Microsoft challenges Chromebooks with $189 Windows 10 laptops for schools
Microsoft is making a bigger push to keep students and teachers using Windows this week. At the annual Bett education show in London, Microsoft is revealing new Windows 10 and Windows 10 S devices that are priced from just $189. The software giant is also partnering with the BBC, LEGO, NASA, PBS, and Pearson to bring a variety of Mixed Reality and video curricula to schools.
Lenovo has created a $189 100e laptop. It's based on Intel's Celeron Apollo Lake chips, so it's a low-cost netbook essentially, designed for schools. Lenovo is also introducing its 300e, a 2-in-1 laptop with pen support, priced at $279. The new Lenovo devices are joined by two from JP, with a Windows Hello laptop priced at $199 and a pen and touch device at $299. All four laptops will be targeted towards education, designed to convince schools not to switch to Chromebooks.
JP apparently refers to JP Sá Couto.
Also at Windows Blog, Engadget, and ZDNet.
Related: First ARM Snapdragon-Based Windows 10 S Systems Announced
Related Stories
Microsoft Windows is back on ARM:
Just shy of a year after announcing that Windows was once again going to be available on ARM systems, the first two systems were announced today: the Asus NovaGo 2-in-1 laptop, and the HP Envy x2 tablet.
[...] The Asus laptop boasts 22 hours of battery life or 30 days of standby, along with LTE that can run at gigabit speeds. HP's tablet offers a 12.3 inch, 1920×1280 screen, 20 hours battery life or 29 days of standby, and a removable keyboard-cover and stylus. Both systems use the Snapdragon 835 processor and X16 LTE modem, with HP offering up to 8GB RAM and 256GB storage to go with it.
Lenovo is expected to announce a similar system in the coming weeks.
Also at The Verge, Engadget, and TechCrunch.
Previously: Big Changes Planned by Microsoft - Windows 10 on ARM, Laptops to Behave More Like Phones
Windows 10 PCs Running on Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 to Arrive this Year
New Windows 10 S Only Runs Software From Windows Store
Microsoft Knows Windows is Obsolete. Here's a Sneak Peek at Its Replacement.
New App Allows Win32 Software to Run on Windows 10 S
Intel Hints at Patent Fight With Microsoft and Qualcomm Over x86 Emulation
Microsoft reportedly working on $400 Surface tablets to compete with the iPad
Microsoft is working on a new line of budget Surface tablets to better compete with Apple's low-cost iPad options, according to a report from Bloomberg.
According to the report, the new Surface tablets won't just be smaller, cheaper Surface Pros. Rather, Microsoft is said to be completely redesigning the devices, with 10-inch screens instead of the 12-inch size currently found on the Surface Pro, rounded corners that more resemble an iPad than the more rectangular Surface design, and USB-C for charging. Most importantly, priced at $400, they will be more in line with Apple's cheaper tablets, too.
Google also recently introduced an education-oriented ChromeOS tablet to compete with Apple's iPad.
Also at Laptop Magazine.
Related: Microsoft to Challenge Education-Oriented Chromebooks With Windows 10 Laptops Priced From $189
Apple Expected to Compete Against Chromebooks With Cheaper Education-Focused iPads
ChromeOS Gains the Ability to Run Linux Applications
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Gaaark on Tuesday January 23 2018, @04:19PM (1 child)
Just. die. already!
Like.... come on.
Yeah! Come. On!
Next version of Windows.... MS Timmy!
Jimmy... Timmy!
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 24 2018, @02:44AM
Before they die they will turn into a patent troll to end all patent trolls though, not sure if that's something to look forward to.
(Score: 5, Funny) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday January 23 2018, @04:19PM (10 children)
"Class, today we are going to learn how to get excellent value for the money by installing a more efficient operating system on a low-end notebook. I hope you've all brought your USB sticks in. Now, first we're going to get into the UEFI settings..."
