I spent $800 on a 15 inch screen laptop with a lot of power that I will share with my rising 3rd grader. It’s a splurge but I wanted something powerful enough to do film editing (his hobby) eventually. I got burned once getting the cheapest laptop with no power - it couldn’t even run Word properly. I also wanted a big screen for zoom and a decent sized keyboard.

My criteria were: 15.6 inch screen, SSD hardrive, 16 MB memory, and full HD screen. I got an HP Envy 360.

If I had 2 kids, I’d probably get a smaller screened laptop with the same power for the older one, and a cheapo chromebook for the younger one, and plan to spend more than $500 total.

Gave our rising third grader our MacBook Air to use and so far its been working well with all the platforms and software she has had to use (MS Teams, Zoom, NearPod, etc. etc.) I know these devices are pricey, but I'm a big fan of MacBook Airs. She has also enjoyed having access to a lot of the preloaded (really powerful) software like GarageBand and iMovie to record her own songs and experiment with videos and animation.

We have a Chromebook but it has become clear during summer bridge that it will be extremely hard to use. If I had known then what I know now, I would have gotten a Surface.

Anonymous wrote:I do think it is worth considering that in the spring many schools used zoom, which works well on chromebooks, and this fall all DCPS schools will be using Teams, which I've heard may not work as well on a chromebook.

Teams worked fine on ours.

Has anyone heard from their schools about device distribution?

I filled out the survey, but am not sure if I should also be reaching out to the school or if CO is planning to distribute the tech.

I do think it is worth considering that in the spring many schools used zoom, which works well on chromebooks, and this fall all DCPS schools will be using Teams, which I've heard may not work as well on a chromebook.

We bought a chromebook which was perfect for our 3rd grader last spring. It's been perfect and all that you need; no need to spend > $400 for this technology.

Anonymous wrote:If your children are in DCPS, please fill out the tech survey. Parents should not have to buy new devices to access public school education. And the school district should not be assuming that any DCPS student already has a device at home.

I filled out the tech survey honestly -- my kids have old, slow devices they can use. We may still wind up having to buy them something. I don't expect the school to provide me with newer, better devices just because the ones we have are older than our kids are; we can afford to buy new ones if necessary. (We'd prefer not to, obviously, and I'm sure I could come up with something better to do with the money, but I'd also prefer if there weren't a pandemic.)