TCO: iPad vs Chromebook for schools

School tech budgets are tight.

Schools have limited budgets and many students to serve.

It can be tempting to take the lower initial price tag of Chromebook at face value. I mean, how much is a Chromebook for schools? Cheaper is better, right? Even if you have to sacrifice the more engaging educational enrichment that Apple offers?

While that’s debatable, for the sake of argument let’s accept this as fact.

Cheaper is better.

Well, you’re in luck! iPad is not only better equipped to handle educational tasks than Chromebook, over the long run it is cheaper. By a mile.

And schools are in it for the long run.

What is ‘the long run,’ exactly?

According to a collaborative report by Diamond Assets and Jamf, it doesn’t take long to realize these TCO savings: only three years.

From Diamond Asset’s data, it’s clear that iPad Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) after three years is $194. Chromebook? $244.

What’s wrong with “use it ‘till it dies?’

On the face of it, technology use that goes beyond its prime usable lifecycle does save money: keep patching up and re-using existing technology until it simply cannot go anymore.

There are many problems with this approach.

IT time

Any sort of budget-setting should absolutely include time spent managing, protecting and fixing aging equipment.

Yes; their salaries are already in the budget.

But what more could they be doing for students and teachers if they had the time to put toward innovation rather than piecing together old tech and keeping it limping along?

Old tech doesn’t support the best learning tools.

The best software and hardware continually innovates. They offer the best tools for new teaching approaches, such as technology-enabled active learning (TEAL) models that focus on students and their specific ways of learning, or the flipped classroom.

With aging tech, education suffers.

Aging tech is more open to security breaches.

The older a machine is, the longer hackers have had to figure out ways of getting into school networks and sensitive student data. They’ve had the leisure to compile some really devastating attacks and ransomware.

The vulnerability is exponentially worse if you use equipment beyond its ability to install and maintain malware protection and other security measures, or its ability to update and patch the most up-to-date version of the OS.

How can school admins achieve this low TCO?

1. By saving time

Evaluating school technology on an annual basis to determine if it’s time for a refresh will save IT departments time and, in the long run, money. New technology has better reliability, performance and battery lifespan, and support and resource costs typically go down.

Even if you have a long refresh cycle, properly managed Apple devices take far less IT time than PC.

For example, a Township High School District 211 report compared management costs and discovered that:

• Chromebooks suffer damage four times as much as iPads, resulting in higher repair costs.
• Because of this damage, the district required a surplus fleet of 20% for Chromebooks, compared to the 5% for iPads.
• Repair costs were also two times higher for touchscreen Chromebook models than iPads.
• Chromebooks cost more for device management over the product lifecycle, estimated at $6 per student per year for Chromebooks when compared with iPads.

Overtime pay is an obvious increased cost when IT must spend so much time repairing and answering tickets with non-Apple products. But what about other costs, such as losing the potential of your district’s brain trust?

Lowered maintenance time means that your admins can focus on what is most important: serving students. They have the time to ensure that tech best serves students and teachers by innovating, staying up-to-date on the best tools, and figuring out creative ways to enhance student learning.

2. Through reselling

One way to ensure you keep a low TCO while also supporting students and teachers with the most up-to-date tech possible is to keep a regular evaluating, re-selling and refreshing calendar.

Using the high resale value of iPad to your advantage can help defray costs on newer technology. And, compared with Chromebooks, iPads provide schools with more extended investment returns and offer substantial resale value.

If you use iPads, of course.

Unfortunately, due to low market demand, a two-year-old Chromebook typically only retains a value of around $10, whereas a two-year-old iPad maintains a trade-in value of approximately $145.

If your district prefers to hold onto tech a bit longer, it’s important to know that Chromebooks depreciate to zero after two more years, while iPads still retain about $80 in trade-in value.

3. By taking advantage of Apple’s strong security features

The most up-to-date hardware and operating system means that school IT admins can use the most up-to-date security and connection protections, such as Jamf School, Jamf Safe Internet and Jamf Connect.

The better your safety and security protections, the higher your chance of avoiding the horrifying costs of a breach.

Costs can include:

• Fighting the attack
• Replacing or reloading data
• Lawsuits from parents or teachers
• Sometimes, even rebuilding your infrastructure from scratch

And don’t forget the untold costs to the district’s damaged credibility and reputation.

Chromebook vs. iPad: iPad for the win!

Forward-thinking school districts must consider the total cost of ownership, not just the initial cost of hardware. And they must look at costs holistically: if they only consider the initial purchase price, what is the cost to student learning? To the district's protection from costly breaches? To the potential for IT to truly make a difference?

Choosing iPad is better for budgets, better for IT and — most importantly — better for students.