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 23 2018, @04:36PM (2 children)
They didn't say what kind of education it would be did they.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 23 2018, @05:00PM (1 child)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 23 2018, @10:25PM
I'll never think about Windows 10 S the same way again.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by digitalaudiorock on Tuesday January 23 2018, @04:49PM
Tell me about it. The idea of a low priced computer with an OS that eats up like 60 GB of your disk before you even do anything on it is already nuts. Never mind the CPU and RAM that all their BS eats up. As little as I think of Google at least they've approached this market with something that actually resembles a lean OS.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 23 2018, @05:40PM
Today's class will be learning about DRM and vendor lock-in as we discover there are several methods beyond UEFI to prevent any other OS from running on ARM powered systems.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 23 2018, @07:26PM
"Today we're going to take a look at the source code to this software to see how it wo- oh."
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 23 2018, @09:24PM (3 children)
Funny, just hours before reading this I had been in our local big-box retailer and saw these cheap-as-chips mini laptops on sale. I was wondering how hard or easy it would be to get one of these bargain basement specials and civilize it by installing Linux (via USB). Has anyone tried this?
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday January 23 2018, @09:59PM (2 children)
I currently have an old Dell laptop in testing with Enlightenment installed on it.
I have given it to a group of PFY's we have working here at the moment to see what they think. It's early days, but they seem to like it.
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Wednesday January 24 2018, @04:31AM (1 child)
Ah...but Enlightenment is not for the grasshoppers.
https://www.linuxinsider.com/story/80456.html [linuxinsider.com]
Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts"- --Daniel Patrick Moynihan--
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Wednesday January 24 2018, @08:03PM
Yeah. It turns out they thought Linux Mint Cinnamon edition was way better.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Tuesday January 23 2018, @05:01PM
"Haven't we been here before....."
Wow! Windows releases a new netbook generation! This is exciting because.... because........
Oh, nevermind. Here's wondering if this is will be as much a hit as Windows RT.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by black6host on Tuesday January 23 2018, @05:27PM (4 children)
In the two school systems my nine year old has been to both are firmly entrenched with Google Apps and Chromebooks. Anecdotal to be sure but I'm not seeing any Microsoft stuff out there.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by vux984 on Tuesday January 23 2018, @07:31PM (3 children)
Anecdote to anecdote -- my kids elementary school gave out ipads for a year; teachers found them an interesting way to engage students in things, but consensus of teachers and parents was that tablets didn't encourage learning the way a real laptop did. The school district also had a laptop program where they gave students older macbooks (the white plastic ones). The consensus all round was this program was generally worthwhile.
In highschool, the school has office365 for education. Most students provide their own laptop (whatever they want, my kids have dell latitude education series units with windows 10), the neighbor's girls had macbook airs. The school also had a set of older loaner units for students without that they could 'checkout' like a library but I think nearly all the kids have their own, plus a computer lab that students could drop into, print from etc, or if they've forgotten or broken their laptop etc. It actually works pretty well. The kids can switch units pretty trivially between onedrive etc. And even linux is supported to the extent the kids can use the online web applications. few assignments have ever required installing anything; and the one that did was a science thing for simulating basic circuits that was java based and ran on pretty much anything. Overall I have no complaints about it.
I think the kids are getting more real world application from it than they would from google apps and school issued chrome books. The complaint that they are being indoctrinated into microsoft is valid, but they have to use *something*; and google apps is no better. And its not like they are teaching courses in "Microsoft Word 2016 for Windows 10 Pro"; nothing the kids do is particularly application specific -- they probably could use OpenOffice if they really wanted.
The main point of it is to give all the kids a school cloud email, folder sync/storage, and access to some productivity apps for assignments.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by black6host on Tuesday January 23 2018, @07:40PM
I agree. I would add to that the following: in the most cost efficient manner possible. I'd rather spend the money on the teachers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 24 2018, @01:31AM
The MS stuff is not cross platform. MS released a python library to access "one drive", but it turns out there is the version of one drive that MS offers to the public (which their library works with), and the one drive that is bundled with o365 subscriptions which is incompatible. So, unless you have windows or mac in your house, no shared file storage for your kids.
I think any proprietary offerings should be forbidden from publicly funded educational settings. A company's services should stick to standard protocols and file formats, or that company should not receive public money.
o365 for education is just an attempt to program young minds into "choosing" microsoft products later in life. Same reason Coke and Pepsi pay hundreds of thousands of dollars (in come cases millions) to get vending machines into schools.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 26 2018, @03:11AM
your standards and education on this subject are too low and your kids are just being trained to be slaves. please investigate why FOSS matters for your kids' future and get busy raising hell. the tech ed of US students should be a national shame.
