Laptop Advice - fanless laptops?

[tooplanx]

Hi all,

 

My school (primary) is looking at getting new laptops for the pupils. Initially they had looked at traditional clunky, heavy laptops with cd-drives, 15" 1366x768 screens, and traditional fan cooled cpu.

 

In 2020 I feel that this kind of laptop is pretty archaic, even considering cost.

 

My own personal laptop is a passively cooled (fanless), m.2 ssd, optical driveless, 1080p lightweight 13" laptop and it is perfectly capable of most things I throw at it. And was very cheap too.

 

In my mind this kind of laptop is much more preferable than the old style as I feel they are lighter, more robust, more power efficient, and most websites nowadays are clunky when viewed at 768p (Scratch particularly).

 

Has anyone got any opinions on these kind of laptops for pupil use? They are basically Chromebooks but with Windows...

 

Thanks in advance.

[synaesthesia]

No, pure and simple. No longevity, passive cooling does not suffice in that sort of environment on portable devices.

[Primus]

No, pure and simple. No longevity, passive cooling does not suffice in that sort of environment on portable devices.

 

There's a lot of examples of devices that are fanless and have no issues with longevity.

 

Most of the time students need something that's quick to boot, has good battery life, a decent keyboard and screen (a nice trackpad is a big one for me). They don't need a Core i9 with 32Gb of RAM.

 

Passively cooled laptops are absolutely fine provided they're from a reputable manufacturer - we always extend our warranties to 3 years NDB onsite for peace of mind but rarely if ever have to use it.

[tooplanx]

No, pure and simple. No longevity, passive cooling does not suffice in that sort of environment on portable devices.

 

Would the cpu just go kaput over time?

 

Aren't most Chromebooks passively cooled?

[Primus]

Would the cpu just go kaput over time?

 

No, they're built to run fanless.

[tooplanx]

That's what I thought. So you think they are suitable?

[Primus]

That's what I thought. So you think they are suitable?

 

Yes, I do.

[LeMarchand]

We've got loads of fanless devices and overheating/CPU stress hasn't been a problem.

 

Although another member here hasn't had problems with his similar devices, I would stay clear of devices that have keyboards that attach magnetically. Pupils and staff are incapable of working out that if you carry the device by the edge of the keyboard the weight of the screen will cause it to drop off. Bye bye laptop!

[jmak]

15" screen is not the right balance between portability and usability - even more so with the poor resolution mentioned.

 

CD drive is a waste of space and weight for the amount of use vs portability. They're also fragile and have a high rate of failure.

 

SSD is essential for performance. Also adds robustness compared to spinning rust.

 

On the fanless design, personally I think the benefits outweigh the downsides for this use, as long as you have a processor designed for this use. Laptops that are likely to be chucked in pupils' bags have a good chance of the fan getting blocked with gunk and dust or stopping working due to being dropped. Then it'd be even more likely to overheat as it would be designed to work with a fan but wouldn't have one.

[synaesthesia]

Sorry I should have been a little clearer with my initial response. Anything with decent enough performance *and* isn't horribly cheap (unsuitable for student use) generally isn't going to be passively cooled, unless it's something diabolical like a Macbook where longevity & reliability isn't a selling point. There will be plenty of machines passively cooled that are otherwise just fine, but from experience despite less moving parts don't seem to have been as reliable. This is of course a huge shame as with SSD's now mostly a standard fitting it leaves far less mechanical things to go wrong. I'd be happy to be proven wrong if anyone has some particular models they've had good experience with.

And re screen size, DVD drives etc - 14" is the largest you typically see around with the larger being flimsy consumer grade, workstation level etc. And optical drives - no, it's 2020.

[tooplanx]

Brilliant, thanks for all the feedback.

 

If anyone has any recommendations for laptop models that fit this bill then that would be a bonus?!