FTIW iPad in school seem to survive better. There's a lot more limitations (screen size in particular, and keyboards being an accessory), but looking at the number of school working with fleets of them, from a sheer price/durability ratio they're probably doing well.

Our teenager had an iPad when he started secondary school aged 11 and it was still useable when her left five years later

The point is that it shouldn't have to be binary like this. Why can't there be less pointless parts changes and thus more parts availability?

The issue is they where marketed and sold for an environment where they don’t work.

The original laptop for kids in a school environment was the Intel Classmate and that was a serious piece of crap.

Then came the iPad, less said about that the better.

Chromebooks are many times better than this and have the added benefit of being cheap and, dare I say it, disposable.

Needing expensive parts or being forced to replace a Chromebook early means it’s no longer cheap.

US schools have spent over a billion dollars on Chromebook's, it’s a significant expenditure that isn’t lasting as long as expected.