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Which is best for school? Laptop or Tablet?


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My girlfriend's getting a laptop for college. I haven't asked her why, but I'd assume it's because it's an interface which she is used to. I like tablets, I think they're cool, but I don't relish the idea of doing classwork or typing on them for long periods of time.

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The Thailand government has just recently launched a nationwide project to equip all the schoolchildren with tablets. While that may seem to be an admirable idea, personally, I would have preferred that laptops are given to the students.

 

From the viewpoint of durability, the laptop, because it can fold, would be able to protect the screen from accidental scratches. True, tablets can also be put into bags. Still putting it into a bag cannot beat just closing a lid because closing the lid is mandatory whereas putting it into a bag is optional.

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Laptops.

 

Tablets can't be locked down, and trust me, kids find a way to ruin anything.

 

Why cant a tablet be locked down (Im assuming your talkin software)? They definatly can. They can run professional and therefore be conneted to the domain if neccesary, and therefore have all the control that you would have from a laptop provided you buy the right gear.

 

I would however suggest laptops rather than tablets. I actually program schools software and as stated above, if they can break it, they will break it.

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Why cant a tablet be locked down (Im assuming your talkin software)? They definatly can. They can run professional and therefore be conneted to the domain if neccesary, and therefore have all the control that you would have from a laptop provided you buy the right gear.

 

I would however suggest laptops rather than tablets. I actually program schools software and as stated above, if they can break it, they will break it.

Well, lets take the iPad for example, the applications run sandboxed , therefore you can't put application restrictions on them.

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Well, lets take the iPad for example, the applications run sandboxed , therefore you can't put application restrictions on them.

 

Agreed a ipad would be useless. However the question was about tablets or laptops, and you can get windows based tablets. They are rubbish lol, but ya can get em. I think windows 8 will make them a bit more user friendly, and has the advantage of being able to set it up exactly as you wish for students. However as you said before, not the ideal thing for a child as they will simply break them. And to be honest I have the same opinion about laptops in schools. That said we supply laptops, tablets, pda's, desktops etc etc with our software on and the biggest pain in the backside for us are always security policies within the networks. Wouldnt mind if they were all the same, however unfortunatly not as you will know yourself.

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Specifically for school? Well that depends on exactly what you're wanting it for. If you want it for taking notes, then having a keyboard is pretty key. You can get a keyboard for a tablet, but then why not just buy a small netbook instead? If you want it to play with without the teacher noticing, I guess it depends on the level of schooling. If they're allowed in high school, then cool. In college, a teacher doesn't care what you're doing on a laptop anyway.

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Well I've mentioned before that I work in a 11-18 school. We tried rolling out netbooks to a year 7 group, and the work load was simply too much and we didn't have the funding to hire more people. The kids simply broke the laptops, such as dropping books on them thinking the laptop screen went flat, when it actually didn't. Snapping the hinges off. Rolling over it with a bike. Kicking their bag around with the netbook in. Etc. The repair costs for netbooks isn't too bad, but I can imagine them being awful for tablets, especially enclosed designs.

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Well I've mentioned before that I work in a 11-18 school. We tried rolling out netbooks to a year 7 group, and the work load was simply too much and we didn't have the funding to hire more people. The kids simply broke the laptops, such as dropping books on them thinking the laptop screen went flat, when it actually didn't. Snapping the hinges off. Rolling over it with a bike. Kicking their bag around with the netbook in. Etc. The repair costs for netbooks isn't too bad, but I can imagine them being awful for tablets, especially enclosed designs.

 

 

LMFAO .... I just got pictures of some kid ------ "SIR SIR, Look I painted my puter all pretty" LMAO

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I would prefer a laptop since it is much better for typing. I don't have anything against tablets but I feel that I can't get much work done on them. That's why I like the concept of the new microsoft tablet, aka Surface, since it seems like a perfect coupling of a laptop and a tablet.

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I don't see how you could use a tablet. Don't you need to be able to type quickly and take notes? Guess you could voice record. I dunno I would have to have a real laptop.

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For school, you really need a laptop. Tablet is just not up to the task.

Simple things such as notes taking and doing homework will require easy to type keyboard. Even if you want to play around, it is easier to play around on your laptop. Don't think the professor can't tell you are playing a tablet...it is in fact easier to notice than a laptop that just sit on the table with its back toward the teacher.

