The arrival of cloud computing means that any device that can access the internet can access a variety of office applications, irrespective of the device. In order that staff can expect all students to be able to complete the same tasks, there are minimum requirements for the device a student brings to school.

Devices must:

• Be able to connect to the school wireless network and the internet
• have a “standby to operational” time of less than 30 seconds.
• Have a keyboard (possibly Bluetooth)
• Have a battery lifetime > 6 hours
• be able to record photos, video and audio
• Be able to install Office 365 apps including OneNote (these can be downloaded for free with the school's Microsoft licence)
• have a protective case

To offer full versatility we would also strongly recommend that devices have a touch screen interface and stylus for annotation of documents. A screen size of between 10 and 14 inches is also a good compromise for portability and weight. For devices with a Microsoft Operating system, a hard drive with a minimum size of 64 GB, although at least 128GB is recommended. 4GB of RAM should be considered as a minimum.

We would also like students to have discrete headphones, so that if they need to listen to audio, they can do so without disturbing others.

Preferred devices

There are many devices that will be acceptable. We will attempt to outline some of the advantages and disadvantages of popular devices below. Whilst all the devices below can access the Microsoft Office 365 Apps, the features available to Windows devices are much richer, and as such a windows device is our preferred type.

The most versatile devices are touchscreen Windows laptops. These devices offer the best compromise in an education setting, with the ability to add digital ink to documents being particularly helpful in OneNote

Microsoft Surface Go

These windows devices with a 10-inch screen does everything that is required and has an excellent battery life.  It's also excellent value for money and is much lighter than a full-size laptop. The negatives are that the keyboard is a little small for an adult but perfectly usable. Beware that prices sometimes do not include the keyboard and stylus. The version of Windows is usually SE, which has reduced functionaliity.

There are some other similar devices at this price. There is then quite a big price jump to the next level of 2 in 1 laptops - retail prices around £750.  At this price are devices such as the Microsoft Surface Pro that have larger screens, processing speed and internal memory storage.

iPads are popular and could be used with the "Bring Your Own Device" scheme if teamed up with a Bluetooth keyboard (available from £10). There are a wide range of options available with iPads, with different screen sizes and memory. Some students will already have these devices and their familiarity with how they work will help them to get started and using them straight away. The downsides are that some of the functionality when working with files can take some getting use to. If buying a new device, the iPad Pro would be the best of the tablets. The drawbacks with iPads tend to become more common in Year 10 and above

Laptops - There are so many laptops that are available, at such a range of prices, that it would be difficult to pick one device. The key is to check battery life as some laptops lose battery life quickly as they are powering larger screens and hard drives. We would also recommend a manufacturer with a good reputation for building robust devices. The MacBook Air is popular device amongst students but are not the cheapest. The Lenovo Yoga series make a range of 2-in-1 laptops that are worth considering.

A general thought on Apple devices - The positives are that they tend to be more robust, both in terms of hardware and software but on the negative side they do have less functionality when using Microsoft apps which we use a lot. As a result, there are things which apple users will not be able to do which can be frustrating.