Why does Daniel Wright use iPads?

A quick comparison of the American School favorite, the Chromebook, and education’s underdog, the iPad

By: Alex and Smaran

In over 50% of schools in the United States, which is equivalent to around 10 million students, Chromebooks are used instead of iPads, so why doesn’t D103 use Chromebooks too? To figure out why, we compared the two more work focused iPads with more Chromebooks at different expenses. Based on the evidence below, we found that higher quality Chromebooks are normally more expensive. For example, a 12.3 inch Google Chromebook with 512 gigabytes of storage costs over five hundred dollars more then the equivalent, larger iPad. Although the less expensive Chromebooks may cost a lot less than a baseline iPad, they are bulkier and heavier. And, if you look at the dollar per gigabyte of memory value, the $409 iPad is a better deal then a $259 Samsung Chromebook, at $3.19 per gigabyte to $8.09 per gigabyte.

Also, Google charges a thirty dollar management fee for schools. This fee might seem small for just one Chromebook, but it forces the Chicago public school district to pay 33.5 million dollars on around 134,000 Chromebooks. If D103 had to pay the management fee for a Chromebook per student, they would have to pay around $53,000 for over 1500 Chromebook. If you throw in the cost of 1750 new Chromebooks, it adds on another $453,250. And that doesn’t even account for the apps and custom software add-ons.

Basically, although Chromebooks are more popular in America’s schools, the iPad is a much better deal for schools. And, if you add in the new gen. six’s Apple pen capability, the iPad becomes an even better deal. Those plentiful reasons for buying an iPad instead of a Chromebook is why our school district uses iPads instead of Chromebooks.

Less Expensive Chromebooks
	Acer with 16 gigabytes of memory: $109-$299
	Dell with 16 gigabytes of memory: $149-$199
	Samsung with 32 gigabytes of memory: $259
More expensive Chromebooks
	Google with 128 gigabytes of memory: $999
	Google with 256 gigabytes of memory: $1199
	Google with 512 gigabytes of memory: $1649

iPad
	32 gigabytes of memory: $309
	128 gigabytes of memory: $409
iPad Pro
	10.5 inch display
		64 gigabytes of memory: $629
		256 gigabytes of memory: $779
		512 gigabytes of memory: $979
	12.9 inch display
		64 gigabytes of memory: $779
		256 gigabytes of memory: $929
		512 gigabytes of memory: $1129
iPad education
	32 gigabytes of memory: $299*
	128 gigabytes of memory: $399*
*discount not included