Very-PC "Thinbooks" review?

[zag]

Has anyone got any of these yet?

 

We're coming up to a renewal of some laptop banks and looking at getting some of these but I'd like to see the reviews first.

 

[hallb15]

I've got a 14" Thinbook that I won in the Beat it or Eat it comp earlier this year! PM me if you want to know more.

[Norphy]

It looks very similar to a Stone laptop I've got sitting on my desk at the moment. The Stone is based on a Clevo W550EU chassis. It has a 1366x768 15" screen. It's a little thinner and lighter than the previous generation Stones that we have but still thick enough for an optical drive. The keyboard has the same layout but the keys have less travel. Still a reasonable keyboard though and it comes with a full 105 key layout. The laptop has a decent array of ports (USB 3x2, USB 2x2, VGA, HDMI, Ethernet, kensington lock slot). The trackpad is as rubbish as every other Synaptics trackpad I've ever seen on a Windows laptop which is very.

 

My laptop has an Sandy Bridge based i3 in there with 4GB RAM and a 2.5" HDD. It's pretty quiet as far as I can tell but this isn't exactly a quiet environment. It uses standard components and everything is easily accessible if you want to upgrade something (CPU, RAM, HDD, Wireless). I'm pretty sure there's the option for a 3G modem in there too, there's an extra PCI express slot and what looks like a SIM slot underneath one of the access panels on the bottom.

 

Battery life is OK, I haven't put a stopwatch against it but I think it'll get at least four hours. It comes with a 11.1v, 5600mAh, 62.16Wh battery. The power adapter is a bog standard 19v brick.

Edited December 16, 2013 by Norphy

[plexer]

We have half a dozen of them and out main college site bought loads of them but from Stone, Very-PC beat the Stone price for the same hardware spec.

 

I like them but we use them for staff not students, classy looking, nice chassis easy to deploy.

 

Ben

[plexer]

It looks very similar to a Stone laptop I've got sitting on my desk at the moment. The Stone is based on a Clevo W550EU chassis. It has a 1366x768 15" screen. It's a little thinner and lighter than the previous generation Stones that we have. The keyboard has the same layout but the keys have less travel.

 

It is based on the same chassis.

 

Ben.

[Norphy]

There you go then, what I have said above applies to the Very-PC model too

[Homeland]

We recently bought 30 of these to replace our aging trolley and spoke to the 2 Colins, both guys were extremely helpful and a pleasure to deal with.

 

The laptops exceeded our expectation as the build quality is excellent, we had them with no O\S (as we have an EES licence), 60GB SSD drives, 4GB Ram, i3 processor, 3 year next business day warranty. The performance of the thinbook is superb its on in no time at all and is very responsive when asked to perform tasks, I have actually been onto the phone to Colin McCarthy this morning inquiring about another 30 for Jan then intend to get another 30 for September.

 

I can't rate this company and there staff enough you get the feeling from them that they really care about there customers (unlike a lot of others) which is a major bonus, if I had any criticism at all it would be that when Frenchy comes to see you he doesn't bring enough sweets .

 

If you would like to chat about this please don't hesitate to call me.

[Millgate]

Excellent bits of kit. I've sold stacks to my schools & never had a complaint

[mb2k01]

...we had them with no O\S (as we have an EES licence)...

EES usually covers upgrade licensing. OEM licensing needs to be in place on hardware covered in the agreement?

 

In terms of the laptops, they look very promising. Does anyone mind putting a rough price here or PM'ing?

[Norphy]

we had them with no O\S (as we have an EES licence)

 

Even with an EES license, you still need to have an OS installed on the machine. The Windows license you get through EES is an upgrade license which means you need to have a qualifying OS of some description on the machine, whether it's an OEM version of Windows Vista Starter or a retail version of 7 Ultimate.

 

/edit hah, beaten to it