Skip to main content

Microsoft launches new sub-$300 laptops to fight Chromebooks for the classroom

With classrooms still highly dependent on remote learning, Microsoft has announced a series of new and extremely cheap Windows 10 laptops. The devices include laptops under or around $300, some of which even support LTE connections to improve videoconferencing and online collaboration.

The devices include the $239 Acer TravelMate B3, $329 Acer TravelMate Spin B3, and $279 Asus ExpertBook BR1100. Microsoft is also announcing two Intel NUC-based laptops, the $229 JP-IK Leap Connect T304 and the $185 JP-IK Leap T304. These are built around the NUC element, which contains the processor, memory and connectivity all in a single module.

Recommended Videos

Microsoft also pointed to the Dell Latitude 3120 2-in-1, a cheap laptop announced just at CES. This education-focused 2-in-1 features 4GB of RAM, the latest Intel Celeron processor, and 64GB of storage.

Please enable Javascript to view this content

Microsoft says many of these new laptops use the recently announced Intel Celeron processors, which are based on the company’s faster 10nm architecture. It didn’t, however, provide specifics about the specs and configurations for each laptop.

Acer TravelMate Spin B3
Acer TravelMate Spin B3 Acer

Cheap Chromebooks are the devices that hold a large percentage of this market, primarily because of their ease of use and highly affordable prices. Unlike those Chromebooks, these new Windows 10 laptops are variations on business laptops, configured down to hit these budget-tier prices.

The company also announced a new stylus, the Microsoft Classroom Pen 2. This is an update to the original kid-sized stylus that launched in 2019 for $40. The new model only costs $20 and features a longer enclosure. In the announcement, Microsoft emphasized recent research that showed that student performance “improved as much as 36 percent when using a pen interface, compared to only a keyboard.”

Lastly, Microsoft announced an education-based feature for Teams. Called Reflect, it will be integrated directly into Microsoft Teams and Education Insights starting this spring. Microsoft says Reflect is made to help teachers check in with individual students on topics beyond the classroom, including “learning from home, an assignment, current events, or a change within their community.”

Microsoft says its education products are already used by more than 200 million students and faculty, “with Teams for Education as the hub to engage students in remote and hybrid learning.”

Luke Larsen
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Luke Larsen is the Senior Editor of Computing, managing all content covering laptops, monitors, PC hardware, Macs, and more.
Microsoft is axing support for its own apps on Windows 10
The Surface Laptop 7 on a table in front of a window.

Microsoft has announced that support for Microsoft 365 apps on Windows 10 will end this year on October 14, as reported by The Verge. This is also the end-of-support date for Windows 10 as a whole, but the move is still a little surprising considering that Microsoft is now offering the Windows 10 Extended Security Updates (ESU) Program.

Anyone who joins this program for $30 can continue to safely use Windows 10 for a whole extra year -- so you might think that Microsoft would let them continue to use the Office apps too. That said, it's not like the apps will disappear, they just won't receive any more updates. According to Microsoft, this could cause "performance and reliability issues over time" but whether these issues will pop up within the ESU program's duration or not is anyone's guess.

Read more
Microsoft introduces new ‘pay-as-you-go’ AI agents
microsoft copilot introduce ai agents free enterprise subscription tier m365 465350 blog 250110 1 1260

Microsoft will begin offering access to AI agents — specialized generative models that can operate independently and automate repetitive daily tasks — to enterprise users. The new program is called Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat and offers "pay-as-you-go agents to our existing free chat experience for Microsoft 365 commercial customers," the company announced Wednesday.

The "free plus metered agent usage" Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat offers many of the same features as the existing $30 per user per month "Microsoft 365 Copilot" enterprise program, including access to a chatbot powered by GPT-4o, Copilot Pages, file uploads, image and code generation, enterprise data protection, and, of course, to Copilot Studio, where individual users and IT departments alike can create AI agents. Note, however, that the free Chat program does not grant you access to the Copilot personal assistant, which integrates the AI's capabilities into the rest of the 365 Copilot app ecosystem such as Word, Outlook, and Excel.

Read more
Microsoft finally wants to make gaming on handhelds less of a chore
The Digital Trends website on the Asus ROG Ally.

Whispers about an Xbox handheld have been circulating for a while now, but it looks like the project is still in the very early stages. At an AMD and Lenovo event this week at CES, however, Xbox chief Phil Spencer spoke to The Verge and dropped hints about Microsoft's plans to combine the Xbox and Windows gaming experiences together.

It seems this phrasing refers to bringing the strengths of the Xbox operating system to existing and future Windows gaming handhelds. Working on a handheld version of the XboxOS is part of the work the company will need to do to create an Xbox handheld, but it looks like we'll get to see ongoing developments way before that hardware is ready to come out. Spencer said that we should expect to see changes to the Windows handheld gaming experience at some point this year.

Read more