Google Unveils Acer's Chromebook Tab 10 Ahead of Apple's Education-Focused Event Tomorrow (cnet.com) 41
An anonymous reader shares a report: Maybe Acer knows what Apple is up to tomorrow, maybe not. Regardless the information and communication tech company announced today the world's first Chrome OS tablet made for the education market, the Chromebook Tab 10. Designed for use in K-12 classrooms, the 9.7-inch tablet could potentially add to Google's Chromebook lead in the US education market and take some of the wind out of Apple's education-focused press conference on March 27. [...] Acer's new tablet, which will sell for $329 in April, is built around a 2048x1536-resolution IPS touchscreen with 264 pixels per inch. A durable Wacom EMR stylus comes standard and stores in the tablet's chassis that's only 0.39-inch thick (9.98 mm). Running on a Rockchip OP1 processor, 4GB of memory and 32GB of storage, the Tab 10 fully supports Google Play giving schools access to educational Android apps.
Why does an education tablet... (Score:2)
...need cameras at all?
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Most likely reason is that it's more expensive to maintain two different SKUs/product lines than just to pay for the extra cameras. Same reason why older laptops used to be sold without ethernet... except the electronics were all there, just covered by plastic.
Re:Why does an education tablet... (Score:4, Insightful)
That said the cost is not going to be a big deal. it is durability. On reason tablets are so popular is that they are relatively tougher than laptops. If nothing else, the reluctant student is mot going to be able to tear up the keyboard. Any damage on a tablet is intentional.
The second issue is tool to manage the devices. MS is a winner in schools now because they have leveraged their corporate management tools to the classroom. iPads are a winner in the classroom because there are tools to manage them in the classroom.
That said, winning the tablet market is going to require something lower than $300. This is around what laptops costs in the quantities school district buy. But tablets have yet to catch on because they are not yet as usefu, and even $330 retail still quite expensive.
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But tablets have yet to catch on because they are not yet as usefu,
Tablets are not yet as useful because they will not ever be as useful. Without a keyboard, you can't accomplish a significant quantity of real work in a reasonable time; on screen keyboards will never reach the efficiency of a mechanical keyboard.
Your Emily Litella Moment is here (Score:2)
Tablets are not yet as useful because they will not ever be as useful. Without a keyboard, you can't accomplish a significant quantity of real work ... Which is why you can attach a bluetooth keyboard to pretty much any tablet today. And for tablets you can also buy keyboard cases that integrate cover and keyboard.
So your point... where is that again... lost it.
The tablet+keyboard case has to be under $300 (Score:2)
That said, winning the tablet market is going to require something lower than $300.
Without a keyboard, you can't accomplish a significant quantity of real work in a reasonable time
for tablets you can also buy keyboard cases that integrate cover and keyboard.
Which combination of tablet and keyboard case that totals less than $300 is any good? An iPad mini alone costs that much without a keyboard case.
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Which combination of tablet and keyboard case that totals less than $300 is any good?
Bluetooth and USB keyboard can go all the way from crappy asian no-names that still work at ~10 EUR (see ebay, alibaba) all they way to decent quality from more reliable brands (logitech, their's at ~50 EUR) up to 100 EUR (there's definitely no point buying anything beyond that. 300 EUR keyboards are vanity items).
You can find 10 inch tablets with not so bad hardware going from 100-150EUR range with some "meh" brands (Acer) up to 150-200 EUR range with more known brands (Lenovo). Though you have to concede
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SuperKendall wrote:
for tablets you can also buy keyboard cases that integrate cover and keyboard.
Which combination of tablet and keyboard case that totals less than $300 is any good? An iPad mini alone costs that much
An Apple iShiny is complete over-kill.
Though I agree with that, I was customizing the phrasing to be more relevant to the fan of Apple products to whom I was replying.
Re: Why does an education tablet... (Score:2)
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All the schools around here use Chromebooks. They're massively successful in education because of their low upfront costs, long battery life, low power and very easy management. Google Docs is a staple tool in education.
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As someone who unintentionally found himself spear-heading a move to ChromeBooks in two school authorities, has two kids in the school system who use ChromeBooks daily, and a wife who teaches two students with ChromeBooks, I have to disagree with two of your points.
I agree with the privacy problem. It is a big negative and, in my view, disqualified the platform. Unfortunately, I was over-ruled...twice.
They are absolutely not mostly useless. The software options are quite decent because there are so many
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Rear camera is maybe unnecessary, but a front camera is for video conferencing.
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Because of multimedia?
I can think of several reasons why.
* Kids might be recording a video about something (say, a performance. Or maybe they're doing a video report)
* Kids might want to take a photo of something for a report.
* It may be important to talk to people via Skype or other video platform
Cameras aren't unusual anymore, and today's kids are growing up in a multi-media type environment. Hell, when I was in school, I had do stuff like that too, except instead of having a camera
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Re:Windows 10 Support? (Score:4, Funny)
Can I install Windows 10 and actually turn it into something useful that's not tied to Google?
Like a door-stop ?
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Yet another market... (Score:3)
I remember when it was received wisdom that one of the only two markets where Apple fought tooth and nail for was education. Now it seems more like Apple says if they can't give students a tablet, they'd rather cede the market. To them, if it's not a super profitable market, fuck it.
Here's why that's wrong...
At Apple's valuation, they could easily slice and dice the market to build a solid moat to protect their high end.
1. MacBook: $500-$1000. Simple, crappy specs, but solid design aimed at lower income people and students to suck them into the "Apple Lifestyle" as best as you can.
2. MacBook Air: $1000-$2000; ultra mobility laptop.
3. MacBook Pro: Desktop replacement; $2000-$5000 price tag.
The irony? My company wouldn't think twice about dropping $3500-$4000 on a desktop replacement w/ 32-64GB of RAM and rock solid design. Apple could segment the market even higher if they had the vision.
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Reverse psychology (Score:1)
Yeah, it takes courage to have lots of ports on a laptop! It takes courage to have a thicker laptop for the sake of having a better keyboard and more battery life! It takes courage to price such a laptop at around $500!
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Not trolling, trying to trick Apple into giving us the laptop that we all want. See title of previous post.
They need a free or low cost Management Solution. (Score:3)
From my experience. almost no school uses Mac's. iPads have pretty much supplanted them. Chromebooks and ChromeBases are supplanting the Windows PC's since almost every K-12 app is web based anymore, and no IT dept wants to deal with Windows roll-outs and malware anymore.
For a brief time, I worked for a K-12 school with iPads and chromebooks. The biggest issue Apple needs to address is managing them. Chromebooks are pretty much "Get on WiFi, register, and manage through the web console". iPads are "Pray the
They have that desktop (Score:2)
My company wouldn't think twice about dropping $3500-$4000 on a desktop replacement w/ 32-64GB of RAM and rock solid design.
It's called an iMac (or an iMac Pro, though that's a little higher than your range). They are solid designs.
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Re: Tablets not for schools (Score:2)
64-bit ARM chips (Score:2)
We'll see more and more Inexpensive tablets, netbooks, etc based on ARM v8 CPUs that have nearly the performance of low-end desktops, and that's a Good Thing.
There, I fixed that for you... (Score:2)
Correction: Apple and Google are competing for your tax dollars to defund effective teaching practices and materials, to siphon them off into corporate tax havens, regardless of whether the replacement teaching practices and materials are at all effective.
BTW, a 2015 OECD study http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/9789... [doi.org] found a negative correlation between ICT use in K-12 schools and academic outcomes, i.e. literacy, maths, science, etc..