Refurbishing ICT suite - recommendations please!

[sjb]

I have been given a limited budget (£12k ish) to replace 31 PCs and monitors in our ICT suite over the summer. We are looking for a minimum spec of i3 processors and 4GB RAM, with Win 7 pro or Win 8 pro and small form factor as space is limited. We don't need optical drives. So far Dell are coming out cheapest, but I would be grateful for any recommendations of other companies to try please.

 

Thank you

 

Sue

[shadowx]

Eww dell?

 

Tried Zoostorm? We recently got our staff whiteboard machines from them, cant remember the spec but I know that at the time (last year) they were mid-top spec for office machines and only £250 each without screens. Worth giving em a go, no complaints so far!

[tomgrindle]

Hi @sjb

 

I have just completed an order for the same as your requirements for about the £13k mark.

 

Consisted of the Ergo Flex Mini PC and some 19" ViewSonic Hard Glass monitors.

 

Cheers

Tom

[ICTDirect_Dave]

Hi sue,

 

I'm trying to work something out for you now. I'll PM you later today or first thing in the morning

[mrbios]

These are brilliant:

The Novatech Pro NAI04

 

You can happily change the spec (as we've done) to suit your price and needs. Novatech will build them to spec for you, you could even buy one and export the bios with a particular setup and they'll put that on them all for you too. We're only using them for office PCs but i think i would quite happily use those in classrooms too.

 

USB, headphone and microphone jacks can either be on the side (the silver part) or the front (under the monitor, face on to the user) highly recommend them though

 

EDIT: if you're interested send me a PM and i'll forward you the email of our account manager.

 

I've been speccing these with i3, 4gb ram, H77 boards and 22" monitors, should think you could do that for just about £12k, maybe slightly over.

Edited July 1, 2013 by mrbios

[Guest Guest]

Do you have access to a dell premier account? Ask your lea. £12k should cover your specs with 4-5years warrenty.

[Gibson335]

Have you tried Stone? Should have no problem bringing the machines you want for that price with them.

[teejay]

We've just bought a load of Dell, they do seem to be the supplier with very sharp pencils at the moment, got a cracking deal for a load of 3011 all in ones. Speak directly with your edu account manager, don't bother with the Premiere pages and liberally drop in the following at random points in the conversation - HP, Lenovo. If you do that you'll get prices well below the edu best prices on the Premiere page.

[glennda]

We've just bought a load of Dell, they do seem to be the supplier with very sharp pencils at the moment, got a cracking deal for a load of 3011 all in ones. Speak directly with your edu account manager, don't bother with the Premiere pages and liberally drop in the following at random points in the conversation - HP, Lenovo. If you do that you'll get prices well below the edu best prices on the Premiere page.

 

That's because they are massively loosing market share - I have heard of them doing some very crafty things when coming up against rivals. Personally I love the lenovo kit but its not the cheapest.

[synaesthesia]

We've been looking to replace one of our suites with a very similar spec. @VeryPC managed to get us a great quote, it'll be worth speaking to those guys.

 

Also rather importantly, 3y warranty too.

Edited July 1, 2013 by synaesthesia

[teejay]

. That's because they are massively loosing market share - I have heard of them doing some very crafty things when coming up against rivals. Personally I love the lenovo kit but its not the cheapest.

I like the Lenovo kit as well, bit ugly but it's pretty solid, no idea what their support is like as I've never had to use it in the 2 years since we bought some Lenovo kit. Happy with Dell stuff as well, only ones I really dislike and have to be substantially cheaper than the rest to consider is HP, their support is shocking. Very PC stuff looks very interesting and came a very close second to Dell when we were making the decision on what to go for.

[glennda]

I like the Lenovo kit as well, bit ugly but it's pretty solid, no idea what their support is like as I've never had to use it in the 2 years since we bought some Lenovo kit. Happy with Dell stuff as well, only ones I really dislike and have to be substantially cheaper than the rest to consider is HP, their support is shocking. Very PC stuff looks very interesting and came a very close second to Dell when we were making the decision on what to go for.

 

Support is actually from IBM in the UK. I have to say HP support depends on what range you go with, consume kit is awful support enterprise is brilliant

[teejay]

HP Procurve support was excellent but has rapidly gone downhill over the years. For their PC's including their business kit it's rubbish, I have yet to actually contact HP support without them claiming the product is out of warranty when we've bought an extended warranty with it and yes we have registered the warranty with HP and had an email confirming it. Their response times are rubbish, they deliberately send engineers out with either no spare part or the wrong spare part and then you have to wait days for the correct part. I also have a server which they claim has no fault, but is so noisy you literally have to wear ear defenders when you go in the server room. So no, for us HP support is rubbish, but ymmv.

[Sylv3r]

As someone mentioned above - I am seriously considering buying 100 of the Zoostorm PC's basically the same spec to that you mentioned for around the £250 mark. Cheapish 19" TFT monitors (non glass) will be around the £60 mark. So you should be well within budget.

[mrbios]

What are people paying for 19" screens these days? Stopped buying them long ago in favour of 22" widescreens here because the prices weren't worth it.

[sjb]

Thank you - lots of useful suggestions to follow up.

[Bigs1312]

Misco are running a cashback offer on HP's with that spec and 5yr onsite warranty. I use Stone for my suites but bought 18 of these for Technology. Impressed with them and the Business Manager was impressed with the price!!

[robjduk]

maybe late to the party but Stone all the way here. I like the look of Dell stuff but really have a problem getting a hold of decent quotes. My Dell education guy just puts me onto a reseller I don't really like. Anyway chat to stone.

[nit]

Stone's and Viglen can do really good offers if you work them off each other

[FishCustard]

Have a word with Chris at @CPLTD - got us a great deal on some i5 PCs, the i3 pricing will be even better if that's what you're definitely going for.

[synaesthesia]

If you can get hold of them - haven't had a reply to any of our last 5 quote requests...

[robjduk]

one word of caution is to check what i3 each vendor offers. I found stone offer the most upto date version and Viglen were pushing older ones to make the quotes look good but sure there are many happy viglen customers out there.

[hardtailstar]

another vote for stone here, have you thought about using laptops? we use laptops and just take out the battery, had some Dell vostros in for about 3 years. still good for another few years.

[VeryPC_Colin_M]

Have a word with Chris at @CPLTD - got us a great deal on some i5 PCs, the i3 pricing will be even better if that's what you're definitely going for.

 

Well done Chris!

[seawolf]

If you're a Google Apps school then Chromebox might be an option. Depends on what the requirements are for the classes using the ICT suite though.