Which Teacher Laptop?

[BatchFile]

These two are pretty well even on specs (apart from HDD size which is, in this case, largely irrelevant), so I'm interested in experiences. I haven't bought Lenovos for a while (for no other reason than they didn't fit the price / spec fit at the time as well as the ones I bought), and I've never bought Fujitsu laptops. Lenovo used to be built like a brick outhouse - is that still the case?

 

The shortlist is:

 

Lenovo B580 (Lenovo B580 Core i3-2328 4GB 500GB DVD-Writer 15.6" Widescreen 1366x768 Windows 8 64-Bit (M94A9UK) - dabs.com)

 

or

 

Fujitsu AH512 (Fujitsu FUJITSU LIFEBOOK 15.6" Intel i3 2328M 4GB 320GB Win8 64bi (VFY:AH512M33A2GB) - dabs.com)

 

Any comments please

(Both CAN and WILL be downgraded to Win 7!)

[witch]

Lenovos are still built like brick outhouses, but the Fujitsus are really robust as welll these days. Forget what they used to be like, and don't listen to anyone who says they are rubbish if they are talking about the old Fujitsu Siemens days.

 

One of my suppliers told me how good they are so I made a special point of going to see them at BETT and I was very impressed with the build quality. The prices are quite good as well. We are about to buy 6 staff laptops and if I have my way, they will be the Fujitsus

[glennda]

I love the Lenovo kit - really really good. I have an E420s for work and its awesome.

[TheScarfedOne]

Lenovo build quality has always been good, and they should last pretty well. Not the same, but got a suite of their PCs and not a single warranty call yet. Heard better things of the Fujis recently. How about getting an evil of each and road test them with users before you buy. I do that with PCs and laptops.

[ConradJones]

heard really good things about lenovo.

 

got a nice toshiba personally, but that was more about finding one with a real serial port ( for configuring switches etc ) than anything else, but still very nice.

[DaveMurphy]

HP ProBooks are really robust also; we have a number of these.

[Homeland]

My only thought would be to look at an i5 or higher not an i3 we don't give the kids an i3.

[ConradJones]

speed improvements especially for most teachers usage is going to be gained from an ssd rather that an higher spec processor as the bottleneck nowadays tends to be disk IO. + the hefty the processor the hotter its going to run.

[TheScarfedOne]

speed improvements especially for most teachers usage is going to be gained from an ssd rather that an higher spec processor as the bottleneck nowadays tends to be disk IO. + the hefty the processor the hotter its going to run.

 

And the more battery juice it will munch...

[SovietRussia]

These two are pretty well even on specs (apart from HDD size which is, in this case, largely irrelevant), so I'm interested in experiences. I haven't bought Lenovos for a while (for no other reason than they didn't fit the price / spec fit at the time as well as the ones I bought), and I've never bought Fujitsu laptops. Lenovo used to be built like a brick outhouse - is that still the case?

 

The shortlist is:

 

Lenovo B580 (Lenovo B580 Core i3-2328 4GB 500GB DVD-Writer 15.6" Widescreen 1366x768 Windows 8 64-Bit (M94A9UK) - dabs.com)

 

or

 

Fujitsu AH512 (Fujitsu FUJITSU LIFEBOOK 15.6" Intel i3 2328M 4GB 320GB Win8 64bi (VFY:AH512M33A2GB) - dabs.com)

 

Any comments please

(Both CAN and WILL be downgraded to Win 7!)

 

We deployed around 20 B580s and they are nice machines, but we have just bought an extra 30 B590s, they have Ivybridge instead of Sandybridge.

[Ashm]

One thing you may want to consider is getting laptops with TPM in case you wanted the option of using Bitlocker for full disk encryption.

[TheScarfedOne]

One thing you may want to consider is getting laptops with TPM in case you wanted the option of using Bitlocker for full disk encryption.

 

Seconded...all mine do, but the are from @StoneComputers

[Meldrew]

Seconded...all mine do, but the are from @StoneComputers

 

I won't buy anything for teachers that doesn't have a TPM and the cheapest place we've found is indeed Stone.

 

Meldrew

 

Edit: terrible grammar slipped through - hopefully all gone now!

[ICTDirect_Dave]

The Lenovos are lovely machines. Very robust.

 

We're just selling the i5 powered T410 Business laptops for sub £300.

 

I'd choose a Lenovo over Fujitsu even now despite the increase in Fujitsu quality, Lenovo have been doing it for much longer.