HTCPCP

not sure what the state is now, as I left 6 years ago, but we did this starting nearly 10 years ago with ipads. 1 - Ruckus originally, but changed to Meraki 2 - Nothing major, but it discovered some flaws with coverage of the wifi in certain areas. Had to create a new VLAN for the devices, and get a different IP scope for the devices, as we couldn't expand our scope enough for all the devices. Also we changed how our filtering worked which was already planned but sped up a bit (all devices connected to that range were automatically applied student filtering) 3 - At the time both chromebooks and ipads were compared, with ipads winning out. Have a look to see what they want to do with them, as finding the right solution for your school may be different to others. 4 - Yes and no, we spoke to companies, and looked at what was being offered. We used a few different solutions companies for a bits and bobs, but mostly in house 5 - Plan for everything. Devices will be broken, lost, stolen, sold by kids, forgotten etc. Repairs can take time, which can cause issues for classes etc. This can take quite a bit of time up for staff if insurance is used (we were actually dropped by our insurers part way in due to the number of breakages. -> Make sure they are able to be fully wiped with activation lock removed too. No matter what you do, kids will find a way to get their own accounts on there, and then lose access to them -> Get a test group (potentially a few classes that have specific teachers) to test it and help find the faults before they become a problem. From making sure apps are installed ready to go, wireless profiles work properly etc -> Cases and policies - get the policies worked out, and make sure good cases are provided with the devices. From app store policies (whitelist app store only etc, internet policies, charging policies, malicious damage charging policy), to what happens when someone forgets the device, breaks it, loses it, brings it in uncharged etc. There are also certain safeguarding issues we had to deal with regarding this, including location services, and what it can be used for. -> Learn the MDM before the rollout - this will save you a lot of time later -> work with teachers on how to use it -> what is going to happen when someone inevitably uses a knock off charger? We had someone who found a charger randomly, used it at home and then had it go bang causing thankfully only visual damage to someones house -> how are you going to manage updates for the devices. A few hundred ipads all trying to download an OS update is going to hit your connection hard -> what happens when something happens (internet outage, wifi problems etc) during a lesson (anything like this will cause pushback from especially the less tech savvy teachers about using them).

going back a few years ago when still using an MSI card, and the issue seemed to be resolved (at least until Windows updated the driver for me) was to DDU the machine and reinstalled the GPU via a pre downloaded installer (you will need to boot in without any network connection), and it seemed to have worked.

back when I was in edu, I took over a school which had 2 banks of inspirons, and it was a right pain. Constant failures of the charging pin (also had the same issue with HPs with the small barrel adapter too), as well as hinge issues, power button issues etc, as they just aren't designed for that kind of use. Latitudes are generally better built, although I've still had issues with ones with the small barrel port failing (likewise Probooks and Elitebooks with the HP equivalent port that have the same issue too), so finding one with USB C charging seems to be far more reliable.

If you get the RM AIOs, unless the design has changed since I last had any dealings with them, they can also be bolted to the desk nice and easily, which is always an advantage if you are trying to prevent them being thrown.

Have you spoken to ICTDirect, to see if Dave has anything hidden up his sleve? Probably a bit low spec for most of the stuff they have, but they may well have something/a way to find something?

The ideal situation would be to try and find something with a better tier GPU, as the 3050 laptop GPU can be a bit under powered (as can the 3050ti too) and will come into problems with some games due to only having 4gb VRAM. That being said that seems like quite a good deal (as long as there is a spare SODIMM slot and they haven't soldered the RAM on!)

This! All our 8GB devices are regularly getting flagged for high usage even just on basic tasks. It's well worth getting the 16GB, even if you update it yourself. Will reduce the moaning and gripes from users, and will extend the usable life too. Just make sure that the kit you go for isn't soldered RAM and actually has a spare DIMM available for it though.

Oh no, my users have found they can "react" to emails now... Not sure its what is called a "helpful" feature... (not seen it before, but may be something that has been out for a bit longer, but only just discovered this when someone sent me a "thumbs up" instead of actually replying to my email.)

I trust ADATA and Integral more than most of the other budget brands, and tend to just be lower binned products (from what I have read), so if its just for a machine, then it should be fine. However you can get a Kioxia for around £15 for a 240gb drive, or £23 for a 480GB drive, so would probably go for them, but that's partly because the are a brand I've used with hardly any issues for years now.

