Every student at Perry has used the school computers at one time or another. Being school computers, they are expected to be a bit sluggish. However, since the last update to the operating system, which gave the computers Windows 7, the sluggishness has become borderline unacceptable.
Trying to log in, browse the web for research, and ultimately produce a final product worthy of a good grade is painfully frustrating. It takes about three minutes to boot-up, five minutes to log in, and another three minutes to load any programs that are needed during class time. That is about eleven minutes needed to even begin working. This can really hurt a student’s productivity when they are on a strict assignment deadline. Not to mention, the time it takes to begin working is about double on the student laptops.
However, not all problems come without benefits. The latest operating system has added many new and flashy features. Windows Search, Jump Lists, and new versions of Microsoft Office are among the slew of new features that they make the computers easier to use. These features would be great if students were not plagued by the slow performance.
While the computers are still slower than desired, they have been getting better. Recent updates have fixed a wide amount of performance issues that were present at the start. But in time, Windows 7 will be outdated. Technology changes every day as new and exciting products, programs, and devices are invented. Soon these new devices will push today’s devices out of the spotlight.
Windows 8 is Microsoft’s newest operating system and it promises an even greater amount of features. However, the school computers will not likely run this operating system at a satisfactory pace. In a year or two, Microsoft will release yet another operating system and the computers will become more and more out of date. They soon might not even be able to run the newest versions of important programs to students such as Word and PowerPoint. This reason alone is why Perry and the district need to upgrade the student computers.
Even though Perry should upgrade their computers, they should not sacrifice an arm and a leg for them. The wrong move would be to purchase higher end computers for thousands of dollars when that much power is not needed. There are many affordable computers out on the market that are more capable than the computers they have now. Computers, such as the Gateway SX Series SX2870-UR10P, can be great and under $500. But with much research and planning, Perry can get even cheaper computers that would be leaps and bounds better than the ones they have now.
