Microsoft is making its play for the brand new form of school rooms with a pared-down model of Windows 11 and a set of cheap laptops from the Surface model and a number of other different producers. It’s clear they’ve bought Google’s widespread Chromebooks of their sights, and their companions appear to be hedging their bets as properly.

Before all that, let’s simply set up that “SE” doesn’t stand for something, not like the SE in Windows 98 SE (“second edition”) or the iPhone SE (“special edition”) or the Macintosh SE (“system expansion”). The SE is “intended to clearly differentiate it from other editions like Home and Pro,” Microsoft instructed me, although why the they didn’t simply say it stands for “Students and Educators” as a substitute of being a very meaningless initialism is past me. (Yes, Microsoft, you’ll be able to steal that.)

Whatever the origin of its title, the Surface Laptop SE we could take to be the platonic form or reference design of what Microsoft is hoping to realize right here: a $250 laptop computer with all of the fundamentals, however designed with the distant classroom and ease of restore in thoughts.

The specs received’t wow anyone, however that is supposed to be a homework and distant studying machine, not a workstation. Let’s simply have a couple of bullets right here:

• Intel Celeron N4020 or N4120 sequence with built-in graphics
• 4 or 8 GB of RAM
• 64 or 128 GB of storage in an eMMC (and subsequently not expandable)
• 720p webcam with “improved facial awareness”
• Wi-Fi and Bluetooth
• 1x USB-A, 1x USB-C, 3.5mm headphone jack

There’s a missed alternative to make use of the USB-C for charging (there’s a separate port for an old-school cylindrical energy connector), however it’s kind of what you’d anticipate from a machine at this worth.

Except for the 11.6″, 1366×768 show. Of course that is supposed for teenagers, however nonetheless, Chromebooks at this worth have 1080p screens, which is an enormous enchancment for textual content readability and video high quality, two stuff you need to optimize for in a laptop computer like this.

The firm did say that it’s bringing the strong keyboard from its nicer laptops right down to this gadget, which is sweet information. And the deal with repairability is welcome as properly: “vital components like the display, battery, keyboard – even the motherboard – can be easily repaired onsite, saving time and money for IT admins and schools,” Microsoft wrote.

Other units are on the best way from Acer, ASUS, Dell, Dynabook, Fujitsu, HP, JK-IP, Lenovo, and Positivo, with each Intel and AMD choices and little question a little bit of variance in specs. They’re not essentially new (Dynabook’s E10 got here out earlier this yr, as an example) however are suitable with the brand new OS.

To wit, all these laptops will probably be operating Windows 11 SE, a model of the OS that’s supposed to be simple for colleges to deploy en masse. It has been optimized for the {hardware} famous above and may be provisioned shortly and easily, with Microsoft 365 and different generally used apps and providers pre-loaded. School IT can also be the one one that may add and take away apps, and may management net entry as properly. Automatic updates, cloud administration, the entire enchilada.

Microsoft’s Windows 11 SE exhibiting two apps pinned facet by facet.

In the announcement publish, Microsoft notes that web entry at residence will not be essentially one thing that each scholar can depend on. So they made positive that the built-in apps don’t need to telephone residence to work. 365 apps will work offline and OneDrive will retailer modifications domestically, syncing them as soon as it connects to Wi-Fi.

Microsoft has had combined luck with these restricted forks of its flagship OS. Windows RT was essentially the most well-known flop, however 11 SE may be very completely different — positive, it’s made to run on particular {hardware} and locks down numerous primary options, however it’s supposed for a selected market that really desires these issues.

Netbooks, too, have been one thing of a flash within the pan and never a lot good to anyone, however these days you are able to do much more with a barebones PC and a browser. Hopefully these modest notebooks will make it into the arms of scholars and do a bit to enhance the reasonably uneven current state of affairs with distant studying.