Netbooks for 2010

I orginally drafted this post back in March when we were finalising our procurement. It was important that we got all our information confirmed before I posted it, I then duly forgot it was in DRAFT. (Incidentally thats the not the first time I have done that.) We met with Lenovo, they appreciated our position and accepted points of concern. In fairness, their returns procedures have finally sorted themselves out, but its too little too late.

The key reasons for changing from the Lenovo S10-2 to the SAmsung NB30 are quiet simply these;

The Lenovo unit available in our price range remained the S10-2 and build quality on the hinges remained a concern.

We are in the process of installing a new wireless system capable if exploiting N, a faster maximum speed and best signal range aswell as being more resistant to signal interference. We felt that this was important for whole class blended learning.

The very poor start to the relationship with Lenovo could not be discounted.

Communication with head office and the team did not meet the needs of the IT Services staff @ Hamble College. Moving to a vendor relationship means we had someone ‘responsible’ to contact.

Since announcing the new product, it would appear that the brand is important to the students and their parents. Some existing students are frustrated and some new customers are far happier. All units will offer Windows 7 andOffice 2010. We are currently investigating Securus as a monitoring tool to support parents.

Final learning gem. Always offer a ‘null response’ to all parental correspondence. Not knowing whether a family wishes to proceed is far worse that a no and the time to confirm that answer is an expensive misuse of staff time.