PCWorld, laptops, SSDs - outbreak of stupid

[mats]

So, I'm seeing what pcworld have by way of reasonable laptops - no atoms, no dubious bottom of the pile stuff. i3's with 4Gb ram start under £350. I have converted a couple of machines to SSDs and the increase in performance is incredible so I want one in a laptop.

 

Why, then, is the first i-series with a SSD an i7 asus with a 256Gb ssd at just under £1000? I suspect it's because people compare the 128Gb ssd machine with the cheaper 500Gb disc machine and buy the spinning media. A cheap laptop would be vastly improved by an ssd - is the lack of awareness of this hampering the machines available to the great British public?

[ICTDirect_Dave]

We'll put an SSD in any of our laptops for you as we know this is the easiest way to bump performance. But then we're not PC World...

[localzuk]

Its the manufacturers - they are still pushing the HDD in most cases. Trying to get a HP with an SSD in, which doesn't cost £1000+ is near enough impossible. I tried, and availability was so low it took months, and then I gave up, cancelled the order and bought the HDD equivalent and put my own SSDs in instead!

[3s-gtech]

The difficulty level in imaging across the OS from HDD to SSD, for people that have the technical knowledge to swap the physical discs over, is low. You'd end up paying a huge premium to buy the SSD with the laptop, so it works out cheaper still to buy the included HDD then the SSD afterwards.

[mats]

ICTDirect_Dave - thanks, do you sell individual machines to joe public?

 

As suggested, I'm considering buying a machine, shoving the magnetic drive in a usb caddy as a backup device and sticking a ssd in the laptop. It's not a great option when a teacher asks for laptop recommendations though - I want to say ssd but can't when it's £1000 or DIY. And I'm not D'ing it for them.

 

Now, how to avoid the Microsoft tax?

[ICTDirect_Dave]

We'll sell to anybody. Got some great Lenovo T410s and Dell E6410s that'd we'd be happy to pop an SSD in. Got some OCZ Vertex 100GB drives for around £45

[sonofsanta]

I'd heard (though I have no reference for you now) that the major OEMs were still locked into contracts with the HDD manufacturers and committed to ordering certain volumes of HDDs, so if you want a laptop with an SSD you effectively have to pay for the HDD and the SSD - if you customise a laptop on (say) Dell, swapping the HDD for an SSD more or less adds the cost of the SSD on to the price, even though a 500GB HDD and 128GB SSD are not massively different in price now.

 

Also because market segmentation. Why don't PC World towers come with decent graphics cards until you buy an i7 tower when that's complete overkill for 98% of games? Same reason as cheap laptops don't come with SSDs.

[pete]

Its the manufacturers - they are still pushing the HDD in most cases. Trying to get a HP with an SSD in, which doesn't cost £1000+ is near enough impossible. I tried, and availability was so low it took months, and then I gave up, cancelled the order and bought the HDD equivalent and put my own SSDs in instead!

 

Same here. Marketing idiots at major manufacturers still believe an SSD implies a "premium" device, ignoring the influence of the Thailand floods.

 

Or it could be that's the only way they can conceal their markup on the component.

[AngryTechnician]

If you customise a laptop on (say) Dell, swapping the HDD for an SSD more or less adds the cost of the SSD on to the price.

When I bought Dell desktops in the summer, I configured for the cheapest HD I could and bought SSD's separately, which worked out about £30 cheaper per unit than getting Dell to swap the HD for an SSD.

 

Amusingly the machines have a separate space on the drive bracket for 2.5" drives, so I didn't even need to physically remove the 3.5" drive. I now have 25 desktops around the school that have a 250GB HD in them disconnected and doing nothing, because I couldn't be bothered to take them out.