(Score: 2) by BK on Tuesday January 23 2018, @05:29PM
Bad news for you M$ guys, that horse has already left the barn. 3 years ago you had a chance, but it's all over now.
...but you HAVE heard of me.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Ingar on Tuesday January 23 2018, @05:37PM (1 child)
That's 189$ minus the 100$ for the windows 10 license.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 23 2018, @05:45PM
But the schools will eat it up since Win 10 already has spyware built-in.
(Score: 2) by richtopia on Tuesday January 23 2018, @07:55PM (21 children)
I could use a netbook. I really just need a terminal and maybe a web browser.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by takyon on Tuesday January 23 2018, @08:34PM (7 children)
Get a Chromebook. Mine was an Acer brand about $95 on sale. You can replace the Goog OS with Linux.
https://slickdeals.net/newsearch.php?forumchoice%5B%5D=4&forumchoice%5B%5D=9&forumchoice%5B%5D=10&forumchoice%5B%5D=13&forumchoice%5B%5D=25&forumchoice%5B%5D=30&forumchoice%5B%5D=38&forumchoice%5B%5D=39&forumchoice%5B%5D=41&forumchoice%5B%5D=44&forumchoice%5B%5D=53&forumchoice%5B%5D=54&forumchoice%5B%5D=71&q=chromebook&firstonly=1 [slickdeals.net]
You want 4 GB of RAM rather than 2 GB. 2 GB is usable, but tabs will have to reload often, especially if you have more than a handful.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Wednesday January 24 2018, @02:18AM (6 children)
Once I've turned a Chromebook's firmware write-protect screw to allow GNU/Linux to stay on the drive without the firmware nagging to perform a powerwash at every boot, will the manufacturer still honor the warranty on things like the hinge and power jack?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by takyon on Wednesday January 24 2018, @02:44AM (5 children)
You need a warranty for a $90-$200 computer? Just get a new faster one when it breaks after 4-8 years. And throw the old one into a volcano.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Wednesday January 24 2018, @02:48AM (4 children)
I need a warranty in case it breaks after 4-8 weeks.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday January 24 2018, @08:17AM
That's probably within the 30-90 day return policies offered by most retailers.
Well, I can't tell you what the warranty is for my Chromebook because I didn't look. But I do know that Chromebooks don't contain one of the biggest points of failure: spinning disks. AFAIK they don't have spinning fans either since they use sub-15W TDP CPUs.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 24 2018, @08:25AM (2 children)
The solution is to make a disk image of whatever the seller installed there originally. Then wipe the shit off and make it usable for you. If shit hits the fan then you make image of your current setup and restore the original image before invoking warranty. These are the hoops the assholes make us jump through.
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Wednesday January 24 2018, @03:26PM (1 child)
How would I go about restoring the original image if I cannot see the screen because the hinge broke or if I cannot power the system because the power jack broke?
(Score: 2) by vux984 on Thursday January 25 2018, @04:23AM
You can't. But they'll have to fix it for you before they find out. So it generally works out in your favor.
(Score: 2) by The Archon V2.0 on Tuesday January 23 2018, @08:36PM (12 children)
Does the Windows store even have a terminal app?
(Score: 5, Funny) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday January 23 2018, @08:42PM (11 children)
It's called Powershell, and it's like trying to get yourself off with a cactus dildo.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 4, Interesting) by insanumingenium on Tuesday January 23 2018, @09:11PM
Powershell isn't my first choice for a shell, but it isn't hardly that bad. More like a regular dildo that someone stores in the freezer between uses. It will work if you work it long enough, but it won't be anyones first choice.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Pino P on Wednesday January 24 2018, @02:23AM (6 children)
You can't actually run anything from the terminal. (Source: "Windows 10 S: no command line apps, free Pro upgrades for assistive tech users" by Peter Bright [arstechnica.com]) And if you're considering using the terminal to connect to your home PC or leased virtual server and do all the work on that, this strategy won't work while riding the bus unless you subscribe to cellular tethering. In many markets, such as the United States (home of SoylentNews), the Windows 10 Pro upgrade is far cheaper than a tethering subscription for the three-year expected service life of one of these laptops.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 24 2018, @02:32AM (5 children)
Pay who for tethering? It is free here.
