Windows 11 SE can address the problem of lack of choice for affordable education laptops

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If you’re part of the demographic of parents who believe that a second-hand phone or laptop, or even a tablet with a keyboard fitted for good measure, isn’t the ideal way to deal with your child’s daily online rigors, you may want to keep reading. Education-focused laptops, or the surprising lack thereof, have remained a noticeable void over the past couple of years as students and parents have adjusted with the move to online classrooms. That could change with Microsoft’s new Windows 11 SE if it delivers on the promise Google’s Chrome OS has failed to deliver over the years.

Windows 11 SE is an evolution of the latest generation Windows 11 operating system, now available for PC. The underlying fundamentals remain the same as the latest generation Windows operating system (OS), but things have been simplified even further with changes to bring educational apps and services to the fore. What is unnecessary has been eliminated and optimizations have been made to suit it well for low-cost laptops.

“If we take the number of students in the country and stick to the data on PC penetration for education, it would still be less than 20%,” says Farhana Haque, director of group, devices, Microsoft India, in a conversation with HT.

“For parents of an average Indian family with two young children, it makes more sense to spend around ₹ 20,000 on each computer device until they reach a higher class and need something more powerful,” he adds. Microsoft says the life cycle of a Windows computing device is 5 years, which means that if your child is in class 2 right now, the machine you buy now should hold up to class 7 or so. That’s many years for a computer device.

“There are a lot of parents who have gone and bought a tablet because there isn’t a right laptop at this price,” says Haque. That’s not to say there aren’t any laptops priced around ₹ 20,000 – ₹ 30,000 available in the market, but they often lead to significant tradeoffs.

Microsoft confirms to HT that PC makers will ship Windows 11 SE-based laptops and computing devices from early 2022. “Dell, Lenovo, Acer, HP and many local gamers will launch devices,” confirms Haque. The critical thing Microsoft pointed out is that PC makers need to re-develop education-centric Windows 11 SE computing devices and can’t just upgrade the specs of an existing laptop to run this operating system.

This leads to the question: Can anyone upgrade a laptop running Windows 11 SE to a full-fledged Windows 11 experience later? Technically it is possible. The basic hardware specifications required in a computing device to run Windows 11 SE are the same as in Windows 11. This means that a 64-bit at least dual-core SoC or processor with 1 GHz clock speed, minimum 4 GB of RAM , at least 64 GB internal memory, a minimum 9-inch display with 720p resolution and the Trusted Platform Module (TPM) 2.0 security level.

This is the affordable laptop market that Google promised many years ago to leverage with Chrome OS. However, the promises were never really kept in most markets, including India. HP, Asus, and Lenovo are some brands that sell Chromebooks (these are Chrome OS laptops) for around ₹ 20,000 onwards, but the choices are very limited. HP, which has been the most active in pushing Chromebooks in India, currently has a line-up that includes the Chromebook 14 series, the Chromebook x360 series and the HP x2 11 Tablet PC. The lack of a limited range and choice. it will never be a risk with Windows ecosystems.

In the fourth quarter of 2020, at the height of the pandemic, HP shipped 3.5 million Chromebooks globally while Lenovo sold 2.8 million, according to Canalys data. In the same quarter, HP only sold 19.1 million Windows PCs, while Lenovo sold 23.12 million units.

The changes Microsoft is making with Windows 11 SE include bringing educational apps to the fore – pinning them to the taskbar for quick access. Schools will have the ability to administer student laptops with remote app installations and security updates, which also include Microsoft Defender’s built-in antivirus and security suite.

“It has been made so simple that teachers can actually link which apps to use and a student can’t decide which apps to install or uninstall,” says Haque. “It is distraction-free and offers limited multitasking capabilities. Your school’s data is synced, educational apps are automatically blocked, and a student doesn’t have to search for them. It’s very easy for younger students, “he adds

Microsoft 365 is built in and that means Windows 11 SE gets 1 TB of cloud storage as well. As well as Microsoft Edge and productivity apps, including Microsoft Word. There will also be support for third-party apps, including Google Chrome and Zoom, for example. The school can choose to administer such installations. Just like Windows 11, this will have full flexibility of features, regardless of whether you are connected to the internet at the time or not.

To reduce distractions, Microsoft removed Snap Layouts for multitasking and instead provided Windows 11 SE with an easier side-by-side mode for opening two apps at the same time. Anything distracting in a classroom has been removed, including widgets. Unlike Windows 11 which gets different versions and distributions of the Microsoft Teams and OneNote apps, for example, Windows 11 SE makes things easy with just one installation.

“Because of all the simplifications, it uses less memory. The performance is far superior and our partners can therefore make a higher product at a price of around $ 250 (around ₹ 19,000), “says Haque. He believes it is very unlikely that even after the end of the Covid era, the school and education revert to their previous teaching style. “I don’t think opening schools will change the need for any technology or reduce the need for technology. It will be used differently, but it will still be there,” he predicts.

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