Newline Q Series vs. BenQ Board RP Series

For schools looking to transition from projectors to interactive touch screen TV’s, BenQ Board and Newline Q Series are two popular models that both have solid brand support and advanced features.  While Newline is a relatively new brand, according to Futuresource, BenQ has been the market leader in DLP education displays for over a decade -and its popular BenQ Board is used in the classrooms of over 60 countries.  So which of these two displays is best for your school?   Here are the key elements to review:

• Hybrid Learning Whiteboard Functionality 

• Classroom and Lesson Recording Features

• Health and Safety Features for students and teachers

• How many teachers can use one display 

• How easy to manage?

   

   

Interactive displays from BenQ and Newline have built-in computers to enable a better touch screen experience than traditional whiteboards – and recognize objects and text written on the screen.  So, what is the biggest difference for schools looking to use these displays for remote learning?

While both the BenQ Board and the Newline Q Series come with whiteboarding software that can be used in the classroom, the BenQ Board is equipped with the world’s first dynamic cloud whiteboarding system to enable a teacher to remotely connect to any student on any device- even if they are not logged onto the school network. Here’s how it works.   For a remote learning or coaching session, a teacher can send a link or a QR code and broadcast directly from the board to a student Chromebook or iPad logged into their own home network. The teacher can also allow the student to interact directly on the board with the device with a single tap– say to allow the student to solve the math problem on the board. Since the system is network agnostic, it enables unprecedented flexibility to both teachers and students that complement other classroom systems such as Zoom or Teams. Powerful cloud whiteboarding features like this are why BenQ’s Board RP-series is the world’s most awarded education touch display.  This is a standard feature on all BenQ Boards – including the entry-level RE model.   The Newline Q Series does not have cloud whiteboarding functionality out of the box.

For hybrid and flipped classrooms, being able to have a student or teacher wirelessly share their screen from their desk is an important part of classroom pedagogy.  Both the BenQ Board and the Newline Q Series enable casting, but the way they work and function are substantially different.  

The BenQ Board uses its InstaShare app that runs on nearly any notebook, Chromebook, or mobile device and can mirror the screen using the school’s local network connection – for smooth and reliable performance.  This system also enables the screen to be split and shared by up to nine different students and has a moderator function for the teacher to control the screen.   In addition, the software also enables touchback control to any of these devices – so students can wirelessly control their device directly from the BenQ Board interactive display. 

The Newline Q Series uses a third-party cloud-based casting system from DisplayNote.  DisplayNote typically uses its own cloud servers for casting, which can impact frame rate and latency performance as well as internet bandwidth usage.   The system will only support four presenters on the screen at one time.

The ability to record, store and replay lessons to students who are not in the classroom is a key element to improving student performance in hybrid classrooms. Why? Recording helps students catch up if they missed the class – or just didn’t get it the first time. So, what should you look for to ensure your teachers can easily store and share their lessons?

The best interactive displays make it simple to record any lesson – at any time – using any software running on the panel – and store that lesson anywhere on the school network or the cloud. All BenQ Board interactive displays allow for instant recording directly from the board with a single two-finger tap. This enables a teacher to record any lesson – from any software or application that is running on the board. This means there are no extra applications that need to be loaded or run – making it easier for teachers to record their classes.

The Newline Q Series does not come with any built-in recording software.  Schools can add third-party lesson recording tools like Panopto but these can cost as much as $180 per year per display.

Teachers have known the most effective lessons combine both visual and audio information. A great classroom touch screen board should enable every teacher to be able to record lessons clearly just as they would sitting in the classroom. The BenQ Board RM and RP series both offer an integrated beamforming array microphone capable of recording the teacher’s voice from 15 feet away -while effectively canceling out unwanted noise.

The Newline Q Series does not offer any sort of built-in microphone. Schools wishing to enable teachers to record a lesson will have to purchase and install an external array microphone to the Newline board for lesson recording. 

Since the Covid-19 outbreak – protecting students from harm in the classroom continues to be a top priority.   So how does the BenQ Board compare to the Newline Q series when it comes to keeping students and teachers safe?    

Both the Newline Q series and all models of the BenQ Board feature screens with an antimicrobial coating on the glass to help keep germs from multiplying and spreading to students and teachers when they are writing on the board.  While BenQ has had been producing these screens for over 5 years, many of the leading competitor models from both SMART and Promethean do not have any protection on their screens to help protect students and teachers.

One big difference between the BenQ Board and the Newline Q series is that all BenQ Board models have been certified effective by international testing agencies TUV on five different types of germs including e.coli, staph, food-borne Salmonella enterica, and the respiratory pathogen Klebsiella pneumonia.  BenQ Boards have also been rated safe by SIAA as non-toxic to students who might have sensitive skin or allergies.  The previous Newline RS+ only was certified for e. coli and staph and neither model appears to have any SIAA safety certifications for toxicity. 

