by , 1:55 PM EDT, June 17th, 2005

Henrico County, which recently decided to switch its high school students and teachers to Dell laptops rather than renew its contract with Apple, has said that departing seniors will get first dibs on the iBooks that were in use for the past four years. As reported by Olympia Meola of the Richmond Times-Dispatch, the county is planning to purchase approximately 22,000 iBooks for US$1 each at the end of the lease this summer, rather than return them to Apple. Once the county has taken care of its middle school students, who are still under a separate contract to use Apple laptops, it will offer the machines to this year's seniors for $50 each.

"I hope they found them to be good pieces of equipment, and they are going to get some good use out of them going forward," Dave Myers, assistant superintendent for finance, told Ms. Meola.

After the seniors have had their chance to buy them, any iBooks left over will go on sale to the general public sometime this summer. According to Ms. Meola's article, almost a third of the graduating class at one high school was interested in purchasing the computers.