Looking for Laptops/Netbooks

[casey]

I work in a primary school and my head teacher has asked me to look into the pricing of a set of 30 laptops for pupil use.

I'm looking at 13.3" or 14" with an all day (4-5 hours in school) battery life and ssd hard drive.

Not sure about processor, I assume that Celeron and the latest Atoms will be OK especially when paired with ssd's.

 

I've never bought this much hardware in one go, I have just bought a few teacher laptops from the likes of Dabs or Insight but it seems a lot of people here go for more specialised suppliers.

Anyone out there got any suggestions for makes/models or suppliers?

 

Thanks

 

Casey

[synaesthesia]

Just had a batch of 11 VeryPC Thinbooks in. Excellent quality, great value, look more expensive than they were. Solid enough, lovely keyboard & trackpad.

[mikkydoos]

Atoms are too weak for us. i3's minimum from now on.

[Snuffkins]

We use a number of different suppliers. Mostly though we have used Stone Computers and they've always been fine for us. Our last equipment though we had from VeryPC. Very good service, equipment seems excellent and they are very good value.

[Edu-IT]

Stone and Very-PC would both be my recommendations if you're looking for something more custom.

[VeryPC_Colin_M]

I work in a primary school and my head teacher has asked me to look into the pricing of a set of 30 laptops for pupil use.

I'm looking at 13.3" or 14" with an all day (4-5 hours in school) battery life and ssd hard drive.

Not sure about processor, I assume that Celeron and the latest Atoms will be OK especially when paired with ssd's.

 

I've never bought this much hardware in one go, I have just bought a few teacher laptops from the likes of Dabs or Insight but it seems a lot of people here go for more specialised suppliers.

Anyone out there got any suggestions for makes/models or suppliers?

 

Thanks

 

Casey

 

Hi there Casey,

Thanks for posting. In line with some of the recommendations here, I'd be more than happy to help you with your laptop requirement and think the Thinbook BayTrail-M Quad Core 15.6" would be appropriate; the battery life is lasting 7-9 hours and the additional inch or so of screen size is a bonus for your users, plus you can spec in the RAM, SSD, O/S and Wireless yourself. Feel free to get in touch and I'll be delighted to work on some specs with you. My email is in the signature line.

Best,

Col

[thepridster]

Depends on what you want budget wise the Ebuyer HP 255 G3 is very cheap and does a decent job £200 inc VAT if your dead set on SSD then you have to buy those separately

[Dkeen94]

Speak to @Stone_Charli im sure she can point you in the right direction! Have been Stone for the past few months now and the quality is excellent! The NT310-H and the N130's are fantastic

[kidpressingbuttons]

We recently bought quite a few laptops from Dean Computers who sell Dell refurb units- and they have been fantastic!

Came in at a great price and customer service is great to.

[AlexBradley]

As someone who's been left to deal with a lovely set of 60 netbooks, i would strongly suggest staying well away. Price is cheaper for a reason, getting them on the network kills any functionality they had when off the network.

 

Stick with laptops and I would recommend i3 minimum. Plan IT and Misco have always been pretty good suppliers for us.

[synaesthesia]

It's for this exact reason we went for VeryPC's 14" lightbooks - full fat windows, SSDs, pentium G series processors (hardly any slower than i3s) and came in at well under £300 a shot (won't specify exact prices in case Very hunt me down and staple me to the wall by my short and danglies). They're very nippy indeed, and the size just between netbook and laptop makes them perfectly proportioned.

[AlexBradley]

It's for this exact reason we went for VeryPC's 14" lightbooks - full fat windows, SSDs, pentium G series processors (hardly any slower than i3s) and came in at well under £300 a shot (won't specify exact prices in case Very hunt me down and staple me to the wall by my short and danglies). They're very nippy indeed, and the size just between netbook and laptop makes them perfectly proportioned.

 

If that's the case I think we'll look at some of them to replace our Notbooks, sound like a good deal. How are they with the kids though? Speed on network, accessing files, general tasks a domain connected machine needs to do well?

[synaesthesia]

Speed is spot on, they're fully domain connected like any other machine, SSD obviously makes boot time negligible & also helps with battery life. Time will tell with the students as we've not long had them in, but I can't see them being a problem, they feel very sturdy.

[casey]

Thanks to all for replying,

looks like I'll be contacting VeryPC Col and maybe StoneCharli soon.

[pooley]

Just bought 30 laptops from Very PC, very happy with the spec and the price. We wen't for i5 with 8gb ram and ssd - a bit of future proofing I hope ...

[VeryPC_Colin_M]

Just bought 30 laptops from Very PC, very happy with the spec and the price. We wen't for i5 with 8gb ram and ssd - a bit of future proofing I hope ...

 

Yes @pooley! And we've got one of your laptop skins in the wall of fame in the boardroom, looks ace!

[rickjames]

+1 for the Thinbooks as well, got 20 of them for our Art Department in February and we haven't had any complaints whatsoever. Also the skins for them are pretty decent.

[gsk]

What's the budget and do you need to get a trolley too?

[Stone_Charli]

Hi @casey,

 

Happy to help if you're still looking for prices on this - feel free to send me a PM Our NT310-H and N130s are both fully customisable and are available with AC wireless. You might want to go for the NT310-H with the 15.6" display if you were looking for a larger screen and an i3.

 

Thanks,

 

Charli