True, but I think some of the demise of them is down to bad design.
My partner is a tech at a first school here in the UK, and they have Chromebooks - pretty much one per child.
Most of them have needed to be put back together because the hinge attachment to the case is not strong enough. The screws are not well fitted from the factory, and as soon as it comes loose, the mounting can get damaged because where the brass inserts are set in the plastic is pretty flimsy, and will crack. So they end up with a chromebook which can be 'kind of' repaired if you put the screws back in really tight, but it's only so long that it will last as that area has no real strength to it.
If this part of these was made better (these are Asus C201, but there are others that are similar), then they would never have been a problem aside from the obvious actual abuse that about 10% of them get from children who have behavioural issues.
Others mentioned here (such as Dell) are better, but have other issues - the Dell ones have glass in front of the screens, which can break, and leaves razor-sharp splinters when it does. It's also a nightmare to replace as parts are difficult to get (we had to order them from the US, and paid quite a bit for each one), and they are macbook-like in the difficulty of repair here.
Making these much stronger (like many times stronger) would not have cost a lot. They just skimped on plastic in a few places, leading them to be weak in the field. Another £1 spent per unit would have meant almost none of them would have suffered this. The later model (C202) were better, but still broke in the same place, with the same failure mode for the most part.
My partner is a tech at a first school here in the UK, and they have Chromebooks - pretty much one per child.
Most of them have needed to be put back together because the hinge attachment to the case is not strong enough. The screws are not well fitted from the factory, and as soon as it comes loose, the mounting can get damaged because where the brass inserts are set in the plastic is pretty flimsy, and will crack. So they end up with a chromebook which can be 'kind of' repaired if you put the screws back in really tight, but it's only so long that it will last as that area has no real strength to it.
If this part of these was made better (these are Asus C201, but there are others that are similar), then they would never have been a problem aside from the obvious actual abuse that about 10% of them get from children who have behavioural issues.
Others mentioned here (such as Dell) are better, but have other issues - the Dell ones have glass in front of the screens, which can break, and leaves razor-sharp splinters when it does. It's also a nightmare to replace as parts are difficult to get (we had to order them from the US, and paid quite a bit for each one), and they are macbook-like in the difficulty of repair here.
Making these much stronger (like many times stronger) would not have cost a lot. They just skimped on plastic in a few places, leading them to be weak in the field. Another £1 spent per unit would have meant almost none of them would have suffered this. The later model (C202) were better, but still broke in the same place, with the same failure mode for the most part.