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Microsoft Unveils Windows 10 S Laptops Starting at $189 and New Office 365 Tools for Students (venturebeat.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: Microsoft today unveiled new Windows 10 S devices from Lenovo and JP, starting at $189, aimed at the education market. The company also announced new Office 365 learning tools for students. The news mirrors Microsoft's firstline workers push in September, which saw new Windows 10 S devices starting at $275. The company is now simply doing the same as part of its latest EDU push, and it's not mincing words when it comes to explaining its target audience: "schools who don't want to compromise on Chromebooks."
Microsoft unveiled four new Windows 10 devices that are all supposed to offer more than Chrome OS. Two are standard laptops: the Lenovo 100e powered by Intel Celeron Apollo Lake for $189 and JP's Classmate Leap T303 with Windows Hello for $199. The other two are 2-in-1s: the Lenovo 300e convertible with pen support for $279 and the Trigono V401 with pen and touch for $299. All four are spill resistant, ruggedized for students, and promise long battery life to avoid having wires all over the classroom.
Microsoft unveiled four new Windows 10 devices that are all supposed to offer more than Chrome OS. Two are standard laptops: the Lenovo 100e powered by Intel Celeron Apollo Lake for $189 and JP's Classmate Leap T303 with Windows Hello for $199. The other two are 2-in-1s: the Lenovo 300e convertible with pen support for $279 and the Trigono V401 with pen and touch for $299. All four are spill resistant, ruggedized for students, and promise long battery life to avoid having wires all over the classroom.
Gotta start that tracking and data collection as early as possible.
But what/who the fuck is JP?
Seems the author of that article assumed the audience would know who/what JP was? Guessing it is a computer company, but geez....at least leave a link to find out who this unknown company is.
Are they new? Where are they based?
I've never heard of them before...
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
They're offsetting cost with advertising and demographics research revenue. Then they're outsourcing the data mining to the cheapest, least ethical, foreign 3rd party company. Good luck protecting your childrens' privacy with one of these...
To get the "real" version of Windows. Plus you "compromise on Edge". I'd rather have Chrome than Edge, but I have a non compromised OS and use a freedom browser with freedom extensions.
It's actually one of their oldest tricks.
Whenever Microsoft got sentenced for one of their extensive number of crimes comitted, they would convince the judge, to "pay" by giving "free licenses" to schools.
Which were not only manufactured with the hard work of true hand-made Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V ... I'm kidding, they had a fresh set of them right off the little script they use to genetrate them, and wete literally completely worthless ... , but more imortantly, got the kids used to considering Windows the normal case, and expect it in later life.
That's also why they didn't bother to go after unlicensed copies in the early days, when Gates was still the head. Because getting kids who couldn't afford the licenses anyway hooked on Windows /Office made it likelier that they would buy licenses later in life. (E.g. in a company or other places where using keygens was harder.)
Or printers and ink, if you prefer.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Razor_and_blades_model
They can barely get anything done because their machines are constantly riddled with viruses and/or then are rebooting multiple times a day to try and patch those viruses.
>Apollo Lake
They are dumping intel stuff before they switch to AMD and Qualcomm
Is that a Chinese knockoff of HP? WTH?
If these are sold to consumers (It says education market but will they be sold retail?) they will be a big hit and an utter disaster as soon as the proud new owners start trying to install regular Windows software. And while Microsoft says you can upgrade S to Home I suspect they make it as hard as possible to do so. I can already pick up a 11.6" Insignia tablet with Windows 10 Home for $199 It's only got an Atom X5 processor but I doubt there is a significant performance delta from their power throttled Celeron brethren.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
At last he has something advanced.
These machines have Apollo Lake Celeron processors
https://ark.intel.com/products...
They're Goldmont cores - the descendent of Atom - though they've dropped the Atom branding. Still they're very much descendants of the chips that powered the original netbooks.
https://www.anandtech.com/show...
The Lenovo machine has a 11.6" 1366 x 768 display rather than the netbook standard of 10.1" 1024*600, but that's probably the minimum viable display.
