pete Posted July 2, 2009 Posted July 2, 2009 Er, like it says on the subject line. I'm considering getting a bunch for a room where it'll be predominantly one web-based application and office apps only.
Sylv3r Posted July 2, 2009 Posted July 2, 2009 I have just ordered 170 from stone for the summer for the non-intense areas of the school. I got a eval unit and things tested out well when I put it through day-to-day activies as well as bench tests before I placed the order. 1
Haptic Posted July 2, 2009 Posted July 2, 2009 (edited) these atom based machines are becoming more and more popular in education and with the low cost units coming out monthly from most vedors its bound to pick up more, If you are looking for a low cost almost silent but effective small factor machine that can cope with word processing and internet surfing then these machine really can step up to the mark, I hope that helps but if you need any further info, eval unit or quotations be sure to give me a shout, p.s some intel infomation here http://www.intel.com/products/processor/atom/index.htm some independant reviews from Toms Hardware http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/intel-atom-cpu,1947.html Edited July 2, 2009 by Haptic 1
User3204 Posted July 2, 2009 Posted July 2, 2009 these atom based machines are becoming more and more popular in education and with the low cost units coming out monthly from most vedors its bound to pick up more, If you are looking for a low cost almost silent but effective small factor machine that can cope with word processing and internet surfing then these machine really can step up to the mark... Why not go for a thin client solution then ? The clients will last longer, and the software will be all centrally managed. ..anyway.. we have been trying a few netbooks, and have found them to be okay though. I got a price from my usual supplier for a SFF Atom based machine, and it was only a little less money than a standard desktop.
Sylv3r Posted July 2, 2009 Posted July 2, 2009 I got a price from my usual supplier for a SFF Atom based machine, and it was only a little less money than a standard desktop. In smaller quantities it doesn't seem worth it possibly for the money you will save but for the bigger orders it soon adds up.
Butuz Posted July 2, 2009 Posted July 2, 2009 If you factor in electricity costs over 3 / 5 years then it becomes idiotic not to go with atom if you do not require massive processing power. Butuz 2
Sylv3r Posted July 2, 2009 Posted July 2, 2009 If you factor in electricity costs over 3 / 5 years then it becomes idiotic not to go with atom if you do not require massive processing power. Butuz Another good point. Does anybody have any stats showing the difference / cost saving or the maths? I'll be interested to see how much we will save.... not that I will ever see the difference but good to know we are playing our part.
Haptic Posted July 2, 2009 Posted July 2, 2009 Why not go for a thin client solution then ? The clients will last longer, and the software will be all centrally managed. ..anyway.. we have been trying a few netbooks, and have found them to be okay though. I got a price from my usual supplier for a SFF Atom based machine, and it was only a little less money than a standard desktop. If you send me over the model you have been looking at I'm sure we can show you a competative difference to what you have been quoted,
Tallwood_6 Posted July 2, 2009 Posted July 2, 2009 I would personally wait until more of the ion models hit the market, the current crop lack the graphics grunt required for many tasks. I'm personally not all to convinced by the nettop idea, often you can get some lower powered desktops either brand new of refurbished for not much more and they are far more serviceable, have room for an optical drive and should last a good while longer.
Popular Post Butuz Posted July 2, 2009 Popular Post Posted July 2, 2009 (edited) Another good point. Does anybody have any stats showing the difference / cost saving or the maths? I'll be interested to see how much we will save.... not that I will ever see the difference but good to know we are playing our part. Here are our electricity costs per pc per year based on a school average on and off peak usage pattern and current off and on peak electricity costs. £21.09/year - Dell Optiplex GX520 P4 3.00Ghz PC £19.62/year - RM Core2 Quad 2.66 PC £8.16/year - RM EcoQuiet Atom PC £4.12/year - HP T5135 Thin Client £1.51/year - Axel M70w / Sun Ray II Thin Client Also for VDU devices: £16.14/year - 17" CRT £6.35/year - 19" TFT So - moving from an ICT suite of 30 x older Dell P4 workstation and 17" CRT to a Atom PC with 19" TFT's will save you £681.60 per year just in electricity. Butuz Edited July 2, 2009 by Butuz 6
Haptic Posted July 2, 2009 Posted July 2, 2009 Here are our electricity costs per pc per year based on a school average on and off peak usage pattern and current off and on peak electricity costs. £21.09/year - Dell Optiplex GX520 P4 3.00Ghz PC £19.62/year - RM Core2 Quad 2.66 PC £8.16/year - RM EcoQuiet Atom PC £4.12/year - HP T5135 Thin Client £1.51/year - Axel M70w / Sun Ray II Thin Client Also for VDU devices: £16.14/year - 17" CRT £6.35/year - 19" TFT Butuz Would be good to see what a Atom based system with a SSD would work out at!
Tallwood_6 Posted July 2, 2009 Posted July 2, 2009 Acer Aspire Revo R3600 Desktop PC - Desktops at Ebuyer looks to be one of the better Atom nettops.
