Nimon Posted October 15, 2015 Posted October 15, 2015 My school needs to buy some laptops to put into classrooms for pupils use where there isn't space for a PC at present. The main criteria are : Battery life - Whole school day on a single overnight charge (Not necessarily being used every lesson but possible somedays) Cost - As inexpensive as possible. We're not that wedded to size and frankly 'Good enough to do Office 2013 and Chrome' should do performance wise - 4 Gb RAM would be a plus. The device to beat is the Vostro 15 series at ~£380+vat Anyone got any ideas?
Oaktech Posted October 15, 2015 Posted October 15, 2015 Do they need to be new? http://www.ict-direct.co.uk/mobile-computing/laptops/hp/8470p.html 1
Nimon Posted October 15, 2015 Author Posted October 15, 2015 Do they need to be new? http://www.ict-direct.co.uk/mobile-computing/laptops/hp/8470p.html Ideally. But frankly if there is a decent warranty system in place then I'd argue the case for second hand.
LeMarchand Posted October 15, 2015 Posted October 15, 2015 (edited) Pretty sure ict-direct offer a warranty as standard and for surprisingly few extra quid will extend it. PMing you a price I recently got from someone. Edited October 15, 2015 by LeMarchand typo 2
Nimon Posted October 15, 2015 Author Posted October 15, 2015 Chromebooks ? Not at this stage. I think we're sticking with vanilla windows setups for now, although it's definitely a potential project for the future.
hardtailstar Posted October 15, 2015 Posted October 15, 2015 Toshiba Satellite Pro R50's have been good for us.
mikkydoos Posted October 15, 2015 Posted October 15, 2015 I just had a Lenovo E50-70 from Ebuyer.com. i3, 4gb Ram, 500Gb disk £208.00 ex vat Lenovo E50-70 Laptop Laptops at ebuyer Nice sturdy machine. IMO - £380 for a laptop these days is daylight robbery.
pcstru Posted October 15, 2015 Posted October 15, 2015 Battery life - Whole school day on a single overnight charge (Not necessarily being used every lesson but possible somedays) I'd be tempted to suggest refurb lenovo's but ... I don't know of any laptop which will do a full school day with a single overnight charge. One of our nightmares is that even when we make this plain to departments, they are then allocated out to teachers ignoring that at which point the teachers they are allocated to demand that we do something about it because they can't do their job properly!
mikkydoos Posted October 15, 2015 Posted October 15, 2015 I'd be tempted to suggest refurb lenovo's but ... I don't know of any laptop which will do a full school day with a single overnight charge. One of our nightmares is that even when we make this plain to departments, they are then allocated out to teachers ignoring that at which point the teachers they are allocated to demand that we do something about it because they can't do their job properly! That Lenovo isn't a refurb. Brand new.
VeryPC_Colin_M Posted October 15, 2015 Posted October 15, 2015 My school needs to buy some laptops to put into classrooms for pupils use where there isn't space for a PC at present. The main criteria are : Battery life - Whole school day on a single overnight charge (Not necessarily being used every lesson but possible somedays) Cost - As inexpensive as possible. We're not that wedded to size and frankly 'Good enough to do Office 2013 and Chrome' should do performance wise - 4 Gb RAM would be a plus. The device to beat is the Vostro 15 series at ~£380+vat Anyone got any ideas? Hi @Nimon Thanks for posting. I could get you a VeryPC Thinbook BayTrail Quad Core, 4GB, 120GB SSD, DVDRW, AC-7260 Wi-Fi +BT, Win 8.1 64 bit, 3 year Standard Warranty @ £299ea if you're interested. The benefits are that it's really power efficient with a 9 and a half hour battery life+/- and has a 15.6" screen. For a few quid more I could brand them with the school logo too. Feel free to PM or email me if this looks reasonable for your requirement :-) Cheers, Col
john Posted October 15, 2015 Posted October 15, 2015 Ideally. But frankly if there is a decent warranty system in place then I'd argue the case for second hand. Yup @ICTDirect_Dave has warrantys (VERY good ones!) 1
LeMarchand Posted October 15, 2015 Posted October 15, 2015 I could get you a VeryPC Thinbook BayTrail Quad Core, 4GB, 120GB SSD, DVDRW, AC-7260 Wi-Fi +BT, Win 8.1 64 bit, 3 year Standard Warranty @ £299ea if you're interested. The benefits are that it's really power efficient with a 9 and a half hour battery life+/- and has a 15.6" screen. For a few quid more I could brand them with the school logo too. Are those prices for everyone, or just "special people"? Didn't look at VPC for laptops recently because the prices on your site looked higher than the school was anticipating. They're considering Chromebooks today (who knows what it will be tomorrow), but for future reference...
