School Chromebooks are notorious for not being of the highest quality, but with the Iowa City Community School District’s students getting new Chromebooks, their quality may have improved. We asked students at West what they think about the new and old Chromebooks to find out.

The old Chromebooks, Dell Chromebook 3100s, were rather unpopular, with common complaints including lag, poor battery life and keys falling off.

“In terms of opening up Google Docs, or even Canvas, it would take a while to actually load,” Anna You ‘26 said.

However, starting with the 2025-26 school year, students received new Lenovo 500e Gen 4 Chromebooks, which seem to be a much-needed upgrade.

“I feel like it’s a lot faster, and it’s a cleaner look. It’s not old, it’s fresh and new,” Brady Thoma ‘26 said.

However, William Seberger ’28 had some reservations. “I don’t like the design of the new Chromebooks as much, but I like that they have better battery life, and that they are faster processing-wise,” he said.

When asked about what they think should’ve been done differently with the new Chromebooks, there were a variety of answers.

“I understand having [charging ports] on both sides for convenience purposes, but having two on one side [doesn’t] make sense,” said Tair Lowe ‘26.

Overall, the new Chromebooks have a much better reputation due to many improvements to the hardware and user experience. However, students still had some complaints, so they still have some ways to go.