been very impressive so far - solid spec, feel well made, fit your price bracket.

 

It may well pay for you to sell off the Macbooks - even used, they're worth good money.

[Jaymate]

+1 for the L14's

[strawberry]

serious suggestion... send some of them to PC world and ask them which models they liked the look of and why.

Then worry about the hardware/spec.

[synaesthesia]

Why on earth could that be serious? what is ever on PC World's shelves that is suitable for use in a school environment? They're barely any good for home!

[strawberry]

Why on earth could that be serious? what is ever on PC World's shelves that is suitable for use in a school environment? They're barely any good for home!

 

If they are moving from something as aesthetic as a macbook the only way to break their conception is to broaden their horizons. If you listen to what they found pleasing about things that aren't macs then you stand a chance of providing them something they would accept on an aesthetic level. And as shockingly bad as pc world is its about the only place with things on display. A tour of novatech/Stone/ICT direct would be better.

 

Then you match that to hardware that will actually do the job!.

[synaesthesia]

True to a point - rare to see any real parity between consumer and business grade machines. Precision vs Latitude, Thinkpad L series vs just about anything else off the shelf - although HP are reasonably similar. We decided against the HP 440's here for instance in favour of Lenovo but they do indeed look similar to consumer grade kit.

Rule of thumb - if it hasn't got screws on the bottom, it's no good.

[StoneGroup_JackW]

Hi Liam, can understand thats a tricky transition from Mac to windows. We have a range of devices in stock and happy to arrange eval units for you to try out. Feel free to drop me a PM if i can help more. Jack

[2097]

The whole thing of superiority when using a mac-book will always be in their minds. I doubt any Pc/laptop will come close and even when the PC is 100x better it will always be " What a load of rubbish, my 10 year old mac-book was much better".

 

I wouldn't consult with them, just choose some good quality windows laptops and distribute as no matter what you get them, in their minds will be inferior.

[supportman]

I replaced my Macbook air with a Microsoft Surface laptop 2 and they are virtually identical hardware. It was an easy move for me.

@VeryPC also do a ultrabook which is a bit cheaper.

[VeryPC]

I replaced my Macbook air with a Microsoft Surface laptop 2 and they are virtually identical hardware. It was an easy move for me.

@VeryPC also do a ultrabook which is a bit cheaper.

I can confirm the VeryPC Ultrabook is a winner. I'm even typing from it right now!

 

Whilst I'm here, I just wanted to ask, have you guys got your free socks yet?! One pair free for EduGeekers! 👉 https://very-pc.co.uk/edugeekers,-claim-your-free-verypc-socks-now

 

- Ryan

[disk]

Our current standard is the Dell Latitude 5400 with an i5, 16GB of RAM, and a 256GB NVMe SSD. Make sure you have the latest driver pack for the model loaded in your imaging system, ensure BIOS is up-to-date, and these machines are an absolute dream to use. Plenty of satisfied users, including some that we recently switched from Macs due to software requirements (we are ~95% Windows anyway).

[Liam]

I can confirm the VeryPC Ultrabook is a winner. I'm even typing from it right now!

 

Whilst I'm here, I just wanted to ask, have you guys got your free socks yet?! One pair free for EduGeekers! [emoji117] https://very-pc.co.uk/edugeekers,-claim-your-free-verypc-socks-now

 

- Ryan

Could I get a sample? Thanks

[Liam]

True to a point - rare to see any real parity between consumer and business grade machines. Precision vs Latitude, Thinkpad L series vs just about anything else off the shelf - although HP are reasonably similar. We decided against the HP 440's here for instance in favour of Lenovo but they do indeed look similar to consumer grade kit.

Rule of thumb - if it hasn't got screws on the bottom, it's no good.

Thanks for this. Which model did you opt for?

[Liam]

Lenovo L14s here - lovely machines, sturdy, light and excellent feedback from staff so far.

Sorry just reread this.. Forget my last post

[djennings93]

Why would you want to transition from Macbooks to Windows ? I'd recommend keeping with what you have got...

[RLR]

Why would you want to transition from Macbooks to Windows ? I'd recommend keeping with what you have got...

His budget is £750. Don't think you'll get a macbook for that price these days unless they several years old and second hand.

 

He also mentions in his post: "our whole trust strategy now means we need to start looking to transition to Windows" so I guess they might be using more of a Microsoft environment like office 365/teams etc.

Edited September 29, 2020 by RLR

[disk]

Why would you want to transition from Macbooks to Windows ? I'd recommend keeping with what you have got...

 

With apple planning on dropping intel in favor of arm (which was just purchased by nvidia, who historically have not played well with apple), that is one more reason to double down on migrating from mac to windows.

