Honest question: for $430 why would anyone want this crap instead of a decent tablet?
Lenovo ThinkPad Chromebook - for schools
11–20 of 41 posts
Re: Lenovo ThinkPad Chromebook - for schools
#12Honest question: for $430 why would anyone want this crap instead of a decent tablet?
This is a ruggedized laptop designed specifically for the education market. You're also getting a $110 discount for not using Windows. Lenovo's excellent support makes this far more compelling for schools than the existing Chromebooks.
If I were considering an educational roll-out of laptops and/or Google Apps for Education, this would be the device I was waiting for.
Re: Lenovo ThinkPad Chromebook - for schools
#13As a CR-48 owner, I think this is both good for education and bad.
The good parts of this is that ThinkPad's are well built machines and this particular model has been ruggedized. This form factor seems perfect to me for the educational environment: light, portable and rugged.
The negative is ChromeOS itself for an educational environment. It's a fine machine for doing Internet research and light writing, but more traditional OSes allow for more experimentation and learning. You won't be messing around with video editing on these in any significant way. Web design wouldn't be easy either. Web design was one of my favorite high school classes.
For library and research computers, this seems like a great option. Rugged, secure, portable. For a learning tool, wouldn't something more open, more able to run more applications be better?
From an IT perspective I get it. These machines require so little maintenance and are much more hardended than your typical PC.
In many ways, I feel the original ThinkPad that this is based off of would be a better educational tool. This of course comes down to whether or not school want students experimenting these days. I hope they do.
Re: Lenovo ThinkPad Chromebook - for schools
#14Honest question: for $430 why would anyone want this crap instead of a decent tablet?
Build quality. Support. Keyboard and mouse. Able to be locked down to limit app installs. Many reasons why a laptop, even a Chromebook, is more useful in certain situations than a tablet. This isn't meant for your home, it's meant for the classroom.
Re: Lenovo ThinkPad Chromebook - for schools
#15Chrome OS with Thinkpad? Sweets. However, if I get one of this laptop, I will install Ubuntu or other Linux system on it. Because in most time, without networking, Chrome OS is useless.
It boggles my mind how popular ChromeOS would be if it did indeed have strong offline capabilities (like say, an Android tablet).
This is likely why I would recommend a Transformer+keyboard instead - around the same price, but higher utility.
Re: Lenovo ThinkPad Chromebook - for schools
#16As a CR-48 owner, I think this is both good for education and bad. The good parts of this is that ThinkPad's are well built machines and this particular model has been ruggedized. This form factor seems perfect to me for the educational environment: light, portable and rugged. The negative is ChromeOS itself for an educational environment. It's a fine machine for doing Internet research and light writing, but more tr…
> The negative is ChromeOS itself for an educational environment. It's a fine machine for doing Internet research and light writing, but more traditional OSes allow for more experimentation and learning. You won't be messing around with video editing on these in any significant way.
A video editing course would be better served by a computer lab. 99% of students aren't going to need to install Final Cut on their school computer and it would be a huge waste to make sure that was possible.
Re: Lenovo ThinkPad Chromebook - for schools
#17As a CR-48 owner, I think this is both good for education and bad. The good parts of this is that ThinkPad's are well built machines and this particular model has been ruggedized. This form factor seems perfect to me for the educational environment: light, portable and rugged. The negative is ChromeOS itself for an educational environment. It's a fine machine for doing Internet research and light writing, but more tr…
I have a son in 6th grade, and this year marked the start of him getting a limited google account via the school that he uses to do homework. I don't know the extent to which the teachers can see what the students do, but they do presentations, writing and web research all in the confines of their google account. My son uses the Chromebook we have at home to access his account and do homework.
Re: Lenovo ThinkPad Chromebook - for schools
#18They should've used a quad core Cortex A15. It would've made them cheaper, and there's no reason for x86 in these machines.
Half of the Chrome Web Store uses Native Client, which doesn't work on ARM.
Re: Lenovo ThinkPad Chromebook - for schools
#19When it comes to Google, HN often exhibits a surprising amount of tolerance for vendor lock in.
Re: Lenovo ThinkPad Chromebook - for schools
#20Honest question: for $430 why would anyone want this crap instead of a decent tablet?
What makes you think that a tablet is the answer to everything?