New Chromebooks rolling out for sophomores

This year sophomores are receiving their new Chromebooks later in the year instead of receiving them at the beginning of the year because of the recent pandemic.  

Currently, the school is receiving about 50 Chromebooks each week.  Although all 400 Chromebooks have arrived at the district, they have to be processed before they get distributed to the students.  

“It takes time to process each Chromebook that needs to be engraved and enrolled into the CF district and be distributed. A lot of things have to happen before they get to be distributed,”  media specialist Abby Hendrickson said. “The Chromebooks aren’t only late because of the pandemic but because of the new Hello ID system, which was taking longer. Even the technicians on deck would have had to work all throughout the summer. They decided to distribute it later because sophomores could wait to get new Chromebooks. The sophomores still had working Chromebooks, so they decided to do a slower rollout.” 

Hendrickson said the new Chromebooks are the same model as Juniors have. The juniors have model 3100, a newer model than the old Chromebooks that the sophomores have. 

“Model 3100 has the universal charger and the better processor than the older Chromebooks,” Hendrickson said.

Sophomore Eonna Barnes, who received the new model, said, “The new model is a lot easier to manage, and the battery lasts a lot longer. It also moves faster and things load a lot faster and more efficiently.” 

Although there are many improvements from the older model, there is one downside to the new model. “To replace the charger of the new model costs $40, which is a lot more than the older model because the older Chromebooks have depreciated in value, so the chargers are cheaper,” Hendrickson said.