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Built-in software ‘death dates’ are sending thousands of schools’ Chromebooks to the recycling bin
(www.mercurynews.com)
this post was submitted on 25 Jul 2023
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Technology
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These things are such junk - even when new they were so slow and bloated that they couldn't load my kid's schoolwork half the time. I had to make sure he had an alternate laptop for use so he wouldn't fall behind. I felt really bad for the school district, it was clear they were being ripped off, and that most of the machines were going to be in a landfill within 3 years time.
The article's claiming the problem is planned-obsolete software, not inadequate hardware.
That's their claim, but what's in the old hardware?
It's one of those you get what you pay for things. There's dirt cheap Chromebooks out there. There's more pricy ones. They're generally quite speedy for their intended purpose.
I think the issue was that the ones Google offered at a bulk discount to schools were the low-end models that didn't have any memory upgrades, and there was a bunch of school-specific bloatware on it that compounded the issue. Multitasking flat out killed them, which made it difficult for my son to do anything with more than one window open. It even had issues with multiple browser tabs. I think he would have done better with a pen and paper and his library card than trying to use that thing for his schoolwork.
Some of the chromebooks offered to schools dont come from google. Some go to an actual leasing company who then gets chromebooks, mainly from lenovo due to them being the biggest leasing business in the game. Ive seen my fair share of terrible chrome books, but there are definately schools who lease what is basically the chromebook equivalent to a thinkpad
Souce: work in ewaste so i see what gets thrown out first hand.
Any idea what the specs were on the terrible ones?
Totally - I've seen chromebooks that run fine, and it's good to know that not all school districts are buying garbage machines. I was only speaking to my experience with my son's, which was a Google branded chromebook - he got it roughly four years ago.