What Chromebooks are you buying for Primary?

[EssentialRug]

As the title, what Chromebooks are you purchasing for your Primary Schools?

 

We aren't looking to break the bank, but something with long auto updates, good build quality, easy to source spares and repair them ourselves, and something that has more than a 32GB MMC.

[dhicks]

As the title, what Chromebooks are you purchasing for your Primary Schools?

 

Sorry, I can't remember the exact model, but the last batch (of 50, back in August ready for the start of September) we bought were Lenovo's. They've been used with Year 5. No problems so far, so they've lasted the first term in active use with no issues. One thing to point out, though, is that we didn't realise when we bought them they only had the one USB-C port for charging. That seems to be the most common issue with our Chromebooks, the children being careless when unplugging and breaking the USB port (Year 5 seem to be being a bit more careful than some other year groups). All our previous devices have had two USB-C ports for charging, so if we did have an issue with one port we at least have a spare. If these do have an issue it'll need a repair / replacement.

[PotNoodleTech]

Lenovos here - theyre OK not perfect. The new 100e don't seem as good as the older 100e.

 

Dell used to be good but we cant buy them any more because of framework issues sadly.

 

Why do you think you need more than 32GB? You can set a setting in your google admin console where all work gets automatically saved into google drive so that theres nothing really stored on the chromebooks themselves.

[EssentialRug]

Lenovos here - theyre OK not perfect. The new 100e don't seem as good as the older 100e.

 

Dell used to be good but we cant buy them any more because of framework issues sadly.

 

Why do you think you need more than 32GB? You can set a setting in your google admin console where all work gets automatically saved into google drive so that theres nothing really stored on the chromebooks themselves.

 

We install a few Android Apps which can take up a bit of space, and we are still seeing the issues with profiles seemingly not deleting from the device as per this thread:

 

https://www.edugeek.net/forums/cloud-services/223068-google-admin-console-erase-local-data-5.html

[PrimaryNetMan]

At one school over the summer went with Lenovo 500e (£250) for Foundation and Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3 for Y1-6. These were £212 for 14" FHD, 8GB RAM, 128GB eMMC, Wifi 6 with updates until 2033

[TwistedHelixis]

A few months back we got another batch of Dells. A few years ago we got Lenovo education ones, but we managed to get 4 year warranty with the Dells and Dell support seems to have improved recently, whereas I have noticed the Lanovo support having gone down hill for us.

 

I did notice the newer Dells have gone up in price, so next time I might look at something else. Build quality seems very good and the touch screen is much better than the lenovo.

 

If you are buying Dell, go through the Dell regional manager directly, as they will give you the biggest discount over a third party Dell reseller.

[LeMarchand]

At one school over the summer went with Lenovo 500e (£250) for Foundation and Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3 for Y1-6.

 

A bit off topic, but what do you do about sign in credentials?

[PrimaryNetMan]

Years 1-6 have their own creds, Foundation devices have individual accounts pre signed in and then have a PIN enabled. Looking to move over to QR logins in the near future.

[LeMarchand]

Years 1-6 have their own creds, Foundation devices have individual accounts pre signed in and then have a PIN enabled. Looking to move over to QR logins in the near future.

 

Thanks. SMT are always trying to get rid of individual logins as "too difficult" (in my Junior School!). Good to know that some kids can manage it.

[PrimaryNetMan]

Yeh, it's tricky but just point SLT to DfE filtering and monitoring standards and the need to identify individuals.

[james874]

Lenovo 500e

[DavR]

We've just bought a batch of Asus CZ11, although I've not deployed them yet.

 

First impressions are they're a little bit plastic-y, would have liked to have seen some rubber corners on there for shock protection, but we'll see how they play out.

 

As far as I can see, they are the cheapest edu-spec thing on the market at the moment, with a three year warranty, 64GB storage, in the £160-£180 region.

 

A run down of the other stuff we've had:

• Lenovo 300e - had a terrible failure rate, and are showing their age badly
  
• HP G6 11A - ugly, but they work well
  
• Dell 3100 - great, would buy Dell every day if I could
  
• Acer - fine for us, others have complained about build quality (we only had a few)