And then there were three.

Okay, so let's start by skipping to the end.  We have our quotes in for the Year 7 1:1 program devices and the three candidate machines are:

The Samsung Ativ Smart PC 500t

[caption id="attachment_287" align="aligncenter" width="543"] A tablet that unlike the others features an active stylus. It's the best equipped with connectivity options. It's also the same as the machine I've been using to test this form-factor and the hardware platform in general.[/caption]

The Acer Iconia w510

[caption id="attachment_285" align="aligncenter" width="543"] The cheap and cheerful one in the bunch. At first it seems like a slightly tacky unit but as soon as you witness the insanely good battery life it becomes apparent that this unit is a about function over form.[/caption]

The HP Envy x2

[caption id="attachment_286" align="aligncenter" width="522"] The pretty-boy of the bunch. If the Acer or the Samsung are function first, this one is probably form first, but it shouldn't be assumed that it's build quality is any less because of it. First impressions are that HP have the most robust contender.[/caption]

 

Choosing between these three will be a difficult process.  Presumably, it'll be more about the form, robustness and connectivity than it will the performance.  All three machines are based on the Intel Atom platform, which is quite tightly controlled specification wise.  The similarity is likely due to the price cap we'd been given for the program.  An Intel Core i series chip would've been too expensive, and that only leaves ARM-based hardware or the Atom, and ARM would mean running Windows RT, which we've no interest in.  The other reason resellers have picked the Atom platform is for its exceptional battery life.  All three tablets boast 10+ hours on battery (and many times more in sleep mode).  The Atoms also have the 'connected standby' feature, which is particularly interesting, plus allow for the lightest ant thinnest designs of any chipset out there.

We received quotes from seven resellers, two of which failed to submit a quote and another two submitted quotes for machines that didn't meet our specifications.  In both cases the sub-spec hardware was the Lenovo Thinkpad Tablet 2, another Atom tablet, which lacked a suitable pointing device in its Bluetooth keyboard and only had one USB port.

So, we have three to choose from.  It'll be interesting to see how they stack up, particularly from the teachers' point of view.