I agree with you. The other problem is schools feel they need the latest and greatest computers on the market. At my last school I had a system set up much like the one you describe. The students loved it, and so did the teachers, and with a system like that you don’t need a powerful laptop because all of the information is stored on the server. All you need is a laptop that will connect to the server and has enough space for the programs needed.

As far as price, Dell now has laptops for $499 and a pretty good one that will do just what you talked about for $699 and you know if a school ordered a couple hundred the price would be less then that.

I like you Palm TX thought, lets get Palm to build a larger Palm that is more rugged and has a decent browser and screen size…then we might be on to something, the problem is I think Palm is headed into the PDA/Phone area. Wouldn’t surprise me if 2006 saw the last year of a Palm that is not also a phone.

Jeff

I just got a Palm TX, and if you could get that in the formfactor of a ruggedized subnotebook (think eMate, only smaller) you would have almost the perfect device.

What I’ve done is set up each student with their own login account, and server based home directories. They can use any computer in the building, and all the settings and documents follow them. They can customize the background, change their homepage, etc. It also helps the teachers, they don’t have to worry about a student messing up a machine.