Promethean vs Smartboard

[Sylv3r]

45 Promeatheans here and have no / very little problems with them. Drivers are sent out across the network and install fine.

 

Training is put on reguarly for new and interested staff to ensure the boards are getting used.

 

To be honest, if you spend that sort of money you need to spend the time putting in place the necessary training. Regardless of what manufacturer is chosen.

[djdohboy]

There is always this option if you cant ceiling mount a projector:

 

Link

 

I have to say that I have always liked the smarts but my boss decided to ask the teachers which ones they wanted and they picked the promethian on looks oh well

[tjb]

We have 50 Prometheans here (not my decision!) and we have had very little problems with them, a couple of failed PSUs and a few faulty pens but all were replaced under warranty. We did get a ACTIVboard +2 for one room and I wouldn't ever buy another one! We can buy them directly from Dell Australia so the support is the same as other Dell products.

[Sylv3r]

We have 50 Prometheans here (not my decision!) and we have had very little problems with them, a couple of failed PSUs and a few faulty pens but all were replaced under warranty. We did get a ACTIVboard +2 for one room and I wouldn't ever buy another one! We can buy them directly from Dell Australia so the support is the same as other Dell products.

 

What problems have you found with the ACTIVBoard +2? We have 20 and have had no issues at all with them apart from a couple of failed PSU's in the first week of installation.

[KarlGoddard]

another Promethean school here... never had any major probs with them - 1 duff power supply and thats it.

 

Software is painless to install and easy to use, but then again I have done all the Activ Board courses the lack of a free msi is a royal pain, but then again the drivers go on my IWB pc image so msi'ing the drivers isn't that important at the moment.

 

More importantly the teachers here like them and as they use them far more than any of us techs, I'll tend to listen to them. I really couldn't care less how tricky or not a piece of kit is to install, here if a teacher wants something because its the 'best' piece of kit to teach with and enhance their lessons, they get it. It's my job to get it work reliably for them.

 

also £30 for a Promethean pen? we found a source that supplies them at £4 or £5...

[Sylv3r]

also £30 for a Promethean pen? we found a source that supplies them at £4 or £5...

 

Please post here or PM the secret source

[dbrown]

... £30 for a Promethean pen? we found a source that supplies them at £4 or £5...

 

But if you have to use a "source", that's hardly relevant. Since these pens need replacing at regular intervals (in our school pens last about an average of 1 year) one needs to consider the commodity price.

We buy these in packs of 10 for about £130 from Promethean or from our local approved suppliers.

 

As to the boards themselves, we have 25 and have had only one fault in the 2yrs I've been here. (Unfortunately, that was not resolved by Promethean support. )

My main issue is cost of software. When we bought our last board, the board was only 10-20% more than the competitive offers. But upgrade ActivBoard SW licences were more per machine than a site licence for the competitors SW!

 

Although I'm as grudging as anyone about continually coffing up for new pens, in the TCO they're not really that significant. Say-

£2500 for an IWB, projector & installation;

£200 for new bulbs after 2.5yrs;

£300 for SW upgrade after 3 yrs;

£400 for new projector after 5yrs;

£30 a year for a new pen. (Max)

Then over 10 yrs you'd spend about £4200, of which max £270 (6.5%) is pens. (With luck and bulk buying, less than 2%)

And that's ignoring the cost of technician's time: hard to estimate (I'd guess maybe 2hrs/yr), but I think this primary school decided to get a technician just after it got a load of IWBs. (A board bum rather than a toner drone?)

 

Don.

[tjb]

What problems have you found with the ACTIVBoard +2? We have 20 and have had no issues at all with them apart from a couple of failed PSU's in the first week of installation.

 

We got one (not my decision) to go in one of our classrooms and it took around 6 months before it was fully set up and working properly. The boxes were badly damaged when they arrived and there were a few bolts missing as a result. It came with no instructions and the Redback speakers in the box marked 'Fragile' had crushed in front grills. We eventually got sent some substandard instructions and the missing bolts and I mounted it with the help of the maintenance dept which took around 4 hours to get the thing completely mounted and wired. I then spent ages trying to get the projector to sit nice and squarely on the end of the projection pole as there is virtually no adjustment available and the instructions didn't help. The only way to adjust the projector seems to be to tweak the four spring loaded plate mounting bolts which took forever to get setup right. I had to send back and receive 3 pairs of speakers over the course of six months before they could get a new set (different brand) to me that wasn't damaged during transit!

