According to my sources, this new laptop is codenamed Tenjin and features a fully plastic exterior, a 1366×768 11.6-inch display, an Intel Celeron N4120 and up to 8GB RAM. This is a no-frills laptop designed to be as low-cost as possible, built for student-use in a classroom environment. I’m told the device features a full-sized keyboard and trackpad, one USB-A port, one USB-C port, a headphone jack, and a barrel-style AC port.
Tenjin marks the beginning of a new K-12 education strategy for Microsoft. In addition to the new hardware, Microsoft is also preparing to launch a new edition of Windows 11 titled “Windows 11 SE” built specifically for low-cost school PCs like Tenjin. I’m told this SKU focuses on special optimizations, tweaks, and features built for education establishments deploying low-end hardware.
I wonder how much of Chromebook’s dominance in education is due to hardware or software, and how much is due to excellent deployment and management tools. I’m sure Microsoft has fantastic deployment and management tools for the enterprise, but since I don’t have any experience with these matters, I wonder if they may be too complicated and too difficult to use in basic primary school settings.
This machine could look much nicer than the typical Chromebook, if it mimics other Surface laptops. A small battery running a slow but low consumption CPU could do marvels. I would love to install Linux on such a machine, which gives a machine fast enough for normal use + coding pet projects. But the 720P resolution is killing it for me, I’d rather have 1080P or 1920×1200, even on such a small screen.
It’s really not all that slow, I’ve found the N4120 to be roughly comparable to the Core m-5Y series and Skylake-era i3 mobile CPUs, which were good enough for daily tasks. Supposedly the iGPU on the N4120 can output 4Kp60 video, so I agree a 1080p panel would have been nice, but these are meant to be heavily subsidized so they want to reduce cost as much as possible. I have a Thinkpad Yoga 11e with the same screen size and resolution and it’s good enough for basic stuff.
I meant slow compared to common CPU in laptops, not “impossibly slow” : I’m running an 11″ 1920×1200 laptop with an Atom Z8550 under Linux, and it’s just perfect: still 7+ hours of watching movies, compiling pet projects and normal net browsing: it just feel great!
Yeah those Z series Atom CPUs were really nice, the only issue I ever had was if the laptop or tablet had a 32-bit EFI; even then you just had to supply the bootx32.efi file on the installer media and you were good to go.
And that is the first question. This is Microsoft and if they can do it this machine it may be setup so you can’t put any OS on it. Other than updates to the installed Windows if you need a signature to run an OS and Microsoft does not release it, then you can’t install so easily. Second, will you have the right drivers for the chips they use. Microsoft is big enough to get some custom chips just to cripple others on their hardware.
I guarantee you that no primary school it admin is even contemplating installing unsupported OS. Having worked in education sector previously, I know the near meltdowns that occurred when Microsoft updated office, I darnt think the conversation “here is a whole new OS… No its better because it doesn’t run… No but its free..”
Microsoft are at it again, trying to release a nerfed Windows 11 to try and tame the slew of Chromebooks eating away at it’s bottom line.
Much like the earlier Windows 8/10 attempts at killing the Chromebook, i expect this one to flop too. People don’t buy a Windows laptop to be restricted by artificial limitations
Exactly this…
They released crippled versions in order to not eat into sales of the more expensive full versions but kept the same branding. If people buy “windows” they expect it to be compatible with and have the same features as the full versions they’re used to. The same thing happened with windows phone, windows ce and windows mobile – people expected compatibility which wasn’t there.
If people buy a chromebook they don’t have any such expectations, it’s a new product that’s judged on its own merits.
Since Microsoft volunteered my computers for the scrapheap with Windows 11 my first thought is give it a pass unless I can install an alternative OS.
Also this is for school children? Who cares what OS is on it as long as it works. Brainwashing children by the church is as old as the hills and I don’t approve of Microsoft trying it on either. Also children are children. If you’re buying children sneakers costing three figures or a wannabe adult laptop you’re bringing them up wrong!
I wonder if this is the re-incarnation of windows “S mode”, where microsoft had initially intended to charge to unlock feature including allowing owners to switch browsers? It’s one thing for microsoft to omit it’s own features from the OS in order to justify price cuts. But it’s another to block owners from installing competing software, that was plain unethical. The owners in this case are the schools, they should get to decide what software is best for themselves and students, microsoft should NOT get any say at all!
Yes I’m very bothered to the extent that apple and google do this too on their respective devices. Unfortunately they’re going to keep pushing everyone towards walled gardens until it’s the industry standard.
Nobody’s going to go for this because Microsoft’s education strategy has always been half-baked.
Like, they’re offering a device that supposed to be a Chromebook competitor. But they don’t have anything behind it that offers the same functionality as Google Apps/Workspace for Education. It’d be like Google trying to sell a Chromebook without first having rolled out GMail, Docs, Drive, etc. That’s the difference between selling a crippled device (Microsoft) and a low-cost, low-overhead gateway to useful services (Google).
Like, from a “students getting work done” perspective, they can mostly use Office 365 and MakeCode, I guess. But Microsoft doesn’t have a CMS (Course Management, not Content Management) product like Classroom, or even a way to roll out FERPA-compliant gradebooks and communication tools. What school on Earth — or at least in the US — would buy into that?