Apparently it's got a N3450, which Anandtech points out is a 4 core, 4 thread out of order chip clocked at 1.1 to 2.2 Ghz. I.e. it's a bit quicker than the old dual core, in order N570 in my old Asus 1015PX which I stopped using because Chrome run like a dog. You can also get 4GB of Ram compared with 2GB mac on the 1015PX and 128GB of eMMC storage compared to a 160GB 5400rpm ultra low cost and sluggish hard drive.
https://hothardware.com/news/l...
Sitting at the bottom of the stack is the Lenovo 100e. There are two versions, one with Windows and the other a Chromebook. The Windows version sports "up to" an 11.6-inch display with a 1366x768 resolution powered by an Intel Celeron N3450 Apollo Lake processor and up to 4GB of LPDDR4 RAM. It also has up to 128GB of eMMC storage, a reversible HD camera, spill-proof keyboard, and a 45Wh batter that's good for up to 10 hours of battery life.
Windows 10 S can be upgraded to full Windows 10 too. But I'm guessing for an educational environment they want something which is locked down so the little shits can't install malware on it. Then again you could always reimage the machines when they go fubar.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
These specs SUCK. A laptop with those specifications will cause students to get frustrated and teachers to go mad. Why give students a machine that is unusable. Celeron is a terrible CPU.
There's no way the processor/chipsets are $120-$170 USD - especially considering the systems they are going into have SRPs of around $190USD.
I suspect that, for these systems, processor/chipset costs are on the order of $10-$15USD.
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
Trump and GOP will soon be moving schools back to the abacus.
From the article, the image there .. the kid gets a 5/6 yet they answered at least two of the questions wrong.
https://venturebeat.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/onenote-page-locking.png?resize=1024%2C576&strip=all
#2, and #3 and incorrect they don't prove it rolls at a constant speed. To show it rolls at a constant seed you have to make multiple measurements of where the ball is after it starts rolling.
The software doesn't help learning especially if the teacher is dumb.
I have a couple of Acer Win10 systems with a similar amount of DDR/SSD as these systems and they don't take well to any apps other than Office and performance, in terms of waiting for a window to come up, is abysmal (it's actually a lot worse with Office360).
The systems have 4GB DDR and 32GB SSD - with Office the SSD is filled to around 19GB
Maybe Win10s running on Apollo Lake has better performance but I would view any systems with a jaundiced eye until I had a chance to test them out.
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
Shitty cheap laptops for shithole countries.
Don't let the door hit you on the ass on your way out!
But in the case of Microsoft, in this particular project, it has great potential to backfire. Kids are used to powerful machines, gaming machines, either they own it or they have friends who do. Even the public library machines are usually more powerful. They might see the 189$ cheap machine to be too slow and blame Microsoft instead of the low horsepower hardware.
And Lenovo, HP etc load the PC with deadly levels of crap ware and nagware. And Microsoft adds its own bunch to the mix, and it does not test them at low end hardware. I know it personally. I bought a desktop as my "bill paying computer". Exclusively to log in to banks, brokerages and credit cards. Never use any other machine to log into sensitive account and never use that machine for anything else. So, naturally, I picked a low end AMD desktop. Oh. my. god. Is it slow! or what!! Something called superfetch would keep thrashing the disk. Or onedrive service. Or some disk indexer. Or some telemetry. Hunted and killed every one of these processes, and it is still slow. 12 GB, four processor machine takes forever to open Quicken.
One taste like this, and the kids will actively hate microsoft and will go out of their way to avoid microsoft products when they become managers.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
since when is 83% "great work"?
Stands for shit!
Chromebooks have Play Store (and sideloading APKs/Linux with some hackery irrelevant to an average user). These laptops have Microsoft Store, not sure about developer sideloads. Seems up to which app/game selection you prefer?
If one of their launch partners was JP (who I've personally never even heard of) I don't expect this to go well.