[localzuk]

The whole thing of superiority when using a mac-book will always be in their minds. I doubt any Pc/laptop will come close and even when the PC is 100x better it will always be " What a load of rubbish, my 10 year old mac-book was much better".

 

I wouldn't consult with them, just choose some good quality windows laptops and distribute as no matter what you get them, in their minds will be inferior.

Yup. You can't compete with rose tinted glasses. They will forget any and all issues they ever had on the old devices, and treat them like the best devices ever.

 

This is where good leadership and management needs to come in. Give them a device, train them well, and support them with the transition, whilst also being strict with and whining about what they used to have.

 

With our Trust, we issue whatever is a decent deal at the time. Imo £750 on a school device is far too much to spend these days. We have just ordered some i3 ThinBooks from VeryPC - complete with a custom design vinyl skin on top. IIRC they were about £450 each. 8GB RAM, 240GB SSD, Windows 10, 15" screen etc... 3 year warranty.

[Norphy]

With apple planning on dropping intel in favor of arm (which was just purchased by nvidia, who historically have not played well with apple), that is one more reason to double down on migrating from mac to windows.

 

The reasons to move away from Macs are many and legion but honestly, unless you’re planning to run a different OS on them, I think the impending CPU architecture change is somewhere towards the bottom of the list and Nvidia taking over ARM is even lower than that.

 

 

This will be the fourth time that Apple have changed the CPU architecture on the Mac. The PPC > Intel changeover went almost flawlessly and I expect things will be smoother still this time around because of Apple’s newer developer tools and languages. It’s likely that all of Apple’s major apps will have ARM versions released on day 1 and apps from the major vendors (MS, Adobe) won’t be far behind. Store apps should be relatively swift to follow and Big Sur will be able to run iOS apps. Even when there isn’t a native ARM version available, there will be an x86-64 execution layer to run older apps on them until they’re updated.

 

ARM’s upcoming takeover by Nvidia is even less of a concern; Apple don’t use ARM reference designs for their SOCs, they don’t use Nvidia graphics and they have a perpetual license for the instruction set that Nvidia won’t be able to revoke. They are bringing GPU and modem design in house. Even if Nvidia do stop them from using future versions of the ARM instruction set, I doubt that will concern Apple too much as they’ve got very talented CPU engineers on their team, as evidenced by how far iPhones are ahead in raw CPU performance than Qualcomm, Samsung and Mediatek powered phones. The fact that Apple are marketing the new CPUs as “Apple Silicon” as opposed to ARM is very telling.

[Liam]

Yup. You can't compete with rose tinted glasses. They will forget any and all issues they ever had on the old devices, and treat them like the best devices ever.

 

This is where good leadership and management needs to come in. Give them a device, train them well, and support them with the transition, whilst also being strict with and whining about what they used to have.

 

With our Trust, we issue whatever is a decent deal at the time. Imo £750 on a school device is far too much to spend these days. We have just ordered some i3 ThinBooks from VeryPC - complete with a custom design vinyl skin on top. IIRC they were about £450 each. 8GB RAM, 240GB SSD, Windows 10, 15" screen etc... 3 year warranty.

Considered these actually and used them in my last role. Good devices. I just had to be "sure". IT has been so bad for twelve years.. Literally.. Imagine no sims for three days. That bad. So I have my work cut out.

[DrBeaker]

Can I ask what's the rationale for providing laptops?

 

A PC can be purchased for £300-600 each approx. More powerful, more upgrade potential, less risk of being damaged, knocked, stolen, easy to secure etc.

 

Surely their role is to teach within the classroom and a PC would be more than adequate for that?

[DrBeaker]

Yup. You can't compete with rose tinted glasses. They will forget any and all issues they ever had on the old devices, and treat them like the best devices ever.

 

This is where good leadership and management needs to come in. Give them a device, train them well, and support them with the transition, whilst also being strict with and whining about what they used to have.

 

With our Trust, we issue whatever is a decent deal at the time. Imo £750 on a school device is far too much to spend these days. We have just ordered some i3 ThinBooks from VeryPC - complete with a custom design vinyl skin on top. IIRC they were about £450 each. 8GB RAM, 240GB SSD, Windows 10, 15" screen etc... 3 year warranty.

 

Yep

 

I replaced a users old Core 2 Duo, HDD, 4GB RAM machines with a 4th Gen i5, 4GB RAM and HDD early in 2020. Then upgraded this further over the summer to 8GB RAM and and SSD.

 

I've now got a complaint of "computer is slow".

 

WHAT? What on earth are you comparing it to? I am at a loss.