 

All in all it was a bad experience for us before we even got the thing up and working properly due to the supplier (not Dell), Redbacks' poor packaging and the careless couriers. I can see the benefit an ACTIVboard +2 would be in a primary school with its hydraulic lift but ours is in the middle school (Yr 6) where it never gets moved! You also get the added benefit of not having to get projectors, cabling, speakers and power installed by contractors but I still think I'd rather pay less for an ACTIVboard and have it mounted at a set height. All of our ACTIVboards are installed in classes from Yr 2 to Yr12 at different heights ranging from 750mm to 900mm from the floor to bottom of board and can easily be remounted at a different height if necessary.

 

I have only used one Smart board back in 2003 when I lived in the UK which I liked very much but I was unable to find a supplier in Australia when our school was interested in first buying some IWBs in 2005. My ICT Development Officer then persuaded the school to buy Prometheans based on his previous experience of them and their excellent support from online teacher resources.

[crofmmv]

Out of a bad bunch I prefer the Smartboards, though I do think both solutions are very expensive.

 

 

We have Lecturers who find writing music notation very difficult and would prefer reverting back to pens and whitebord.

[Voodoo]

We are moving to Smartboard from Promethean (because we've had all the worst experiences with Promethean as outlined earlier in this thread).

 

We encourage our teaching staff to use board-independent software (such as Powerpoint, etc) but there is naturally a lot of material they've created using the board-dependent software (i.e. by using Activstudio on the Prometheans, etc). Staff are, therefore, looking for reassurances that materials they have created using the proprietary board software are transferable to the other type of board.

 

So...

 

Question 1 is, are the resources created on Smartboards with Smart software able to be "run" on a Promethean board? (We have already successfully tested the opposite - that our Promethean Flipcharts run ok on a Smartboard - and they all did).

 

Question 2 is, are Promethean-created Flipcharts "editable" on a Smartboard, and vice versa?

 

Anyone got experience of these two issues?

[LeMarchand]

Question 1 is, are the resources created on Smartboards with Smart software able to be "run" on a Promethean board? (We have already successfully tested the opposite - that our Promethean Flipcharts run ok on a Smartboard - and they all did).

 

Question 2 is, are Promethean-created Flipcharts "editable" on a Smartboard, and vice versa?

 

1: I don't see why not - if no-one has a definitive answer by Monday I can check for you (remind me!).

 

2: I do some private work for a teacher who has swapped between schools using both. Both are supposed to be able to import each other's files, but I seem to remember that I ended up redesigning a load because the imports never seemed to work properly going from Smart to Activ (didn't try the other way - if you don't have both I could do so). This may be different on newer versions of the software.

[matt40k]

Smartboard... 3 + yrs on site...

 

Example call:

 

Hi, A kids just put a pen\knife whatever into the smartboard

 

My call to support:

 

Hi, I've got a smartboard that's broken. I've tried a new cable etc and it appears to be the actual board. The serial no is (whatever).

 

They say:

Sorry to hear that, someone will be with you tomorrow\later that day. (with a new smart board no less )

[farmerste]

i'm not sure about the 3yrs onsite,

we bought a load of smartboards in 2006, and now we have had problems, whenever you contact steljes all i get is 'we have sent serial number to smart, and are awaiting to hear if it is under warranty', i think after 2 years it is pretty much down to smart if they want to fix them or not, and i've heard that they have lost the database of registered boards anyway.

to be honest smart have been worse than second rate at rectifying faulty smartboards in my opinion.

if i could get the parts i'd fix controller faults myself.

 

[matt40k]

We got them installed from authorised installer.

 

We reg'd all the serials once they was installed, not when they broke. Which gives you 3 yrs not just 1 rtb. I've never had any problems with steljes.

[jonnellan]

We have just had a load of promethean boards installed and have had no end of problems from day one. The installation was less than perfect(took about 6 weeks in total to get all the boards physically working) power supplies died daily in the beginning.

 

Now, 7 weeks on the drivers disappear daily. We are inundated with support calls about disconnected promethean boards where the PC has just "lost" the driver". A restart always solves it and the board springs to life but the amount of times this happens is ridiculous.

 

Promethean gave us a new driver(4.1.14, we were using 4.1.13) but this does not seem to have sorted the problems, we are still having drop outs. I know that there have been issues with other drivers but nothing confirmed about these drivers. We are using Vistax32 on our network.

 

Has anyone else had these problems?

 

To answer the question, i guess i would have to say that smartboards are more appealing to me at the moment.

[damienginty]

Wow Jonnellan - your problem sounds exactly like mine. I have to say that I am a smart guy myself and have never been a fan of promethean. Eight years in this game and have only ever had problems with Promethean active boards (smart people rule! ).

