Intel unveils rugged 7-inch tablet for education market

[Jos]

Intel has announced a reference design for a new 7-inch tablet that can run either Microsoft's Windows 7 or Google's Android operating systems. It's not exactly the Medfield-based device that popped up in a rumor last week, but the premise is the same: extending the company's Classmate PC efforts with a cheap and rugged Atom powered tablet destined for students in developing countries.

The Studybook is constructed from a single piece of plastic designed to resist liquid spills and survive up to a 27-inch drop to concrete. It also has a rubber band reinforcing the bezel and around the ports to keep sand and other elements out. Weighing in at 525 grams, the reference design includes a 1.2 GHz Intel Z650 Atom "Oak Trail" CPU, 1GB of RAM, a 1,024-by-600 pixel capacitive touch screen, USB 2.0, HDMI, microSD / SIM slots, Wi-Fi, dual cameras and varying amounts of built in flash storage: from 4GB to 32GB.

Battery life is rated at 5.5 hours on active usage, according to Intel, which pales in comparison to the iPad and a few Android tablet achieving around 10 hours of runtime on a single charge.

On the software side, the tablet can run either Windows 7 or Android 3.0 "Honeycomb" -- the former will reportedly come first and the Android version will be ready by midsummer. Intel will bundle e-reader, note-taking and drawing apps, as well as digital textbooks from Kno.com and other education oriented apps.

The Studybook will not be manufactured directly by Intel, but rather by licensees who will distribute it to local OEMs. This means pricing is not up to Intel either, but the company believes that manufacturers who use this design can sell the finished product at a price between $199 to $299.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/48128-intel-unveils-rugged-7-inch-tablet-for-educationmarket.html

 

[Guest]

Expensive... better off forgetting the "rugged" part and getting a Hyundai A7HD which I just picked up for $150. - 7 inch IPS capacitive screen - 1024x600 - 1GB RAM - 1GHz CPU - 2160p miniHDMI port, etc... good for the price. Keeping it in my bathroom for reading when on the toilet, lol. Got my ASUS Transformer for the living room, and of course a good old laptop for when I need to do actual work.

 

[gwailo247]

Considering what I see in school as far as tablets I'm concerned, one thing is sure, is that if kids bring their own electronic devices to school productivity will drop, instead of increase. Only if the school has its own tablets, with everything locked down except the apps/sites that will be needed for the lesson at hand , would kids actually learn instead of surfing the web or playing games.

 

[insect]

@gwailo247 As a teacher I can tell you this already happens and it's a fight I can't win because the parents won't let me take the phones that they paid for and then they text/send pictures/call their kid during school hours. Aside from all of that, are the apps of course.

I solved this by simply telling my students that failure is an option and I'm not paid enough to babysit. After all the kids on the phones fail/are called on when I know they weren't paying attention they begin to choose the learning over the phone.

The students without phones appreciate it also because they hate when teachers stop class to call-out kids for using phones/ipads/whatever and disrupting the flow of the class. They'd rather those kids just failed also.

 

[gwailo247]

@insect

Yeah, I think natural selection will weed out a lot of those kids. My teachers only get upset when the student doesn't even bother to keep it on the DL, they're playing some racing game, holding their iPad like a steering wheel, or they're playing Fruit Ninja, making huge arm movements.

 

[Guest]

I would not say this is true my kids school all went to ipads and she and all her friends are doing better I am shocked I thought there would be alot of learning curver issues and goofing around I was wrong

 

[gwailo247]

I would not say this is true my kids school all went to ipads and she and all her friends are doing better I am shocked I thought there would be alot of learning curver issues and goofing around I was wrong

You're in class all day watching them not goof off on their iPads? That's dedication most parents don't have. Good job.