Lenovo 100e Gen 4 chroembook?

[PotNoodleTech]

Anyone running the Gen 4 in anger yet? They have mediatek cpu not AMD or Intel so I am going hmmmm.

 

Have been very happy with our Gen 2 and Gen 3 100e's so was gonna stick with Lenovo

 

Cheers

Edited April 23, 2024 by PotNoodleTech

[MrEprise]

We have 64 of them in the process of being set up.

 

We've had Mediatek ASUS Chromebooks from before that we've not been entirely happy with performance wise, I really hope these are better.

[PotNoodleTech]

We have 64 of them in the process of being set up.

 

We've had Mediatek ASUS Chromebooks from before that we've not been entirely happy with performance wise, I really hope these are better.

 

Hmm that's what I am worried about.

[psydii]

That's an odd choice, it seemed to me that most Chromebook these days seem to be getting chipset/specs comparable to low-end (but on a modern hardware platform) Windows laptops, and the the Lenovo 100w has the amazing N100 SoC, which seem to have at least the performance of a 2015 i5 but at 6W rather than 15W.

[PotNoodleTech]

Basically I've had 3 quotes and out of the blue one of the sellers told me that they've been warned off the gen 4 by their suppliers and recommended Gen 2 instead (I've got a lot of Gen 2 and are happy with them).

 

If I am gonna go "old" i would prefer gen3.

[3s-gtech]

I have a lot of older gen ones, 3 and 2. I like them. I got one gen 4 in for a student that would be standalone and not on our G Suite - I don't think I'd want to buy a class set though as they seem worse than the previous models (which have 5 and 7 year update lifespans left respectively).

[Millgate_Jon]

Basically I've had 3 quotes and out of the blue one of the sellers told me that they've been warned off the gen 4 by their suppliers and recommended Gen 2 instead (I've got a lot of Gen 2 and are happy with them).

 

If I am gonna go "old" i would prefer gen3.

 

Was there any explanation of why they would warn you away from G4 machines? I`ve a handful of clients with G4`s and no one has been disappointed so far, I`d be curious to know what the issue may be.

[PotNoodleTech]

Was there any explanation of why they would warn you away from G4 machines? I`ve a handful of clients with G4`s and no one has been disappointed so far, I`d be curious to know what the issue may be.

 

Just that they are Mediatek not AMD or Intel and thus have strayed into uncharted territory I suppose (as opposed to proven manufacturers).

 

No actual significant reason other than that i.e they didn't say we have xx percent failure rate or any other firm evidence. I guess it's just an opinion.

 

I'll think on it today. I don't want to order 4 year old CBs anyway to be honest.

 

Thanks all for the replies.

[Millgate_Jon]

I`ve just asked our Lenovo rep for any data about Mediatek that might be useful for you all to see. I know stats can easily paint a picture but by the same token, any info about why they moved over along with any of the testing results that motivated the change would be helpful I`m sure.

[Millgate_Jon]

Hi Everyone - Here is a direct copy and paste of the response from our Lenovo rep about the Mediatek chips......

"Hi Jon,

To give you an idea, here is a performance benchmark breakdown of the AMD 3015Ce (used on the 3^rd Gen EDU Chromebooks), the Mediatek Kompanio (used on current 4^th Gen EDU Chromebooks), and the N100 CPU that is available on the high end 500e G4)

As you can see, both the Intel and the Mediatek used in the current gen are significantly better than the AMD CPU we were using last year – since ChromeOS is a lightweight OS that more resembles a mobile OS like Android, the Mediatek CPU better lends itself to it and will improve battery life since it runs at a lower wattage.

I know benchmarks aren’t the end all be all, but this at least you gives you a good idea that when it comes to raw processing performance, the new Mediatek chip is outperforms the older AMD CPU in all capacities, while being more efficient, due to the old age of the AMD CPU (that specific architecture is now almost 3 years old)."

 

I hope the picture is viewable, I`ve not posted one on here before :-)

 

Hope you all find this useful

 

Cheers

 

Jon.

[PotNoodleTech]

Hi that's great info Jon the performance looks good.

[mikes]

Anyone having a large amount of smashed screens with this generation? Occasionally we'd have the odd smashed LCD panel of any chromebook, but of the Gen 4 but I've had 6 smashed LCD's in the past 2 weeks and we've only just started assigning them - and although 2 were anonymous the rest were from pupils who wouldn't do it maliciously - we assigned them the chromebook by name and they said the chromebook screen smashed while they were in the pupils bags and it's not like these kids with 0 negative points would purposefully damage their own chromebooks.

 

But we loaned out loads of the Gen 2 and hardly had any smashed screens at all. I wonder if they flex or aren't built with strong back panels?

[PotNoodleTech]

I hope not - I've just had a load delivered. The screen doesnt appear to be bendy or anything seems pretty much the same as Gen3 and Gen2??

 

I like them so far.

[MrEprise]

Doesn't bode well for ours. One of the other schools in the Trust also got a load recently, they've now had several back with smashed screens which makes you wonder why?

 

EDIT: Just went and had a look at one, the lid seems rather thin and flexible if I'm honest with no spacing between it and the LCD. Just poking it slightly caused the LCD to flex. Not good.

Edited May 14, 2024 by MrEprise

[mikes]

I was wondering if it either flexes very easily which causes the screen to smash because the smash seemed to always be slightly to the upper right of centre; or if the kids are being rough with their bags, throwing their bags around and the unit is getting smashed that way. Saying that I've just noticed one of ours is a Gen 3 which does have a different(ish) screen type so maybe it's just nothing.

But yes the one I was messing with did seem to flex quite easily and didn't feel as robust as the old style Gen 1 / 2's, our Gen 2 screen type seems a lot different to the Gen 3 and 4. (i.e. different chassis type)

 

I've bought 2 replacement screens off Amazon for £30 so am going to give those a go vs trying to sort out insurance for now

Edited May 15, 2024 by mikes

[mikes]

Bought 2 replacement screens off Amazon £30 each but unfortunately each one had a bunch of dead pixels in a certain spot. (same spot on different chromebooks so it's not the wiring).

 

And now had another one smashed just handed in from a tiny little Year 8 EAL girl who would definitely not have done it on purpose But they are all the new Gen 4's the only Gen 3 I had given with a smashed panel had been done on purpose (student had been caught) haven't had any of the 100+ Gen 2 we still have in service handed in with a broken screen now in months. (edit just noticed actually one of them is a Gen 3 I'm not sure how exactly that one got smashed)

 

So it seems to me the gen 4 does have a weaker screen esp. compared to the 1st gen / 2nd gen which look built totally different in design anyway.

I checked out a Gen 3 screen that had been purposefully damaged, I removed the panel and it does seem the Gen 4 panel is definitely thinner and flexing the Gen 4 panel caused cracks to appear a lot easier than the Gen 3. I don't think the ones we have put in trolleys for hour long lessons have been smashed just ones that are used to travel with pupils but we have only had them out 3 weeks, 6 smashed in basically a month isn't great, I don't really want to go collecting all the old Gen 2's (which really should be approaching EOL now, half of them have missing letters anyway), remarking them up as ALN laptops, then doing the opposite to the gen 4's so just going to keep an eye on it for now

Edited May 17, 2024 by mikes