 

On a more positive note......... I am always up for the challenges created by non-technical staff making technical decisions based on how things look. A good example would be....... ermmmm...... management insisting on the attractive promethean boards rather than the ugly smart boards. Anyone remember the story about the ugly duckling ???

[torledo]

can i vote for a wi remote and a wall (preferably white or off-white)

instead.

[maniac]

We have about 30 Promethean boards in my school of varying ages, and get very few problems with them. Had a few PSU units go, but I've experienced that with other makes of whiteboard as well so it's not a unique problem to Promethean.

 

The pens do go missing, but as you get two pens with every board we simply keep the 2nd as a spare, and havn't had to order any from promethean yet. Most problems with the board not connecting can be traced to using a USB lead that is too long, they hate being any longer than about 8 feet. Use an active USB extension lead if you need a longer cable and you don't get any problems.

 

I have worked with Smart boards as well and they are good, but overall I prefer Promethean.

 

Mike

[kylewilliamson]

Steljes in general, are apparentley horrific. The suppliers we use hate dealing with them too.

 

We've found a comfortable middle way with Hitachi Cambridge Boards and we're over the moon with them. Particulary, our staff dont like the touch screen idea. The replacement pens cost a fortune, but we've managed not to loose too many sets to date.

 

As far as 'boom arm' mounting goes, you can get this type of thing Sahara Presentation Systems > Sahara Boom Arm which'll work with any board afaik. Smart do these too: SMART - 600i for educators

[torledo]

Steljes in general, are apparentley horrific. The suppliers we use hate dealing with them too.

 

We've found a comfortable middle way with Hitachi Cambridge Boards and we're over the moon with them. Particulary, our staff dont like the touch screen idea. The replacement pens cost a fortune, but we've managed not to loose too many sets to date.

 

As far as 'boom arm' mounting goes, you can get this type of thing Sahara Presentation Systems > Sahara Boom Arm which'll work with any board afaik. Smart do these too: SMART - 600i for educators

 

That smart all-in-one looks so much nicer than prometheans big orange monstrosity. I bet it's helluva a lot lighter and easier to install aswell.

[Alis_Klar]

Hmm there appear to be two 600i's

 

SMART - 600i for educators

 

and

 

VideoCentric UK SMARTBoard SMART 660i, SMART680i Intelligent, Electronic Whiteboard System

 

I personally like the look of the second one. Is this now replaced by the top one?

 

The thing that really impresses me about these integrated Smartboards is that all the AV functions such as amplifier volume and projector input selection appear to be integrated into the software. Is this the case? Can they be controlled by one remote?

 

Has anyone used these and found it to be easy in practice?

 

We have all Promethean's and the number of times teachers are confused by the over complicated Cambridge audio amplifiers:mad::mad: supplied with the Promethean boards. And don't even get me started on the maze of cabling!!!!!

[Voodoo]

Yeah, the top one is the new model and the bottom one is the old model (now end-of-line I believe). My own staff have seen both models and say the new 680i version looks better.

 

We have just put in 5 Smartboards, in 3 different types of configuration. The Smart Speaker sound arrangements are great and lots less cabling required compared to Promethean.

 

Don't know if any of our teachers are using the remotes, because the hardware panel mounted beside the board is so simple to use to switch between computer and DVD/VHS/whatever device. One button to press and a single volume control on the speakers makes it all so much simpler all round. :)

[steven19852001]

So what do you all prefer then? 600i 1 or 2? obviously the 2nd generation does look sleek and nice but very basic however with the new smart hub released can add the scratchpad and bridgit software. The gen 1 comes with intergrated sound system and with the new firmware released at SMART - Front Projection SMART Board interactive whiteboard,Firmware update wizard which opens up the lan port to enable conference presentation and lin Q which is video display via network. Please give me your thoughts on this as im using this as a exercise.

 

Steven Hayes

 

Technical Support

 

Steljes

[Voodoo]

We are very happy with the 680i2 model and are now adopting these throughout.

 

But there was one feature we liked about the old model that the new one didn't have and that was the ability to switch on the integrated board and projector without needing the computer, allowing you to quickly use the board for simple presentations or writing. We have many visiting lecturers doing S6 courses at our school and they don't have computer accounts so this feature would have been very useful on the 680i2.

 

Is that going to be, or is it already, one of the features now available for 680i2's?

Edited December 1, 2008 by Voodoo

[DarrenC]

As far as I am aware the 'scratchpad' feature on the original 600i was seen by smart as more of a corporate feature as virtually all classrooms have a PC in them, and there is no intention of adding them as standard to the new versons.