Lenovo Confirms Commitment to Education with Updated Notebook Offerings

On the eve of the Future of Education Technology Conference (FETC) and the British Educational Training and Technology (BETT) show, two of the world’s leading education technology events, Lenovo is confirming its commitment to technology leadership in education for students and education institutions by announcing updates to its notebook offerings.

Today’s students are more technology-aware than ever and digital learning platforms continue to grow. Institutions need solutions that scale and adapt quickly to keep pace with new ways of teaching, collaborating and creating. Lenovo’s deep expertise and broad education device portfolio will help schools succeed.

ThinkPad 11e
The updated ThinkPad 11e family continues to offer traditional laptop or the innovative Yoga multimode form-factor. With the Yoga models, students can go from writing a report in laptop mode to reading assignments in tablet mode, watching math video tutorials in tent mode to collaborating with classmates in stand mode, all in one day.

Featuring the latest generation Intel processors and brighter displays, ThinkPad 11e and 11e Yoga will be available with Windows 10 or Google Chrome operating systems, giving students and teachers maximum flexibility and choice to integrate new notebooks into their existing classroom environments.  Engineered for education, ThinkPad 11e and ThinkPad 11e Chromebooks are focused on reliability and productivity, both in and out of the classroom.  Passing a vigorous series of 12 military standard spec procedures to ensure maximum durability, using gorilla-glass for maximum screen protection, a water-resistant keyboard and new and improved mechanically anchored keys, the ThinkPad 11e Chromebook can keep up with the demands of a hectic classroom.  And with up to 10 hours’ battery life, it can last the school day and beyond to keep a student’s productivity going.

Jerry Paradise, executive director, ThinkPad Product Marketing says: “ThinkPad 11e series has become the mainstay of our education portfolio. We continue to enhance and improve these notebooks to deliver the highest quality devices and maximise return on what can be a significant investment for education institutions.”

Lenovo N23 Chromebooks
Lenovo is also expanding its rugged, designed for education, N series family with the addition of the Lenovo N23 Chromebook and N23 Yoga Chromebook. Like the ThinkPad 11e Chromebook, the N23 is also available in traditional clamshell and Yoga form factors. In addition, the N23 Yoga version is the first Lenovo Chromebook equipped with an ARM-based processor, optimized to run the Google Play Store apps.

Designed for education, both the N23 Chromebooks are portable, powerful and durable, a perfect fit for the classroom on a budget and versatile enough to meet the day-to-day needs of teachers and students. Featuring reinforced ports and hinges, new mechanically-anchored keys and a water-resistant keyboard, both the N23 and N23 Yoga Chromebook are made with the busiest bunch of students in mind and built to last. They also keep going throughout the school day with 10 hours’ battery life.  Add this to the quick and easy access to the broad range of G Suite for Education apps means students are always being productive. Simple to set-up and manage, both N23 Chromebooks offer students a personalised user experience simply by signing in with their Google Chrome ID while teachers and IT administrators have peace of mind and ultimate flexibility with a web-based management console.

Sam Morris, global education solution architect, Lenovo says: “Today’s students require more than textbook learning and memorisation.  They need digital tools that allow them to do more than ever before.  Lenovo has pioneered the way in purpose-built educational devices and is continuing that tradition of excellence with the next generation of our ThinkPad 11e series and our Lenovo N-series devices for education.”

Lenovo N24 with pen support
Lenovo is also taking this opportunity to pre-announce a new Lenovo N24 featuring Windows 10 and newly added pen support. Enhancing the existing N series with Windows 10 portfolio, that includes the N22 clamshell and N23 multimode notebooks, the new Lenovo N24 is a joint cooperation with Microsoft for the education segment. The N24 convertible notebook will offer an 11.6-inch IPS display with 360-degree screen rotation giving multimode capability, 10-point touch and an Active Pen with pen holder. The Lenovo N24 is expected to be available mid-2017.

Lenovo Education Solutions
As one of the world’s leading education solution providers, Lenovo’s expertise goes beyond the hardware. Our products and services will empower institutions to lead the digital transformation of classrooms with turn-key education-built solutions with secure infrastructure and comprehensive training on the latest classroom management and educational tools.

For example, Lenovo LanSchool classroom management software is designed to keep students engaged and learning in a safe digital environment. Allowing teachers to monitor and control content frees up time to teach and minimize digital distractions in the classroom. LanSchool can also assess student progress and is operating system agnostic offering flexibility across a wide range of devices. Lenovo is currently offering LanSchool licenses for free for one year to qualifying customers¹.

Lenovo Education Creative Suite provides enhanced multimedia editing tools at a very affordable price to schools. Together, this software suite provides a full feature set of tools to edit photos, videos, and audio/music and create personalized content using PhotoDirector 7 EDU, PowerDirector 14 EDU, AudioDirector 6 EDU, and Stagelight.  These tools allow students to do more than simply consume content. Instead, students and teachers can create authentic work from soundtracks to image design. Online and built-in tutorials guide users of all levels through the software while inspiring them to become innovative designers and creative communicators.

Sam Morris adds: “Beyond the device, we also realise how important it is to provide teachers and students with the right tools to leverage the technology.  In addition to Lenovo’s own classroom orchestration solution, Lanschool, we are pleased to announce partnerships with Cyberlink and Openlabs to offer enhanced multimedia editing tools along with our partnership with Hapara to provide content orchestration tools.”

Pricing and Availability:

Windows models:
ThinkPad 11e with Windows 10 will be available from February 2017, starting at $519. For education customers (with Shape the Future program), prices start at $419
ThinkPad 11e Yoga with Windows 10 will be available from February 2017, starting at $599. For education customers (with Shape the Future program), prices start at $499
Lenovo N24 with Windows 10 is expected to be available mid-2017. Pricing will be available closer to shipping date.

¹ With the LanSchool Bundle promotion, every education customer that purchases a Lenovo device is eligible for a free, perpetual license of LanSchool classroom management software and includes support for LanSchool for a year.

Originally Published: https://blog.lenovo.com/en/blog/lenovo-confirms-commitment-to-education-with-updated-notebook-offerings/