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Microsoft puts Acer, Dell and Lenovo Windows 10 PCs for students in the spotlight

Seven new Windows 10 PCs, priced between $189 and $320, plus a new Microsoft Classroom Pen made exclusively for the education market, are among Microsoft's big bets for BETT 2019.
Written by Mary Jo Foley, Senior Contributing Editor
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Credit: Microsoft

At the annual BETT education show this week, Microsoft is highlighting seven new Windows 10 PCs from three OEMs that are meant for the education market. It's also introducing a new Microsoft Classroom Pen, optimized for the Microsoft Surface Go and available exclusively for educational institutions, at the event.

The Windows 10 PCs in the education spotlight are from Acer, Dell and Lenovo and priced between $189 and $320. On the list:

• Lenovo 100e starting at $189 (for 2018 model) and $199 (for the 2019 model)
• Lenovo 300e 2-in-1 starting at $289
• Lenovo 14w starting at $299
• Acer TravelMate B1 starting at $215
• Acer TravelMate Spin B1 starting at $299
• Acer TravelMate B1-141 starting at $319
• Dell Latitude 3300 for Education starting at $299

The Microsoft Classroom Pen will be sold in packs of 20 for $800, or roughly $40 per pen. The new Pen will ship in all of the 36 Surface Go markets worldwide starting next month. The Microsoft Classroom Pen will work with other Surface devices, as well as a number of third-party Windows PCs. 

Microsoft quietly introduced the Surface Go, which starts at $399 (without a keyboard), last summer. Officials said that K-12 students were one of its primary targets. Microsoft and its partners have been working to introduce lower-priced Windows 10 PCs and related services, such as Intune for Education, to help Windows devices better compete with Chromebooks in the education space.

At this year's BETT, Microsoft also will be touting some new education-focused features coming to its Teams group-chat platform this week. Among those features are the ability to automatically send grades from Teams assignments to teachers' Student Information Systems; mobile grading support for Teams Assignments on iOS and Android phones; Turnitin integration for detecting plagiarism; and general updates to Teams Assignments to make more quickly accessible.

Microsoft is making certain mixed-reality curricula available for free to those who buy Windows virtual-reality headsets via a partnership with VictoryVA. And it is showing off how its Immersive Reader tools can work with VR headsets.

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