Depends really. In a previous job we had over 1,000 ipads, and were sending at least half a dozen every week, often more to a local repairer. Apple's repair prices were terrible, and even basic repairs were often quoted at more than the cost of the device, but a reputable 3rd party used to charge (albeit a fair few years ago) quite reasonable prices, with even the ipad that the kid bent in a vice coming in less than £200 to repair (and not just using the cheapest possible parts), with the agreement where accidental damage was covered, deliberate damage would be invoiced to parents

If the students move classes during the school day, you can probably track it down to a year group or class group by looking at what classes are in reach of the AP that you are seeing it there, and if groups are moved around, you should be able to work out which class it is, so then it's 30 or so kids you can then work on. If not, you can always (space permitting) move each class 1 at a time to a room on the other side of the school as a room change, and then even if they clock the reasoning for the room change, unless they stash their phone somewhere, then it's a case that either they will start broadcasting in the new location, or will not broadcast, either way you should be able to hopefully narrow it down to a class (being friendly with the person who manages these changes is always helpful). We did this to try and find which kid was using one of the portable hotspots back when I was in education, with the pretense of there needing to be some checks on mounts, cabling etc (old projectors) but in reality kids tend not to question it too much as we regularly had room changes throughout the school. Other options would be a "test wifi" which you can connect to, and enter your school email address to sign in (subject to that being something that you can do safely without them being able to access your own network), and hope they are stupid enough to fall for it? At the very least, it will give you a mac address and email address, but depending on your system, you may get a device name, device make and model etc. Don't publicise it (so if questions come up later, it was something for testing and hadn't realised it went live etc), but if a kid is doing something like that, the chances are they will look at what networks are available, and if there is an unsecured one then they may well try to connect

We are nearly completely a dell house for end users now going exclusively Optiplex, Latitude and precision lines having moved from a "best price" from Dell, HP and Lenovo. We have been averaging at less than 1% failure rate over the last 3 years with the only main gripes being loud fans on laptops, and a non dell issue of Windows Modern standby, so unless things change dramatically, I think we are going to remain a Dell house. Dell over the last few years (quite a few) years have dramatically improved the support systems. It was never terrible (apart from when using non enterprise kit in a workplace environment), but at least on the last few years, I have found them really easy to deal with. The tools and drivers are normally faultless, which is always a benefit, especially Command Update are brilliant, as is the preboot diagnostics that you can use if there is a fault too. I've tended to shy away from AIOs though, partly down to the increased e-waste, as screens can last considerably longer than the standard lifecycle of a machine. We do however have a couple of the Dell optiplex Ultra's (although these seems to be stuck on 11th gen still, which makes me think this may be an EOL product line now), which offer great flexibility and look seamless in the reception area, although probably not within most corporate budgets, and even less likely in education.

I've used a few over the years. Sharp - never had any issues, but the engineers from our supplier (not direct) were always top notch. I think we only had one occasion where the parts weren't quick to come, and that was because someone tried to print to stapled pages on the bypass tray. Kyocera - No real issues with them. They weren't heavily used, because they were in specific offices. Used devices were rock solid even when they hit 6 years old. Konica - bought the machines outright at the end of the lease with maintenance contract, and since then they have just been unreliable, with at least 1 of them being down at any point waiting parts. We have 1 waiting for parts for over a month now and totally inoperable, another one making the same noises and will need the same work doing on it, but it's still printing as we can't afford a second printer out of action, and the others having only recently come back into service. Quality of the toner cartridges coming in have fallen too, with 3 in recent months that have broken either in shipping or when installing it to the machine. Ricoh - always found their sales really pushy, and the printers a bit more show than substance, but they work, and parts were always quite quick to fix when it did go wrong.

I've used the T80 Extreme (I think) (looking at this it has been replaced with the T82 Extreme now) for a series of yearly events, and they have been brilliant. Only down side is that each of them came with their own dock, which was a bit of a pain. That being said, the kit was bullet proof, including in the rain etc.

We use the Asus TUF A15 and F15 models on all the new laptops at a computer club for children with additional needs I run, with 75% of our laptops now being different generations of them. The build is very good for the price, and only really a couple minor gripes (Mcafee being preinstalled is one, and the other is fans ramp up very quicky). They perform quite well, and with the oldest model being 3 years old, it's still in very good condition, even with it having been not softly handled every session. The 17" model is good, but definitely not worth the premium (and reduced portability) over the more powerful 15" model unless they are going to be only using the laptop screen.