If windows break - as it tend to do - use something else.

Uh, no, it doesn't - Windows 7 and 8.1 are very stable products successfully being used the majority of computer users. A few years ago millions of computer users were exposed to Linux for the first time on netbooks, and the vast majority of them asked 'can it run MS Office?' And when the answer came back 'No.' They carefully packed them back up and took them back to the store...

2020 will be the year of Linux!

Windows with Bing is free (as in beer), full capabilities version of Windows 8.1 for low-spec systems.

There is a long tradition of computer users that lease their OS - they are called mainframes.

Are you imagining a current consumer Chromebook will last 5 years?

Will the batteries last that long?

The HP Stream 7, at $100 list price, is a very useful tablet. It only has 1 Gig of RAM, but with a quad-core CPU and flash storage (32 Gigs included, expandable with micro SDXC card) they perform quite well.

AND, they currently ship with 1 yr of Office 365 AND 1 yr of OneDrive storage, up to 1 TB. What does MS charge for a TB of storage for one year in OneDrive?

"That's the nose of the camel, hump to follow"

It sells for a near-ipad price of $300+, about 50% more than it's chromebook peers...

That same $300 can buy a quite-capable a Windows 8.1 with Bing device, which can run regular Windows applications, something a Chromebook can not...

Surface RT costs $200 - about the same as a chromebook.

Ms Office365 is free for educators/students - same price as Google Docs.

MS includes OneDrive cloud storage and email for free - just like Google does.

A prudent school administrator could build an MS-centric environment for the same initial cost as a Google-centric one, and with the same on-going costs.

Choosing Windows 8.1 with Bing devices in-place of the Surface RT would open up the entirety of the PC software world (within reason) for about the same cost as either a Chromebook or a Surface RT deployment.

Unless the online test requires IE... Then they are 109% useless! unless you have a bank of Windows servers acting as Remote Desktop Servers, blowing away your imagined cost savings.

At a unit price of about 1/2 that of an iPad, they were able to sell 2% more in one quarter, generating about 1/2 the sales revenue if the iPads sold that same quarter.

iPads enjoy superior engineering and have proven themselves to survive mass deployments among school-age children - Chromebooks are built to a certain price-point, a very low price-point, and that requires a lot of compromises in the actual engineering and materials used.

A dropped ipad gets scratched, a dropped chromebook shatters.

Are you saying you don't think Foxconn is a socially responsible company?

You forgot one thing:

0. Play (educational) games

Ever heard of 'Brain Pop' or 'Study Island'? If not, do you remember playing Oregon Trail in the '80s? If you told most public school teachers you were going to prohibit students playing games, even educational games, on computers, far fewer teachers would fight to get computers in their classrooms...

Millions of kids will learn the GUI interface on top of Linux... And it is largely a browser-centric interface in most cases.

Logins everywhere. To login to these cheapy windows devices, you need to either have local accounts, or a "live" or "microsoft account". This means you need a "live" login to get past the login screen, and an Office 365 login to do any work - it's madness.

Yes, this is madness, but in time I'm sure this too will be sorted out OR a school could simply use Google a Docs and Google Drive on their Windows With Bing devices and avoid the madness... Remember, anything you can run on a desktop can run on these devices, something that can't be said for Chromebooks.

The OS that ships in the cheapy laptops cannot be joined to a traditional domain. User management and policies for these devices cannot be centrally managed. Google's management tools are fantastic.

The OS MS offers on the very low-end devices is a zero-cost version of Windows 8.1 - it is full Windows 8.1 with one difference, it is not allowed for the OEM (Dell, HP, etc) to alter the default search engine from Bing or browser from IE11. The end-user is absolutely free to change default search engine/browser to anything they like.

The OS, as shipped, does not support joining a domain, but an upgrade can be performed to Windows 8.1 Pro without having to re-image the device. Schools that choose to participate in Educational Advantage will have access to the appropriate product keys to do so, along with all needed server CALs, local copies of MS Office 2013, and access to future OS upgrades.

The quad-core Atom processor in most low-cost Win8.1 tablets is well up to the tasks of a tablet, esp. When coupled with 2 Gigs of RAM,but even still, the HO Stream 7, at $100 list price with 1 Gig of RAM is surprisingly useful.