Lenovo Desktop PCs

[colly72]

Hi all,

 

We are looking to refresh some of our ancient classroom PCs with new models. We've always bought Dell/HP before but I've noticed that Lenovo seem to have some good deals at the moment. Does anyone have any experience of their SFF models, particularly their reliability and build quality, compared to HP/Dell SFF models?

 

Thanks in advance.

 

Michael

[NB9457]

No major complaints, we had some AIO units and they were decent, my only gripe was some of the drivers were a PITA to either find or deploy.

[Accura2k7]

We have the USFF Lenovo M910q (i3/4gb/500gb) machines running our Clevertouch TV's, you can get DVDRW's as an optional addon, mounts, customs builds to include additional ports you want. Not a back machine and quite tidy. No hardware issues yet.

[sted]

No major complaints, we had some AIO units and they were decent, my only gripe was some of the drivers were a PITA to either find or deploy.

 

they actually usually do a decent job of drivers try searching for sccm drive packs (they also work in mdt) and more often than not i can get all the drivers in 1 download and just dump into mdt

[flyinghaggis]

They're OK but personally I've found Dell has better management utilities for configuring things like BIOS settings. Plus the warranty services are better with Dell. There's nothing wrong with the Lenovo's though and the build quality/reliability has been similar.

 

Though having said that we used to always buy Dells, switched to Lenovo's for a couple of years and are now back using Dell's. So I guess the Lenovo's couldn't have impressed us that much!

[NB9457]

Just to chuck in too, refurb PCs are excellent value for money, we bought some not long ago, although our budget is very tight.

 

Also maybe worth a look at the HP cashback offers/deals, sometimes they have belting deals.

 

If you want to stick with Dell or HP, you'd be amazed what suppliers can do if you tell them what you want to spend/find elsewhere, just depends if you want to play the phone around game to get the same spec but different manufacturer.

[HTCPCP]

Never had any issues with Lenovo kit really. All depends what you compare to.

Optiplex, ProDesk and ThinkCentres are all interchangeable really if you go for the same levels, and similarly, the warranties are all much of a likeness. Similarly, your ThinkPad, ProBooks and Latitude are all interchangeable too.

 

Warranty wise, from experience I have found:

Lenovo - Very willing to either send and engineer or parts if you are willing to change them yourself. Most of the time call centre staff seem to be happy to help, and willing to accept hardware failures

Dell - Once you get past the Dell Support call, it's fine, but time consuming, and seems to always be a challenge rather than something simple. They want you to check absolutely everything, even if you have already diagnosed the fault e.g. faulty Hard drive, power button etc. Be prepared for them to initially reject the repair and asking to speak to their manager etc

HP - very hit and miss, all depends on who you speak to. I've had them send out an engineer/part having explained the problem, to having a dell approach of wanting me to check the power lead is fine when the hard drive has failed. More positives than negatives with them though.

 

All manufacturers have some deals on at the moment - flash sale at Dell at the moment too according to my account manager.

[FN-GM]

We have recently removed the last Lenovo machines from service. The technical support is really poor. We had issues with ThinkPad laptops, the the plastic mounts the hinge connects to broke. We had a loads do this and our account manager told us it was a known problem. However when we tried to get it fixed we had to argue with technical support.

 

We pay extra to purchase from other vendors.

[Arthur]

They're OK but personally I've found Dell has better management utilities for configuring things like BIOS settings. Plus the warranty services are better with Dell.

That has been my experience too.

 

Dell - Once you get past the Dell Support call, it's fine, but time consuming, and seems to always be a challenge rather than something simple. They want you to check absolutely everything, even if you have already diagnosed the fault e.g. faulty Hard drive, power button etc.

Try logging tickets through Dell's Twitter account (@DellCaresPRO). I've found it to be a massive time saver and less annoying than calling them.

[PotNoodleTech]

Go for refurbished units - in my humble opinion, buying new PCs is a total waste of money, a bit like buying a band new car is a total waste of money!

 

Utilise the fact that large businesses are very silly billys and spend £billions on brand new good spec PCs only to replace them after 2-3 years - piggy back onto their idiocy and get your school a bargain.

 

You can get lovely "preloved" Core i5 / 8GB Ram / 128GB SSD flying machines for the price of a poverty spec new Lenovo.

 

Personally I stick to dell as I've only had a handful of faliures out of thousands of units.

[NB9457]

Go for refurbished units - in my humble opinion, buying new PCs is a total waste of money, a bit like buying a band new car is a total waste of money!

 

Utilise the fact that large businesses are very silly billys and spend £billions on brand new good spec PCs only to replace them after 2-3 years - piggy back onto their idiocy and get your school a bargain.

 

You can get lovely "preloved" Core i5 / 8GB Ram / 128GB SSD flying machines for the price of a poverty spec new Lenovo.

 

Personally I stick to dell as I've only had a handful of faliures out of thousands of units.

 

Whilst I agree with most of what's been said, some of the low end Pentiums of the current gen out perform 4000 series and below i3 CPUs and consume less power and dissipate less heat, so something to bear in mind looking at the refurb market/budget new