In our hands-on comparison of SMART Boards and ViewSonic ViewBoard displays across seven categories that matter most to educators, SMART came out ahead in all seven: student device integration, inking with existing lesson files, multi-user collaboration, whiteboarding, the Android app experience, included software, and longevity. SMART invented the interactive whiteboard in 1991, and that education-first heritage shows in how naturally its displays behave in a real lesson. ViewSonic builds capable hardware with a broad software suite, but the day-to-day teaching experience is where the two part ways, and so is what you end up paying for it. Here is what our team found when we put both to work.
Interactive displays have become essential in classrooms, where technology meets teaching to foster engaging, dynamic learning environments. Selecting the right one is more than a tech purchase; it is an investment in your teachers' and students' ability to thrive. The ideal display should empower teachers to use technology in their teaching, reducing friction and adding value to every lesson. Our team compared SMART Boards against ViewSonic ViewBoard displays hands-on, and this comparison focuses on functionality included at no extra cost, so your investment maximizes educational impact without hidden fees. We evaluated seven things educators rely on every day:
- Student device integration
- Inking and existing lesson files
- Collaboration and multi-user capabilities
- Whiteboard capabilities
- Android app functionality
- Included software vs subscription tiers
- Longevity and staying current
A note on models: our hands-on testing compared the SMART Board MX series with iQ and the SMART Board GX series against the ViewSonic ViewBoard IFP6552. The software experiences described below carry into both companies' current lineups, including the SMART Board RX series and ViewSonic's EDLA-certified IFP52-2ED and IFP51 series, and we have updated product details throughout to reflect what each company offers today.
1. How does each display integrate with student devices?
SMART integrates student devices without extra software, accounts, or subscriptions, and that difference shows up in the first minute of a lesson. Technology should make it simple for teachers and students to share content across devices. Both companies offer comparable basic screen sharing, so we looked one step further: sharing the whiteboard itself, contributing content, and genuine student collaboration.
With SMART displays powered by iQ, students view the board's content on their own devices and interact with the material, with no additional steps, software, or subscription. The iQ whiteboard app broadcasts the live lesson to unlimited student devices, which join by QR code or web code with no student account required, and students contribute through whole-class whiteboards or individual activities. No accounts also means less student data for a district to manage.
ViewSonic's approach splits these capabilities across its software suite. AirSync handles wireless casting and mirroring, but casting shows students the board rather than making them participants on it. Real-time student collaboration runs through myViewBoard's companion tools and ClassSwift, and the depth of what students can do depends on which myViewBoard tier a school is on. In our testing, the experience that came closest to SMART's out-of-box functionality required a paid subscription. For teachers managing a busy classroom, asking students to sign in to an app just to contribute becomes a time-consuming barrier, and valuable class time is lost to technical hiccups that disrupt the flow of teaching.
Point: SMART ✓
2. Can teachers annotate existing lesson files without interrupting the lesson?
SMART lets teachers annotate over existing files and keep working, while ViewSonic's ink layer has to be turned off to interact with what is underneath. PDFs, PowerPoint, Google Slides: teachers use a plethora of learning assets and web pages, and the ability to mark them up is central to any interactive display. Both companies offer annotation, but the experience diverges sharply.
All SMART Boards include SMART Ink, which integrates with Windows and Mac computers and keeps annotations in place in any program as teachers navigate between tabs and files. Where a program has native inking, such as PowerPoint or many PDF readers, SMART Ink can switch to those tools automatically so markup is saved in the file. SMART Ink is the ONLY desktop annotation software supporting simultaneous inking over multiple files and programs, without clunky menus or overlays. Teachers keep their lesson flow without interruption.
ViewSonic displays offer Android-based ink tools accessible from a pop-up menu. These create an ink acetate layer that blocks interaction with the screen, so any time the teacher needs to scroll a web page or pause a video, the tools must be turned off, deleting in-progress annotations. Screenshots save to the Android side rather than the connected PC, which adds steps to locating and sharing notes after class. ViewSonic will use an application's native ink tools, though teachers have to remember to activate the application's drawing mode instead of the Android tool. SMART leads here because SMART Ink works automatically and does not interfere with interaction: write, move, and erase switch on their own, so teachers never have to think about a toolbar.
Point: SMART ✓
3. Can students work together on the display at the same time?
SMART is the ONLY interactive display provider that allows multiple people to write, erase, and interact at the same time without interfering with one another. Educators expect touch and inking that mirrors the intuitive experience of a personal tablet, but unlike a tablet, a classroom display has to handle several users working simultaneously, and many displays fall short the moment two or more students interact in different ways.
SMART Boards recognise individual actions continuously, whether a user is writing, erasing, or moving content, so students work independently on different tasks without interference. Depending on the series, SMART Boards support up to 50 simultaneous points of touch, with the RX series supporting up to 40, and every one of those touch points is backed by per-user pen, touch, and eraser differentiation. That is the distinction that matters: touch count tells you how many contacts a display registers, while tool differentiation determines whether people can actually work together.
