Purchasing laptops for mobile labs is often a daunting task for an educator. Mobile labs can be a great asset if the right equipment is purchased. Mobile labs have been shown to increase test scores and help students focus. If the wrong type of equipment is purchased the mobile laptop lab will become one giant paper weight.
Student laptops need to have the following qualities: They need to be “Light”, a really light laptop is less than four pounds. A heavy laptop is over 8LBS. The problem is that a really light laptop costs over $2,000 and schools can’t afford that, so a laptop in the range of six pounds is good.
CD-ROM’s for school laptop labs are optional if not totally unnecessary. I say this because they are usually the first thing to break. Second your computer techs will install all necessary software via ghosting or over the network. Third not having CD-RW’s or DVD-ROMs remove the temptation of using the laptops for non-educational use.
Next the laptops need at least 512 mb of ram (Memory), most educational software is very graphic intensive and need a lot of memory. Anything less that 512mb of memory will cause the laptop to freeze off and on causing frustration for the students and teacher.
Hard drives only need to 30gigs. Installed software for a school laptop should max out at about 4 gigs. Students will not be downloading music or movies so a larger hard drive is not needed.
Next the actual profile of the laptop needs to be thin. Children have smaller hands and the thicker the laptop the more awkward it is for them to type.
Fourth the laptops need to have a integrated wireless 802.11g adapter. The Adapter must be integrated into the laptop. If you decide to use a PCMICA wireless adapter they will get bumped and bruised and broken with in the first month of use.
The laptops need to have a Pentium M processor or Centrino CPU. This extends the life of the battery to 3.5 hours verse 2 hours with out the Centrino technology. The usual rule with batteries is that you can expect to replace them every year. The replacement period for the laptop batteries can be extended by not letting the batteries completely drain. The monitor for the laptop should be 14” or 15”. Anything smaller will be too small for the children to read, and anything larger will be too big and bulky.
Next, the laptops need to have Ethernet network adapters in case they need to plug directly into the network. Finally windows XP professional must be installed for the operating system.
A mobile cart to house the laptops is often the most over looked item for your mobile labs. Your cart will need a power strip to charge the laptops. Your cart will need some sort of lock to prevent theft. It also needs to be easily moved from class to class. If the cart is too large and bulky teachers will hesitate to use it. Next, your cart must be user friendly so students can take out the laptops and place them back in easily. I have seen schools make there own laptop carts and you can purchase them from various vendors. Just remember if the cart isn’t easy to use then your laptops won’t be safe, teachers won’t use them and they will get stolen or broken.
Finally, before you decide on a line of laptops check websites such as cnet.com and amazon.com and read the reviews. Also call your local districts and find out what sort of technology they are using for there mobile labs. A good rule in buying technology is you don’t want to be someone else’s test case.
Eric R Meyer is an expert in wireless networking. You can view other articles like this at
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