Work colleague is being asked to buy an overpriced Netbook for her daughter and would like help

• 

  scrimshaw on 09/11/2016 - 11:50

  +3

  The non-touch equivalent of this netbook is $319 dollars from (Dell Inspiron 11 3000 series) eBay with a better processor and no-360 degree hinge, but because this is the school you probably have to buy what they tell you to buy, otherwise they won't service your laptop.

  Asides from JB Hifi, you could try direct from Lenovo. Know anyone with the Lenovo Affinity program?

  https://www3.lenovo.com/au/en/aupremium/gatekeeper/showpage?…

  • 

    Vind1cator on 09/11/2016 - 11:58

    I figure they will probably want the touch version. I hadn't heard of this Affinity program, I'll reach out on my social network and see if anyone is a member. Thanks for the help scrimshaw.

• 

  [Deactivated] on 09/11/2016 - 13:08

  Tell school you already have the laptop, and ask them to supply you with required software? I can't see them insisting you buy if you already owned.

  • 

    Vind1cator on 09/11/2016 - 13:09

    Good point. I might see if the school will provide the software.

    • 

      dasher86 on 09/11/2016 - 13:24

      true. the school may have a bring your own device program.

      to be honest BYOD programs will be a nightmare for schools…

• 

  dasher86 on 09/11/2016 - 13:09

  +1

  also by cloning the software you don't have real rights to use it.
  you need to factor in the licensing costs of said software into your comparison and not just hardware.

  Also is repair insurance included in the price? if so add that to your comparison as well.

  other than that JB-HIFI giftcards at x% off.

  • 

    Vind1cator on 09/11/2016 - 13:13

    I'm hoping that JB will drop a % off for the 11th November sale that i'm seeing elsewhere on the internet.

• 

  Baysew on 09/11/2016 - 14:12

  +2

  I was wondering if any of you hunters might have some tips that could help.

  My colleague needs to buy:

  Ask your colleague to sign up to OzBargain themselves. So much easier than dealing with a third person.

  It's free to join ! But Hurry !

  • 

    Vind1cator on 09/11/2016 - 14:42

    +2

    I've been proselytizing Ozbargain and cashrewards to her for a while now so hopefully she will convert.

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  fozz on 09/11/2016 - 14:31

  +1

  I think the Lenovo 11e Yoga might only be available from the JB Education portal, so I don't know if the normal JB discounts would apply. Have you tried to contact Lenovo directly? I know they have education pricing available but I think you need to give them an edu.au email address to access it. Do you know what school specific software the laptop will include? For my kid's BYOD program I'm looking at the same laptop but it doesn't need any specific software, all the school software is used via a Citrix environment.

  • 

    Vind1cator on 09/11/2016 - 14:39

    Thanks for the info Fozz. I will try and contact the school when I've picked my jaw off the floor. (watching the U.S. election)

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  Cheapascents on 09/11/2016 - 19:47

  Thats pretty ridiculous that they asked you to buy a specific laptop, at my previous school, they ask you to BYO device. My advice is purchase a laptop or notebook with an SSD already installed, but if you cant, purchase a separate SSD and install it yourself, but beware this can void the warranty. Then ask the school if they could install the esssential programs onto her laptop. If they wont allow it, buy the programs or try finding free ones online. Most programs are free if you know how to get it, i know windows programs are free for I.T students at certain universities and most of them never utilise it, i got the windows 10 edu os from another student doing another course, and my microsoft office 2015 came from another student at another institute, friend of course.

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  mhasan on 10/11/2016 - 10:07

  +5

  I work in a school as an IT Technician, from experience there are 2 ways to go about it.
  1 way is that parents buy the overpriced laptop from school which comes with all required softwares including MS office, adobe and anti virus. The repairs and warranty claims are also handled by school hence saving you headache and time for next 3 years. Also, if your computer is running slow or Windows is corrupted, school IT Technicians fix it for free and can reset your laptop and they can install software on your laptop as many times as you want without any charges for next 3 years.

  2nd way to go about it is that you get recommended laptop specification list from school and buy any laptop of any brand from any shop as per the school recommended specifications which in most cases is 4 GB Memory, 128 GB Storage, keyboard, mouse, 11'' screen and any AMD or intel processor and then take it to school as a BYOD. The school technician will register student BYOD in school system, put it on school wifi, they may install antivirus on it and they will provide softwares to the student to install on BYOD.. However, many schools does not provide any IT Support to BYODs. It is because each BYOD has different operating system, different sets of drivers and backup system and school does not have time and resources to support all different kinds of computers. Imagine installing 10 different operating systems on 10 different BYODs then installing all softwares, drivers, printers, windows security patches, windows updates, etc. It can be hours of work on each laptop. Where as on school laptops through JB Hifi its all done within few minutes using Schools Servers and special softwares.

  Conclusion: If you are a busy parent and don't have computer knowledge and don't have time to take laptop to shop for windows repair, computer repair, warranty claims, I would say go with School overpriced laptop through JB Hifi. It is much easier this way, trust me. I work as an IT technician from Dept of education in 3 schools, I see BYOD issues everyday. Students with school's JB laptops have much more support from school.

  • 

    Vind1cator on 10/11/2016 - 14:37

    Thanks for the input mhasan. This is where I've been leaning since I first looked into this. I will pass the message on and see if I can find a discount code tomorrow for JB Hi-Fi that works on their JB education website.

    • 

      scrimshaw on 10/11/2016 - 15:28

      +2

      Send your colleage the link to this thread. Let them decide for their selves whether it's worth saving the $200~300 in exchange for possibly a bit more hassle and trouble down the road.

      Personally, let's say I have two kids and I'm a parent with a full time job, I really don't have time to be sitting tinkering with computers at home when the kids complain they've got a virus or windows keeps playing up.

      It might be worthwhile buying the overpriced Lenovo and have the school deal with the laptop servicing, de-bugging, and re-imaging. That's what the staff is paid to do anyway.

      Because to be frank, kids will install just about anything (toolbars, mouse cursors, free games) on their laptops and then wonder why it's slow or has weird popups.

      I used to work in school too but we provided laptops to the kids (no BYOD program back then) and was in charge of doing data backups, data recovery and system re-imaging. Kids would drop off a laptop, then borrow another while I spend a few hours (or a whole day) backing up their homework, re-image windows via SCCM and then restore their data. But I can't do anything if their laptop is different because the system image is made for a specific laptop model.