HP Launches Durable Laptop for School Children

[JMcEntegart]

HP yesterday unveiled the HP Mini 100e and became the latest company to launch a durable laptop for school children.

HP Launches Durable Laptop for School Children : Read more

 

[extremepcs]

I work in the education field (tech support end) and unless it is made out of 1/2" high carbon steel, encased in kevlar, kids will find a way to break it. At least Dell coats their school netbook in rubber, which helps if it gets dropped. This one appears to be the standard cheap plastic.

 

[lauxenburg]

Can't be too rugged if it has a spinning hard drive. There's no way you could ever fill a 160GB drive in Word and Powerpoint documents, anyway. Give them a 32GB SSD. =)

 

[kikireeki]

According to my experience: durability and HP doesn't match.

 

[liquidsnake718]

It could work even for middle schoolers on the go as the specs are good enough to be a laptop "NOT FOR GAMING".... hehe

 

[arlandi]

durability for school children, especially for the little ones, means military grade hardwares! dust proof, shock proof, water proof, electrostatic proof and bullet proof casing.

 

[Guest]

"CNet reports that these things weigh in at about 3.2 pounds, which is pretty heavy for a kid to carry around."


With a laptop, they could give them all digital books, that replace those large heavy books so many kids have to carry around. Then the kid would only have to carry a 3.2 lb laptop, and paper/pencil/pen; instead of 4-6 2lb books.

 

[guid_aaa000001]

In future if primary school children start using keyboards, then they will loose their handwriting.
(Instead of a keyboard there should be a pad, on which they can write using a touch pen and look into the screen....)

 

[whitecrowro]

Title(sounds like): "HP is doing smth for the children"
Introduction: "OLPC..."
End: "Pricing starts at $299"
...Bad story...

 

[lashabane]

[citation][nom]arlandi[/nom]durability for school children, especially for the little ones, means military grade hardwares! dust proof, shock proof, water proof, electrostatic proof and bullet proof casing.[/citation]

Lol, bulletproof. I could just see a 6 year old getting pissed off at their finger painting, pull out a sidearm and fire away.

 

[anamaniac]

How about a thick magnesium frame with rubber edges, OLED screen, SDD, lithium polymer battery etc.?
[citation][nom]lashabane[/nom]Lol, bulletproof. I could just see a 6 year old getting pissed off at their finger painting, pull out a sidearm and fire away.[/citation]
You should come see my neighbourhood.

I've seen kids stick with the same phone for years and barely have a scratch on them. My physics teacher put a 10lb magnet to his CRT. My mathematics teacher was carrying around a a cement drill. A temp was using a marker on a Promethean board (like a giant tablet with a projector).
It's not the kids we have to worry about always.

 

[dEAne]

wow I like this one, I will buy one for my kid.

 

[extremepcs]

[citation][nom]anamaniac[/nom]It's not the kids we have to worry about always.[/citation]

Ain't that the truth! Inkjet transparencies run through a laser printer are my favorite

 

[razor512]

As part of some of my college classes, I have done some work in elementary and middle schools. Students will find a way to break what ever the school lets them borrow but not keep permanently.

Many of the students will have iphones and other expensive devices with no problem but when they have laptops, They tend to find ways to break them just to get back at the school for not giving a free laptop to keep.

The most common problem is a student will grab the screen and push on it, causing a pressure mark or even a cracked LCD. This is done on purpose as you will see some doing it near the end of class. The laptops are a mess and are difficult on many teachers because finding a working one and getting enough working ones for a class (if there not enough to go away and the teacher makes them share, fights quickly break out over the laptops).

currently teachers and other workers are trying to get a budget ok'ed for new laptops so they have been using the current ones a lot in class to let them all get broken so the school will be more motivated to buy new ones.

Unless every square inch internal and external is strong enough to be bulletproof, the laptops will not work in a school environment.

 

[thillntn]

Until the power jack design is fixed(we see alot of all kinds of models in for repair with broke jacks)none of these will be considered ruggedized to me. The magnetic design on a Mac is the best way to avoid broke jacks.As far as specs go I hear all kind of nonsense from customers. "Everyone knows they need 3 gig of ram and a 500 gig drive.Limewire is a essential learning tool."lol

 

[Guest]

I agree with those that say this is not rugged enough. Why do companies think cheap is good for education?
I remember working on media equipment for schools in the late 70's and those projectors were made out of mostly metal. Now we call plastic durable? That's a oxy moron if I ever heard one. The problem is that something portable is always going to be more susceptible to damage. Schools have no need for anything but desktops. Their cheaper and they are more durable.

 

[omikron48]

Wow! Didn't know primary school children used Linux...