I've seen various Dell and HP laptops for $200 (or even less on sale). Right now, Dell's 14" Inspiron 3000 is $180. It's the same basic specs, but it's Windows 10 Home, not this S crap that's limited to the Windows store.
I suppose school's might be interested in owning them. Something they can loan out, but be certain crapware won't be installed, but it's terrible for the home user.
If yes, I'm interested.
Exactly. That was my first thought - Linux.
MSFT has lost my trust. No amount of free tracking will earn it back. I'm a forced user stull, but that will change after the last 2 programs are replaced. It has been 15 yrs that I've been trying to replace one of those programs, so it is possible I may be stuck for much longer than I want.
I'm looking for a very lite, 13in, 10+ hrs of battery, 1080p screen, 1500+ passmark, with a keyboard that doesn't wear out in 2 yrs, system that runs Linux. I have one today, but the keyboard is beginning to die. Last one, an Acer, the keyboard was effectively dead in 18 months.
Explaining everything:
https://www.youtube.com/user/AwakenWithJP
(Hint: Head band = don't take it seriously. :)
If these are sold to consumers (It says education market but will they be sold retail?) they will be a big hit and an utter disaster as soon as the proud new owners start trying to install regular Windows software.
Even in the education market, I don't necessarily see them taking off until Microsoft makes Visual Studio available through Windows Store. K-8 maybe, but in high school (grades 9-12), teachers and administrators expect student devices to support the course materials for "introduction to computer science" type classes.
Microsoft is not going to let Google take over schools without a fight.
Well that explains everything.
It doesn't matter how shit the hardware is or how crappy the students' experiences will be, Microsoft is like a drug overlord that wants to get their hooks into the young people as soon as possible to guarantee a revenue stream for life.
As you cant RUN anything on them anymore.
So.. windows, where you can not run windows programs.
last time i checked chromebooks were basically tablets with a keyboard. it appears windows 10s at least lets you run real software, albeit no sideloading, at least by default.but you could convert to the full OS if you wanted, i don't know if this is possible right now
Open Source Java Web Forum with LDAP authentication
MS also has malware and viruses to worry about. Chromebooks might have a rogue extension here or there, but much easier to fix.
No sideloads unless you buy the upgrade to Pro.
At $189 they're still more expensive than the bottomfisher ($100-150) 2-in-1s running around Amazon and the like that have a full copy (albeit 32-bit due to RAM limits) of Home. They're are not locked to Store software - anything loads. They're not good for much, but as entry-level Windows-powered toys they work - including running LibreOffice, Firefox, Thunderbird and the like. Since all the ones I've seen are Atom-based, they also get a free copy of Office Mobile, though that's pretty useless - LO runs rings around it and works when not network-connected).
You'd probably have to live with a larger screen - say, 15" or so - as the minimum size for 1080p, and a substantial price ($500 or much more). Nothing out there that runs Intel or AMD will get 10 hr on a battery, though some of the very expensive new ones a size or so bigger can get close; my impression is that laptop makers have focused on more performance rather than battery life until very recently. Then, you need one that you can unlock from Windows; my little tablet, for instance, won't boot from USB under any circumstance I've found so far (even after I get into the UEFI (32-bit??) BIOS there's no apparent way to read what's on a USB stick). Perhaps, a Live CD on a USB stick could have its installer run from within Windows? In any case, you'd need Linux that boots with all the power management, touch-streen, location, g-sensor, etc. drivers up and running, which might require a little prep work on another system before attempting.
Did anyone see the example test questions in the office 365 demo screenshot? Are physics tests really like that now? If this is representative of how low academic standards are... we're screwed. Every single answer (except the 1st I guess) is completely wrong yet 5/6? Are you joking?
Chromebooks have Play Store (and sideloading APKs/Linux with some hackery irrelevant to an average user). These laptops have Microsoft Store, not sure about developer sideloads. Seems up to which app/game selection you prefer?
No. Not the same thing. The Play Store for one is useful.
OK, don't tease me, just tell me. S as in "Sucks" ?
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
Get kids comfortable with Spying at an early age.