As North Carolina school districts prepare for a digital learning environment, school leaders are choosing products that can withstand the classroom environment and stretch the value of their investment. Lenovo actively engages with teachers, administrators, students and tech directors to deliver products that serve the unique challenges of the education market.

 In response to feedback from educators, Lenovo launched a new “ruggedized” laptop in December specifically for the K-12 education market. Designed to be handled by students, the ThinkPad X130e has a reinforced and extra durable top cover, keyboard and hinges. Made specifically for the school market, this PC’s popularity has resulted in over 20,000 orders in North Carolina.

“At LenovoThinkTank 2011 we brought hundreds of distinguished educators together, and the resounding feature CIOs told us that ranks highest on their list of features important for PC purchases is ‘ruggedness’,” said Dilip Bhatia, vice president, ThinkPad Business Unit, Lenovo. “While we’ve built tough products for years that pass many military-grade tests, we’ve made specific improvements required for a laptop to be successful in an education environment with the ThinkPad X130e.”

Throughout the course of a typical school day, students’ laptops are often subject to extreme wear and tear. To help school-proof them, the X130e has several heavy-duty features including:

A top cover rubber bumper to absorb impacts to the side of the laptop
33 percent stronger corner to reduce the chance of damage when dropped at an angle
Stronger hinges to outlast even the most frequent PC user at up to 30,000 cycles
Reinforced and recessed ports to decrease the effects of student “wear and tear”
Stronger Bezel with 1.2mm thick plastic to protect the LED panel