How can they stop me using the net through my phones AP?
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Wednesday January 24 2018, @03:09AM (4 children)
Your cellular carrier.
What carrier in what country? In the United States, home of SoylentNews, it is traditional for carriers to charge extra for tethering.
First, you could be out of data for the month.
Second, if the only phone stores in your home town are carrier-branded, you will probably have purchased your phone at such a store, and the carrier will have modified your phone's firmware to ask the carrier "mother may I?" before enabling AP functionality.
Third, even if you have data left and purchased an unlocked phone through mail order, your ISP can detect that you are accessing predominantly desktop versions of certain websites that have their desktop and mobile versions on separate hostnames (such as en.m.wikipedia.org), the automatic software update mechanisms of Windows, macOS, or popular GNU/Linux distributions, or any of several protocols used by applications not ported to your phone's operating system. In addition, the ISP can guess by correlating packets' TTL values or inspecting the User-agent header in any cleartext HTTP connection that your laptop browser makes. (Source [reddit.com])
Fourth, even if you have avoided or evaded your cellular ISP's obstacles (data left, an unlocked phone, and no obviously desktop Internet traffic), you may still run into obstacles with your home ISP. The PC to which you are attempting to connect may not be able to accept connections from outside your home LAN because it does not have a public IPv4 address. Instead, it may be behind a carrier-grade network address translation (CGNAT) device operated by your home ISP in order to conserve scarce IPv4 addresses. As far as I'm aware, setting up an incoming connection to a device behind CGNAT requires removing the CGNAT, for which your home ISP is likely to charge a monthly fee.
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Wednesday January 24 2018, @04:41AM (3 children)
Look at T-Mobile.
Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts"- --Daniel Patrick Moynihan--
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Wednesday January 24 2018, @04:43AM (2 children)
https://www.t-mobile.com/cell-phone-plans?cmpid=ADV_PB_ONETI440_43700027788423606&mx_ch=ADV_PB&_vsrefdom=650-692-6502&mchxkw=c:973760317,k:t%20mobile,m:e,p:1t1,d:c,ai:47214082214,ad:241557786437,s:g [t-mobile.com]
Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts"- --Daniel Patrick Moynihan--
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Wednesday January 24 2018, @03:22PM (1 child)
The T-Mobile plan on the page you linked is $70 per month for one line, with discounts for each additional line. I'm currently with T-Mobile on a lower plan that costs less than that per year and would thus fall in what my previous comment calls "you could be out of data for the month." The price difference between what I pay now and what I would pay on the plan described on the page you linked would buy a fairly nice compact laptop on which to run local applications while between one hotspot and the next.
My current plan: $36 per year for one line
The plan on the page you linked: $840 per year for one line
Price difference between the plans: $804 per year for one line
Price of a ThinkPad 11e with Windows: Starting at $570 (start [lenovo.com])
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Wednesday January 24 2018, @08:12PM
That's a really good deal for a phone. I have what I think is a pretty good deal on a phone with a different no-contract carrier. Costs me ~$10 a month and has roll over for talk, text and data. Also have a T-mobile 4G hotspot that I can reload when I need it. Cost $10 for 1GB for one week or 3GB for $30 for one month. Got it for use on the boat and when traveling.
Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts"- --Daniel Patrick Moynihan--
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 24 2018, @02:37AM
At my work it is a choice of learn to Get-Help or Get-Fries
Learning powershell is completely optional. Maccas is always hiring.
(Score: 2) by Hyper on Wednesday January 24 2018, @02:40AM (1 child)
It hurts at first, can make you bleed from sensitive places, and breaks *just when you really need it*?
Sounds about right.
(Score: 2) by Hyper on Wednesday January 24 2018, @02:46AM
Sure! Let's have a look at that code..
Stab-Eye -with finger
whyyyyyyyy just whyyyy this isn't perl so why did you arrgghh
Bash-Forehead -on Desk -repeat 8
if (! (Test-Sanity) ) { TravelTo-Pub -quickly }
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Wednesday January 24 2018, @06:09AM
Great job by our cyber industry, Meltdown & Specter fixed very quickly. SAFE new cyber coming soon!
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 24 2018, @08:29AM
Why Educational Institutions Should Use and Teach Free Software [gnu.org]