Considering a teacher spends nearly 1000 hours a year in close proximity to an interactive display, and students’ eyes are only inches away from the screen when writing on the board – protecting users from harmful blue light and flicker is an important factor in choosing a display.   Only the BenQ Board is certified by TUV to have effective protection against harmful blue light and is also certified as a flicker-free display.   The BenQ Board display can even sense when a user approaches and will lower the blue light automatically.   The Newline Q series does not have any certifications for its blue light technology and requires the user to turn on blue-light filters manually. 

BenQ believes nothing is more important than student health, so the RP series has additional health features available including sensors for carbon dioxide (which leads to drowsiness), air pollution, temperature and humidity, as well as the potential to clean the air with ionizing particles.  All these can be monitored and managed using the BenQ DMS program detailed later in the article.   

According to Education Week, about 77% of all middle schools use a form of team teaching, which requires both planning and flexibility to properly execute.   So how well can an interactive display like a BenQ Board or Newline Q series help facilitate both effectiveness and flexibility without an placing an undue burden on IT?

Both Newline and BenQ’s displays offer users the ability for a teacher to create a personal profile and log into the board.  This profile is managed by IT, enabling teachers to log in to their personal “board space”  with their apps, bookmarks, and connected drives from any connected display on campus. The BenQ Board enables teachers to securely log in with a QR code on their phone, or with the RP Series – simply tap an NFC card on the display to instantly login. 

For a teacher to log in to their personal profile on a connected display, IT managers can use their existing infrastructure to manage permissions and access to the teacher profiles.  BenQ is the only brand that will allow a school to leverage its existing IT infrastructure instead of having a proprietary database.  Here are the top three ways you can support BenQ Single Sign-On technology using your Active Directory, Azure, or Google Workspace infrastructure.

Any model of a BenQ Board can directly link to the school’s Active Directory account to enable IT managers to have direct control over their data and permissions.  Active Directory is so common that approximately 90% of the Global Fortune 1000 companies use it as a primary method to provide seamless authentication and authorization. It also has the advantage of having Microsoft stand behind the system to ensure regular security updates.

Any model of a BenQ Board can directly link to the school’s Active Directory account to enable IT managers to have direct control over their data and permissions.  Active Directory is so common that approximately 90% of the Global Fortune 1000 companies use it as a primary method to provide seamless authentication and authorization. It also has the advantage of having Microsoft stand behind the system to ensure regular security updates.

In 2021, over 170 million students and teachers relied on Google Workspace to teach, learn, connect, and share information around the world.  With a BenQ Board, IT managers can use their Google Workspace databases to assign rights and access to teachers to enable them to log into any connected BenQ Board anywhere on campus and access their Google Drive, and instantly have their display personalized to their own apps and files.

Both BenQ and Newline provide device management systems (DMS) permit admins to push settings, updates, apps, and campus-wide messages to any or all boards in their network.  The Newline DMS only works with Newline displays, whereas BenQ’s DMS can control displays and projectors, and wireless presentation systems.  BenQ DMS can even manage popular legacy projectors like Sony, Epson, Hitachi and NEC. This means with BenQ your department can run more equipment from one screen and without costly software licenses.

While both BenQ Boards and the Newline Q Series share other similar features such as power charging USB-C ports, integrated sound bars for audio, wide viewing angles, and 4K resolution, understanding the key differences will help you decide which brand of interactive touch display will be right for your classroom.  Here is a summary of some of the key differences between the two displays.

It’s important to do research and consult important stakeholders before deciding which board your school district should adopt. There are some major advantages that BenQ brings to the table that can make a difference to a school that might want more flexibility in its curriculum. When deciding on your chosen solution, consider the following differences:

• The BenQ has more advanced classroom safety features, including certified toxin-free anti-microbial glass, certified blue light filters, and a flicker-free screen that helps protect the user’s vision. 

• The BenQ Board RM & RP series features an advanced array microphone system that can capture student questions and can follow a teacher’s voice from as far as 15 feet away. The Newline requires an external microphone and doesn’t have any classroom recording software.

• BenQ’s Tap ‘N Teach NFC technology enables instant, wireless, secure teacher login – and even integrates with Active Directory, Azure, and Google Workspace. With a single tap, an enrolled teacher can transform any board on campus into their own board in under 10 seconds.

• BenQ Device Management System (DMS) allows school IT admins to manage BenQ displays, projectors, and even equipment from displays from legacy brands including Epson, NEC, Hitachi, and Sony!. 

• BenQ Boards are designed and tested to run a wide variety of classroom education curricula including Smart Notebook, ActiveInspire, Google Classroom, Microsoft Whiteboard, and dozens of other curriculum software platforms to enable teachers to switch learning.

   

   

If your school is considering a change in touch display or would like to try one for the first time, contact us today!