 

Someone recommended netbook. I am against it. Every single person I know who has used it had ditched it because it simply sucks. Too slow for one thing, not really all that much smaller than a laptop, so not easier to carry than a tablet.

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Well I've mentioned before that I work in a 11-18 school. We tried rolling out netbooks to a year 7 group, and the work load was simply too much and we didn't have the funding to hire more people. The kids simply broke the laptops, such as dropping books on them thinking the laptop screen went flat, when it actually didn't. Snapping the hinges off. Rolling over it with a bike. Kicking their bag around with the netbook in. Etc. The repair costs for netbooks isn't too bad, but I can imagine them being awful for tablets, especially enclosed designs.

 

I actually winced while reading that!

 

Thinking of my own college life, I would choose a laptop. I don't see how you could takes notes for a long period of time on a Tablet.

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For school, you really need a laptop. Tablet is just not up to the task.

Simple things such as notes taking and doing homework will require easy to type keyboard. Even if you want to play around, it is easier to play around on your laptop. Don't think the professor can't tell you are playing a tablet...it is in fact easier to notice than a laptop that just sit on the table with its back toward the teacher.

 

Someone recommended netbook. I am against it. Every single person I know who has used it had ditched it because it simply sucks. Too slow for one thing, not really all that much smaller than a laptop, so not easier to carry than a tablet.

For school you need neither. What you do need is a desktop. Proven technology in schools.

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For school you need neither. What you do need is a desktop. Proven technology in schools.

 

I am under the impression that the OP want something he can carry around with him. No way you want to carry a desktop with you to school. You can, if you want, but I am sure everyone will look at you funny.

During my school years, I got a laptop to carry with me. At home, I always have had desktop PCs.

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I am under the impression that the OP want something he can carry around with him. No way you want to carry a desktop with you to school. You can, if you want, but I am sure everyone will look at you funny.

During my school years, I got a laptop to carry with me. At home, I always have had desktop PCs.

Yeah, but I'm talking from a schools point of view. College/Uni is different because they're setup more for wireless/portable devices. But in schools, none of our school kids bring their own laptops in. Only the Sixth Form (College) students do, and they're aged between 16-18.

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I think the laptop is the way to go if you are in college. Depending on what you are studying you might need to install some programs in order to be able to complete work and such, and some classes even if you don't download/install any programs may need you to go to a website to take a quiz or something that won't run well in a tablet.

 

As for typing with practice you can actually learn to type equally fast on table and/or laptop, the only thing that would delay you a bit is if the numbers are on the alternate of the keyboard so that would slow you down, but I've seen tablets with the numbers on the top line of the screen keyboard, just as a regular laptop keyboard, so the difference wouldn't be too much.

 

I honestly think it's a matter of what you are studying, if in college, and the need for you to actually use a computer with an specific OS for a specific program, laptop is best to get you out of the computer lab, specially on days when it might be completely full.

 

As for middle-high school, from what I've seen the tablet is a preference. I gave a conference at a school a few months ago, and the teachers told me about how the administration asked the parents to get their kids a tablet from 6th grade and up, they believe that the kids should learn to properly use the tablets from that age.

 

Also some tutoring companies, where I live, give their students a free tablet with the app with the tutoring resources, while the app is up they can't minimize it and go to another app until they close the app fully at the end of the session. At the end of the tutoring year they would let the kids, who finished the tutoring sessions properly, keep the tablet. I'm guessing the app would register the activity on it each day in a log which was checked at the end of the year to know if the student had used the app properly and if he/she would keep the tablet at the end of the year.

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Hello, i would recommend you to use the Ipod Touch 4 because its getting very popular in a school near me and there are alot of kids using it.I personaly have one but dont use it, because i dont like it.But it has alot of things you can do with it, such as downloading games,reading and alot of more stuff.

 

If you want a tablet i would recommend you to wait for the google nexus tablet that its comming soon, it has alot of features and i think the price its going to be $200.By the way it will have a quad-core processor.That means that it will be very fast, if i was you i would buy it when it comes out because its awesome and i think its going to be a big launch and alot of people will buy it, Thats just my opinion.

 

Anyway good luck!

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Again, in schools they're just too expensive unless the school has a lot of money to throw away. For example, our school has had a lot of budget cuts, and there's no way in hell we'd get tablets. The insurance costs would be too much, because they'd get damaged all too often.

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