ICTDirect_Dave Posted October 15, 2015 Posted October 15, 2015 I do indeed have most excellent warranties I can't promise you a full day's use but i can promise that we'll make sure you have the best batteries available, we can even fit new 9-Cell extended life batteries to the refurb units to give them as good a life as possible. I'd suggest you'd not need anything too powerful and that something like the Dell E6420 would be perfect. It has a 2 year warranty as standard and will come loaded with a new 120GB SSD for just £230! http://www.ict-direct.co.uk/mobile-computing/laptops/dell/dell-e6420-refurbished-core-i5-laptop.html
localzuk Posted October 15, 2015 Posted October 15, 2015 Are those prices for everyone, or just "special people"? Didn't look at VPC for laptops recently because the prices on your site looked higher than the school was anticipating. They're considering Chromebooks today (who knows what it will be tomorrow), but for future reference... Having bought laptops from Very recently, I can safely say - education pricing is a *lot* more competitive than their retail site. We got i5s with 256GB SSDs from them for £460 each recently, so for £380 I'm guessing they could do a very nice spec too! We have some of the baytrail versions here too. Our SEN dept like them a lot. So much better than the Netbooks they were using previously! 1
LeMarchand Posted October 15, 2015 Posted October 15, 2015 We have some of the baytrail versions here too. Our SEN dept like them a lot. So much better than the Netbooks they were using previously! Kids or teachers? Have just been told that one of my schools might want to replace their staff laptops (HP 635s) - sounds like a good spec, but not familiar with the processor.
localzuk Posted October 15, 2015 Posted October 15, 2015 Kids or teachers? Have just been told that one of my schools might want to replace their staff laptops (HP 635s) - sounds like a good spec, but not familiar with the processor. Kids. The TAs that are with them like them too - fast, reliable and decent size. We use the i5 versions with our teachers. Bought 9 so far for that. We compared them to the HP ProBook 650 G1 and found the build quality of the ThinBook to be as good or better than the HP. Things HP seem to have done recently is get rid of a proper HDD slot - there was a loose cable to connect the hard disk to instead. The hinges on the thinbook are superior to those on the 650 G1 also. 2
Oaktech Posted October 15, 2015 Posted October 15, 2015 I do indeed have most excellent warranties I can't promise you a full day's use but i can promise that we'll make sure you have the best batteries available, we can even fit new 9-Cell extended life batteries to the refurb units to give them as good a life as possible. I'd suggest you'd not need anything too powerful and that something like the Dell E6420 would be perfect. It has a 2 year warranty as standard and will come loaded with a new 120GB SSD for just £230! http://www.ict-direct.co.uk/mobile-computing/laptops/dell/dell-e6420-refurbished-core-i5-laptop.html I've done a few private jobs supplying these recently and they've been very well received. The standard battery gives around 4 hours continuous real use, and the extended battery is a shade under 8 hrs real use, so you should be OK with them. Plus, they're made of metal and don't require millions of screws to be undone to service them! 1
Nimon Posted October 15, 2015 Author Posted October 15, 2015 Some definite food for thought here. I stupidly forgot to put "Windows 7" on the criteria list as we're sticking with this for the time being until our servers catch up
LeMarchand Posted October 15, 2015 Posted October 15, 2015 Kids. The TAs that are with them like them too - fast, reliable and decent size. We use the i5 versions with our teachers. Bought 9 so far for that. We compared them to the HP ProBook 650 G1 and found the build quality of the ThinBook to be as good or better than the HP. Things HP seem to have done recently is get rid of a proper HDD slot - there was a loose cable to connect the hard disk to instead. The hinges on the thinbook are superior to those on the 650 G1 also. Cheers! Will bear that in mind when I have a chat with the head.
Nimon Posted October 15, 2015 Author Posted October 15, 2015 I do indeed have most excellent warranties I can't promise you a full day's use but i can promise that we'll make sure you have the best batteries available, we can even fit new 9-Cell extended life batteries to the refurb units to give them as good a life as possible. I'd suggest you'd not need anything too powerful and that something like the Dell E6420 would be perfect. It has a 2 year warranty as standard and will come loaded with a new 120GB SSD for just £230! http://www.ict-direct.co.uk/mobile-computing/laptops/dell/dell-e6420-refurbished-core-i5-laptop.html What's the additional cost for the 9 cell battery out of interest?
ICTDirect_Dave Posted October 15, 2015 Posted October 15, 2015 What's the additional cost for the 9 cell battery out of interest? It depends on how much they cost me, but as a rule they're £25-£30
TomHD Posted October 15, 2015 Posted October 15, 2015 I got some Lenovo B50-80 from Ebuyer recently for some new teachers, ~£270 each. Great bang for buck but they have flimsy keyboards that I'm sure wouldn't last long in classrooms. The laptops (Thinkpads/MBPs/etc) I know that could even come close to lasting a day will be quite pricey as they will typically be high end enterprise machines, Chromebooks will last the day but as you say...
dassa8772 Posted October 15, 2015 Posted October 15, 2015 Fujitsu LIFEBOOK A514 £310 each ex vat are very good as they have the following spec Intel Core i3-4005U 4GB RAM 128GB SSD DVD RW Windows 8.1 Pro (downgraded to 7 Pro)
simpsonj Posted October 15, 2015 Posted October 15, 2015 Lenovo Refurb laptop - Core-i5 For £110 each, with a SSD drive (around 30-40 depending on size required), which you'd have to buy and install separately, they absolutely fly... May also be worth investigating the wireless of whatever laptop you buy, nothing worse than fast laptops that have a slow/unreliable wireless connection!
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