The Undercurrent

Issue date: 3/7/08 Section: News

Up in the air - BV is still trying to decide on the laptops to give to students next year.

BVU updates laptops every two years and are distributed to the students. The Information Resources Committee (IRC) is in the process of finding out what laptop is going to be next in line. On Mar. 6 the IRC met to update its members on the information.

Next week there will be representatives coming to BVU to meet with the IRC to go over the details of their respective proposals on Mar. 10 (Gateway demo), 11(Hewitt Packer demo), 12 (Lenovo demo), and 13 (Dell demo). All presentations are at 3 pm in Hansen 8 except the Dell Demonstration will be in forum room 1.

Senior member of the IRC Jacob Kittleson explains that four proposals have come back to BVU. The companies that have submitted proposals are Gateway, Lenovo (IBM), HP, and Dell. BVU is looking at notebooks and convertible tablets.

The models that are being looked at for notebooks are Gateway E475m, Lenovo Think Pad R61, HP 6710B, and Dell Latitude D830. For the convertible tablets the models are, Gateway E295C, Lenovo Think Pad X61, HP 2710P, and Dell Latitude XP. The notebooks will have 14 inch screens, and the HP, Dell, and Lenova tablets screens will be 12.1 inches. Gateway tablets have a 14 inch screen.

Some other features these laptops will have are Windows Vista, duo processors, 2 gigabytes of ram or more, which the current laptops have 1 gigabyte, and the hard drives will be no less than 80 gigabytes. The current laptops hard drive only has 60 gigabytes.

However, some of the models don't come with CD or DVD burners. All will come with CD and DVD readers (as in you can play music and movies), but a student won't be able to burn CD's or DVD's. However, Kittlson reassures that just because the model doesn't have the burner that doesn't mean BVU won't be able to get them.

The new laptops will be available for checkout for students to try them out and to give feedback by completing a survey. Kittleson explains further that any input from students is good and is highly encouraged.

According to the Winona State University website, WSU has a laptop program that operates both on notebooks and tablets and students can choose between the two options of which best supports their needs.

"Being a science major I would like to see some implementation of tablets PC's," Kittleson said.

Technical Support Specialist, Scott Wunchel explains that the recommendation to the Presidents counsel is due on the first of April. The President's counsel has already disapproved of an all-tablet campus next year; however, the IRC is looking into getting tablet options for students. They aren't sure how it will work because the idea is still in development. It can either be for students of certain majors, or it can be a matter of paying the differences in cost.

"I am hoping the computers are better, and I'm also hoping for something different," sophomore Jarell Emrick said.

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