Need advice on Chrome books for home school.
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Also consider the new Raspberry Pi 4 4GB. Actually works incredibly well as a desktop for most things. Would be very in line with a "flexible" Chromebook. I want to move my kids over to RP4s.
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Would refurb laptops with neverware CloudReady (https://www.neverware.com/) be a decent option? That way you get hardware that should be a bit more rugged and repairable if you go with business grade as well as the option of a bigger screen since most of the chromebooks I've seen have tiny 11" low-ish resolution screens. Just throwing the option out there.
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@scottalanmiller said in Need advice on Chrome books for home school.:
I have two girls and they compute from home (home schoolers) and they use Chomebooks and it works great. We have an older Asus right now. Asus, Acer, Samsung and others all make really nice ones. I know Lenovo hasn't been my favourite, but they make some great value ones, too.
A friend of mine got a $179 really nice flip around touch screen Lenovo Chromebook last year. Very impressive.
you would allow the purchase of a Lenovo? as enough time now passed?
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@Dashrender said in Need advice on Chrome books for home school.:
@scottalanmiller said in Need advice on Chrome books for home school.:
I have two girls and they compute from home (home schoolers) and they use Chomebooks and it works great. We have an older Asus right now. Asus, Acer, Samsung and others all make really nice ones. I know Lenovo hasn't been my favourite, but they make some great value ones, too.
A friend of mine got a $179 really nice flip around touch screen Lenovo Chromebook last year. Very impressive.
you would allow the purchase of a Lenovo? as enough time now passed?
Yeah, I've seen no signs that they've changed how they operate, so I don't care how much time has passed.
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@Dashrender said in Need advice on Chrome books for home school.:
@scottalanmiller said in Need advice on Chrome books for home school.:
I have two girls and they compute from home (home schoolers) and they use Chomebooks and it works great. We have an older Asus right now. Asus, Acer, Samsung and others all make really nice ones. I know Lenovo hasn't been my favourite, but they make some great value ones, too.
A friend of mine got a $179 really nice flip around touch screen Lenovo Chromebook last year. Very impressive.
you would allow the purchase of a Lenovo? as enough time now passed?
I'm just saying that the hardware was nice. I didn't buy it.
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@notverypunny said in Need advice on Chrome books for home school.:
Would refurb laptops with neverware CloudReady (https://www.neverware.com/) be a decent option? That way you get hardware that should be a bit more rugged and repairable if you go with business grade as well as the option of a bigger screen since most of the chromebooks I've seen have tiny 11" low-ish resolution screens. Just throwing the option out there.
From what I've seen the genuine Chromebooks tend to be the most rugged options. That's actually a reason to choose them.
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@scottalanmiller said in Need advice on Chrome books for home school.:
@Dashrender said in Need advice on Chrome books for home school.:
@scottalanmiller said in Need advice on Chrome books for home school.:
I have two girls and they compute from home (home schoolers) and they use Chomebooks and it works great. We have an older Asus right now. Asus, Acer, Samsung and others all make really nice ones. I know Lenovo hasn't been my favourite, but they make some great value ones, too.
A friend of mine got a $179 really nice flip around touch screen Lenovo Chromebook last year. Very impressive.
you would allow the purchase of a Lenovo? as enough time now passed?
I'm just saying that the hardware was nice. I didn't buy it.
Yeah, they still make the best hardware around for portable devices period. Too bad you can't trust them anywhere near your network.
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@travisdh1 said in Need advice on Chrome books for home school.:
@scottalanmiller said in Need advice on Chrome books for home school.:
@Dashrender said in Need advice on Chrome books for home school.:
@scottalanmiller said in Need advice on Chrome books for home school.:
I have two girls and they compute from home (home schoolers) and they use Chomebooks and it works great. We have an older Asus right now. Asus, Acer, Samsung and others all make really nice ones. I know Lenovo hasn't been my favourite, but they make some great value ones, too.
A friend of mine got a $179 really nice flip around touch screen Lenovo Chromebook last year. Very impressive.
you would allow the purchase of a Lenovo? as enough time now passed?
I'm just saying that the hardware was nice. I didn't buy it.
Yeah, they still make the best hardware around for portable devices period. Too bad you can't trust them anywhere near your network.
yeah, this is what really sucks!! I loved my old yoga until it died...
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@notverypunny yes to get the best performance per dollar, yes buying a beefier refurbished laptop that runs Chrome OS is better. Make sure you install an SSD, as the HDD's tend to choke bad (had 5 die over a few years) while running Chrome OS. Nothing more fun than have a i5 or i7 for pennies with 16 GB of RAM and a SSD and a fast Chrome OS install. If you go this route get the bigger cell batteries if your dealing with a 10 year old system. If you are able to scavenge modern, smaller models with better batteries then you have hit gold.
For home use, honestly, I stay away from Acer only because they have had hardware issues reported for years which can either be a combination of a bad choice of GFX card or driver (dunno never resolved). I've seen hardware issues from the HP models as well but most of the issues could also stem from Chrome OS and a lack of proper hardware acceleration. We get kids complaining about "green screens" during Google Meets maybe 1-2 times a week. For newer generation Chromebooks with beefier components haven't had a problem. If you use Youtube check out Chrome Unboxed channel ( example video) https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkHgegL2XiXSlwY5zeCKKyg
We buy primarily the clamshell models with usb 3 charging. They are usually 14 inch model and pretty much have same specs depending on vendor. HP, Lenovo and Dell pretty much make identical model down to the trackpad. Almost every Chrome vender makes the same model in that 14 inch model and they tend to best best price, and combination of hardware. The best in general is the newer HP 360 model and its perfect priced. The best overall is going to be the higher end Pixel models. Think apple prices 999.99 and better.
At work, I stand in the middle. I have charging carts and Chromebooks for our students. The best thing at school/work is uniformity. Kids and apparently staff are stupid at times. Keep things simple. Use the exact same model (or it's cousin) and with that comes modularity. When you get different models, you get people not charging or confused as to what goes where etc. Keeping things modular simplifies and hopefully decreases the chances of people plugging in wrong cables, not plugging them in at all etc. If someone breaks one (yes this just happened) then doesn't matter cost is cheap and replacement screen is also as long as it's not touch screen. Battery life is 10+ hours usually. Security is simple and backups and updates are the easiest it could ever be.
One thing I just found out is the God mode for metrics pertaining to Google Meet which allows me to see across all devices how the meetings/webinars are performing which is outstanding. Can help idenitify some issues.
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@travisdh1 you have a problem with Googles tracking I bet
security isn't a problem but that tracking is debatable. You can always install Neverware and lose some of the tracking especially if you don't use the Google Console.
