I realised, giving my answer, that I’ve never written down my objections to Android. Before we get into this, let’s understand that I’m primarily talking about “what’s wrong with Android from the perspective of someone planning a long-term 1:1 deployment in a school”. You can argue that these points don’t matter in the grand scheme of things but these are the things that I choose to care about in my deployments. I ask these questions of every platform.

I agree with Fraser on pretty much every point. A lot of times, when someone asks me why I tend to shy away from a particular platform (e.g. Windows), they don’t realize that it has less to do with the merits of an individual device and more to do with how those devices interact with each other. A minor annoyance on one device can scale up to be a major hassle when you have 300 of them.

I want Android to be a better option. There is a lot to potentially like about Android, but it’s not feasible at this time. By the same token, I want Windows-based PCs to be a better option. They cost a lot less. But between the poor quality of the hardware (arguably a reason they cost less) and the pain of re-imaging them, they are a maintenance and support nightmare.