Teamboard IWB

Just before I published the June Interactive Whiteboard review, I came across the Teamboard IWB.  I said that as soon as I had some time to play around with it, I’d give it a review.  I contacted the company who sell the board, Sight and Sound, who are based in Dublin, and they lent me their demo board for the summer course I gave.

I also mentioned that the Teamboard looked like a decent prospect and guessed that it cost around €3,000-€3,500.  I was absolutely right.  The Teamboard is very very similar to the Traceboard but it costs €3,200 with a long-throw projector.  So, this board allows the user to interact with their finger or a pen but also allows him/her to use dry wipe markers on it.

There’s a couple of other nice features on this board.  I like the way you do a “right-click” with your finger – simply press down on the board and wait a couple of seconds.  I also like the feature that you can turn the projector off and use some “special” markers, which show up on the board.  However, as well as simply showing up on the board, if you’ve got your laptop plugged in, the laptop recognises the writing and saves it into a flipchart.  This is an extremely useful feature and very impressive.  I don’t think there’s another board out there that does this.

The downside of this board is minor and represents the downside of almost every IWB – the software is fairly poor.  I loaded Promethean’s excellent ActivStudio on it and it became a super IWB!  The only other little irk is the price, which is nearly €800 more expensive that the Traceboard.

I see this Interactive Whiteboard as one of the best quality that I’ve seen.  I would go as far as saying that it is about as good as the Hitachi Starboard and marginally better than the Traceboard.  Essentially, if this board cost €750 less, I would put it top of the table.  Moreover, the board comes with an excellent guarantee and service.  Smartboard – beware: the touch-based IWB market is growing and you’re losing ground.