Netbook Decision

Okoboji Community Schools has decided to get 100 netbooks for the upcoming school year. 1 cart of 24 will be put in the elementary building to replace an existing cart and 3 carts of 24 will be put in the middle school to replace 1 cart as part of our refresh plan. In anticipation of this purchase we have demoed 4 different models.



The 4 we demoed were the MSI Wind, Acer Aspire One, HP 2140, and the Asus Eee PC 1000HE. We gave each demo machine to high school students to try out and give us feedback on. In addition to this testing I thouroughly tested each model myself to make sure it could do what we are going to expect them to do. Although the high school students are not yet the intended audience, we fealt that their input would be better for demoing purposes.



The student favorite was the HP 2140. The main reason for this student opinion was the larger keyboard size. However, the keys themselves are smooth and slippery and also a wierd concave design. They did not really like the buttons on either side of the mouse pad instead of the traditional below-the-mouse-pad position. I was also not a fan of the mouse button position at first, but got used to it pretty quickly. If it were not for the cost of the HP 2140 we would have gone with this machine. All of the other models were cheaper.



MSI's Wind was the first demo we had and was enjoyed by the student testers (the novelty factor was interesting to see.) They did not like the keyboard or the mouse pad and mouse button(s). I too was unimpressed with its keyboard and mouse pad resposiveness. The mouse button(s) were a single button that toggled in the middle which I also did not like.



I was excited when I first received the Acer Aspire One. First of all, it had a great price. It had great battery life. The keyboard was small but not too uncomfotably so. The students agreed that is was better than the MSI Wind. They, also, did not like the smallness of the keyboard. The keyboard on that one also did not feel as durable as some of the others. I am still actually considering purchasing the demo Acer we have at the special demo price for K - 12 institutions.



The netbook we chose to go with is the Asus Eee PC 1000HE. It was the students' second favorite behind the HP 2140. It has several very nice options. The most important one is astronimical battery life. I am using one to write this blog. I am not a normal user and it gives be about 6.5 hours of battery life. To achieve even greater battery life it has a cool little button in the upper left that allows you to turn off the backlight with the touch of a button. Touch any button or the touchpad and it flashes back on. It also has some Mac-like touchpad capabilities. Two-finger scroll, two finger zoom in, zoom out, etc. The keyboard is a little strange at first, but seems more durable that some of the others. The 1000HE has the more classic two button mouse pad design. It has the slightly faster 1.66 GHz. We will upgrade the memory to 2 GB which is also very simple on this machine (2 screws and pop a cover). Other models have no user servicable parts. Its1.3 Mega Pixel camera is superior to others I tested as well. This is the right machine for us, and we will be purchasing at least 100 for next school year.



One of the biggest negatives against netbooks that others claim is that you cannot create with them. I STRONGLY disagree. That is one thing that I knew we would expect these to do, so it is one thing I tested. I created video with the built-in camera. I edited that video with Movie Maker. I edited photos with Gimp and applied many filters and transforms. I created audio with Audacity and manipulated it. Admittedly netbooks are not as fast as full-blown laptops let alone desktops. You have to remember what you are using as your tool. But these tools CAN CREATE.