Geeks go back to school

As the schools re-open, parents are in a new frenzy. They are not only buying new books, but also PCs for their wards who start a new academic year.

We list some of the new initiatives and offerings taken by various vendors that will be of use to your geeks in school. The vendors list is random, and not according to any preference.

Dell: Dell has kicked off its Back to College campaign named Learn It Share It Make It Happen for college students.

Students who buy Dell Inspiron laptop can avail offers worth Rs 11,298. The offer includes gift vouchers from Levis or Jabong, bass-driven sound with Sennheiser earphones, 1-year additional warranty and Dell’s laptop pack consisting of  1- year license for MacAfee antivirus software and Absolute Lojack (Solution to locate, lock, delete and recover their device).

The Back to College offer is valid on Inspiron notebook purchases (Core i3, i5, i7) made on or between May 29, 2015 and June 30, 2015 across the country from authorized Dell outlets or its website.

Contests: Dell will conduct several online activities and contests like, #CarryYourColour Picture Contest encouraging students to  upload pictures with their favorite colors on Dell social media properties, and #PackedwithPotential contest to drive user generated content highlighting how colors are an extension of one’s personality. The #LearnitShareit campaign, showcases the benefits of technology through videos.

Acer: Acer’s Back to School campaign will run all the way till June 15, 2015. Acer India has tied up with Vedantu (an online tutorial platform) for the same. Vedantu will provide free live online tuition classes worth Rs 500 to anybody who registers on Acer India’s website oe buys Acer’s notebooks during the campaign period.

Additionally, consumers may get an opportunity to meet Acer’s brand ambassador and Bollywood Superstar Hrithik Roshan with a purchase of Acer Notebook.

Acer offers are valid on its range of Aspire E5 series and the Aspire R13 convertible notebooks.

Aspire E5: supports all the six core touch gestures of Windows 8.1 and the Accidental Contact Mitigation (ACM feature, mitigates un-intended tap and cursor motions on the touchpad. The notebooks come with 8 GB memory and up to 1 TB storage. Powered up to 5th generation Intel Core i5 / i7 processors, the Aspire E5 series provides up to 7 hours of battery back-up. It is available at Rs. 21,999 in five color variants - Titanium Silver, Midnight Black, Tiger’s Eye Brown, Sapphire Blue and Garnet Red.

The Acer One 2-in-1 comes with 500 GB hard sisk storage space and with four modes of usage — notebook, pad, display, and tent mode supported by the Magnetic Snap Hinge. Pre-installed with Windows 8.1 OS, it is powered by an Intel Atom quad-core and comes in 2 variants - 1 GB RAM or a 2 GB RAM. It also provides and additional 32 GB of storage space in the detachable touch screen. It is suitable for students who want a device for study and play. It also includes 1TB of storage with a free one-year subscription to OneDrive, Microsoft's cloud storage platform and also an 1-year subscription to MS Office365 worth Rs 3500. The staring price for Acer One series is Rs 19,999.

iBall Slide WQ32 Tablet: Priced at Rs 16,999, the tablet is an 8- inch device running on Windows 8.1, and is powered by the latest Intel Atom processor. The IPS screen delivers good visuals and better viewing angles. The device comes with 1-year subscription of MS Office365. The 16 GB internal storage will give you less space to install apps as the OS takes away most of it. However the memory is expandable upto 64 GB via Micro-SD card slot.

Amazon Kindle Voyage e-reader: Priced at Rs 16,499, it is a premium device with 3G connectivity. It comes with 6-inch display with Carta e-paper technology and adaptive front l, 300 ppi, 16-level gray scale, Wi-Fi + 3G, 4 GB internal storage and free cloud storage. It is a viable choice for hard-core readers.