Butuz Posted July 2, 2009 Posted July 2, 2009 Would be good to see what a Atom based system with a SSD would work out at! Only one way to find out mate - you know my address Butuz 1
Haptic Posted July 2, 2009 Posted July 2, 2009 Only one way to find out mate - you know my address Butuz I'll have a talk with the powers that be , would be good to see the stats and benefits not only cost wise but enviromentally, 1
Haptic Posted July 2, 2009 Posted July 2, 2009 Acer Aspire Revo R3600 Desktop PC - Desktops at Ebuyer looks to be one of the better Atom nettops. shame Acer havent adapted this model for the public sector with support for XP/Vista Biz/Windows 7:cool:
pete Posted July 7, 2009 Author Posted July 7, 2009 I am tempted by the Acer Veriton, despite it being Acer. Anyone willing to send me a loan unit to stress test?
pjm1974 Posted September 21, 2009 Posted September 21, 2009 Losing your touch Simon, they already have Buy an Acer Veriton N260G Nettop (UK, 1.66GHz, 2GB, 160GB, Vista Business), #P1.RCEYZ.MIS - eXpansys UK But to state the obvious the Veriton's not the same acer nettop as the AspireRevo - in that it doesn't have the NVIDIA ION chipset. We spent a deal of time finding Windows XP driver to make the AspireREvo work, but now that we have it works great but it IS a shame it's not an option out of the book for those who don't have a working XP image.
mwnci Posted September 21, 2009 Posted September 21, 2009 I'm holding out for the dual core version of the Revo to be released. Word is that it should be available before the end of October, probably to coincide with Windows 7. That extra processing power will make all the difference for what we need it to do. New dual core version of asus eee box coming out too, probably at the same time.
synaesthesia Posted September 21, 2009 Posted September 21, 2009 I'm beginning to look at these for one of my schools. They've currently just removed over half of their IT suite and dumped the machines into classrooms, one purely running the IWB (Promethean) without a monitor. They are however dreadfully slow (P4 2ghz, 256mb ram). On one hand, £20 each machine will add another gb of ram which will make a HUGE difference. On the other, I was looking to recommend something like the Asus EEEPc atom jobbies. 1.6ghz, gig of ram, possibly standalone or possibly on CC3, undecided. I'm just pondering whether they would take CC3, be any better than what's in situation currently or be able to handle anything a bit "beefy" should the need arise. The teachers use laptops, and I was also considering a VNC style link should they want to stream something from laptop over wireless to the IWB/projector without fiddling with cables. Keeping an eye on the thread for thoughts and ideas.
dhicks Posted September 21, 2009 Posted September 21, 2009 (edited) I was also considering a VNC style link should they want to stream something from laptop over wireless to the IWB/projector without fiddling with cables. I'm thinking of the same kind of thing. We've just bought a couple of Acer Nettop machines (thanks, Acer Outlet) running Windows XP, small enough to be mounted on a standard VESA mount. We could mount one of those on the wall of a classroom, hook it up to a projector and let the teacher control the screen via a laptop / Tablet PC. Note that the laptop or whatever doing the controlling via VNC is only passing along keypresses and mouse clicks - any video or graphics gets rendered on the machine attached to the projector, so video should be smooth (although it might not show up on the VNC connected machine, but that's a minor detail). -- David Hicks Edited September 21, 2009 by dhicks
synaesthesia Posted September 21, 2009 Posted September 21, 2009 Thats about the size of the idea here. As you say, the machines are easily hidden away - in fact, there's enough clearance on the IWB's mounting to hide them behind there. Maybe with a bluetooth presenter thingy attached too. Just experimenting with "easy" ways to do this - the last thing I want to do is confuse teachers with more technology
Sylv3r Posted September 21, 2009 Posted September 21, 2009 The ones I bought from Stone - I got with 2GB of RAM and they are yet to cause us any issues here running any software. 1
synaesthesia Posted September 22, 2009 Posted September 22, 2009 Sylv3r, could I be cheeky and enquire as to a rough cost for those?
cookie_monster Posted September 22, 2009 Posted September 22, 2009 We aren't using them on the desktop but i'm running an Atom powered NC10 with Windows 7, Open Office and also wireless encryption at home and it runs fine.
Netman Posted September 23, 2009 Posted September 23, 2009 We just deployed 75 Acer Revo R3600's over the summer, replacing nearly a third of our desktops... had to go XP on them in the end, as we just didn't have enough time to complete testing of all our apps on W7. Apart from one DOA and some teething troubles with getting the image just right, they have all deployed and work like a charm. They were replacing 3 year old desktops and thin clients and performance for general Office/Web and even some photoshop elements work is fine. The Nvidia Ion really shines on multimedia with full screen streaming video not being a problem. We are also deploying them as digital signage clients using Xibo. We got the 1Gb RAM and were going to upgrade them to 2Gb, but having seen them in action there isn't much need to at the moment - we'll get to it later this year some time... Hope that helps anyone thinking of using them - any specific q's - fire away.... 1
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