The ViewSonic ViewBoard does allow multiple users to interact at once, but it breaks down when students start doing different things. If everyone is doing the same thing at the same time, inking for example, the ViewBoard handles it, but that is rarely how a classroom works. The biggest impact we found was that erasing took over from everything else, blocking writing and movement, which drew attention to mistakes in a big way. That lack of flexibility slows the lesson down as students become distracted from learning tasks by taking turns with the technology.
Point: SMART ✓
4. Which whiteboard makes lessons more engaging out of the box?
SMART's iQ whiteboard includes ready-made interactive content, so teachers build engagement in seconds rather than importing or recreating resources. The digital whiteboard is the heart of any classroom technology solution, and SMART pioneered it. SMART's whiteboarding suite, available on both iQ and non-iQ displays, includes a rich variety of manipulatives, interactive activities, and ready-made content teachers can pull into a lesson on the fly, plus integrated image search and ad-free video search. Teachers can save, share, and broadcast whiteboard content, including embedded video, directly to student devices.
ViewSonic displays offer some media integration, with built-in image search and a YouTube tool that plays a video over the whiteboard temporarily rather than embedding it in the lesson, and they lack the built-in interactive manipulatives that let SMART boost interactivity in any subject. Ready-made lesson content is available through ViewSonic Originals and ClassSwift, though the collaborative activities depend on subscription tier. Teachers using ViewSonic may find themselves spending extra time importing or recreating similar resources manually, time that SMART Board users spend personalizing learning and engaging students instead.
Point: SMART ✓
5. Aren't all Android interactive displays the same?
No. Both SMART and ViewSonic now ship Google EDLA-certified displays with native access to Google Play and Microsoft 365 apps, so app availability is table stakes. What differs is how the display behaves while you teach with those apps. On SMART's Android-based iQ operating system, the inking tools let users write and interact with apps at the same time, and the ink turns on automatically when you start writing rather than requiring a tool or ink layer to be enabled each time you change programs.
Teachers using ViewSonic displays face more friction with annotation inside Android apps. In a fractions lesson using the PhET app, for example, the teacher must constantly toggle ink on and off to interact with the app, which disrupts the flow and consumes classroom time in selecting and deselecting the tool for simple interactions. And even when a screenshot is captured, the ink on the image cannot be edited, limiting what the class can do with the content afterwards. Classrooms are dynamic, and displays need to keep up with smooth transitions and consistent annotation.
Point: SMART ✓
6. What is included with each display, and what needs a subscription?
SMART includes its core teaching software with the display, with no add-on subscriptions for any of the classroom features compared in this article. SMART Notebook, Lumio free version, SMART Mirror, and the iQ whiteboard and apps all come with a SMART Board purchase, so every teacher in the building has the complete teaching experience on day one.
ViewSonic includes myViewBoard with every ViewBoard, alongside AirSync casting and the Manager device management platform, which is a broad software suite. The consideration for schools is tiering: myViewBoard offers subscription tiers above the included level, and several of the capabilities compared in the sections above, particularly real-time student collaboration and some ready-made lesson content, sit in those higher tiers rather than in the base experience. That is not a criticism of the software, which is capable, but it does change how a district should model cost. When you compare any two displays, count what every teacher will actually need across the life of the display, not just what ships in the box, and get the answer in writing.
Point: SMART ✓
7. Which interactive display stays current longer?
A display is a long-term investment, and this is where SMART's commitment is hardest to match. SMART Board interactive displays use LED panels rated for 50,000 hours, which works out to roughly 30 years of typical classroom use. SMART commits to at least five years of automatic over-the-air software updates from a display's launch, well beyond the three year minimum that is standard for Android-based systems, and was first to market with a purpose-built Android 15 upgrade delivered over the air. SMART has also publicly committed to bringing Android 17 and even Android 19 to its current iQ 4 displays. For up to ten years after release, appliance-based upgrades such as the AM60 computing module refresh a display's computing without replacing the screen, reaching SMART displays sold as far back as 2015. The full commitment is set out in SMART's longevity program.
ViewSonic offers its own flexibility here, notably through slot-in PC modules such as the EDLA-certified VPC-A31-O1, which can bring EDLA capability to compatible existing displays. Ask any vendor two questions in writing before you buy: how many years of software updates are committed, and what is the upgrade path for the displays we bought five years ago.
Point: SMART ✓
The verdict: which is the best smart board for the classroom?
SMART takes all seven categories. Both SMART Boards and ViewSonic displays offer valuable classroom tools, but the differences in user experience, ease of use, and total value are significant. Teachers using ViewSonic spend more time toggling ink layers, coordinating turns at the board, and working around tier boundaries, while SMART Boards provide a streamlined platform designed specifically for education, with software included and an upgrade path that extends a display's life for up to a decade. Educators deserve tools that are as intuitive and powerful as the lessons they bring to life every day, and choosing SMART means choosing technology purpose-built for education.
Book a demo and let us show you how SMART comes out on top.