Stone AIO PCs

[stumot]

Afternoon all,

 

Just wanted to ask if anyone on here has any hands on experience with recent Stone AIO pcs, as we are thinking of purchasing some over HP due to the processor spec being better value for money, however I am concerned that the build quality might pale in comparison to HP Aios, if anyone has some of these types of machine please can you let me know if they are of decent build and if they are good value for money, as parts wise they seem that way but we haven't purchased from stone in a while and don't want to go down in terms of build quality

 

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated

[yac2016]

Would stick to HP AIO if I was you.

[stumot]

Thanks for letting me know, is this just due to build quality issues?

[Ironside]

So my experience with stone is limited to small PCs and Laptops but I actually take a more generally positive view of Stone, their laptops aren't bad and look nice. With the massive exception of the one model of laptops with the godawful hinge that would break entirely if you so much as sneezed in their direction, I've not had that many bad build quality issues with Stone.

[Linfit]

Our experience is not recent but the AIO's we had from them several years ago are very good in terms of build quality and are still in regular use - or will be until July.

Another school in our trust has more recent models and again has not had any issues - I have seen these and they seem to still be using the same basic chassis for their AIO builds, so would be quite happy to have new ones from them.

With one or two duds as mentioned above, generally their build quality is pretty good.

[tmoon-mint]

Very much the same experience as Ironside. I remember those laptops where the hinges would snap. One other thing I will mention is that the onsite warranty support from Stone if you do have any issues really is excellent.

[Aprice]

Not really a fan of Stone kit to be honest, I've never really liked the system integrator type systems after having numerous issues and having to mess about with drivers for various makes and model motherboards. While that can still be said for HP and Lenovo on a few occasions, it usually is a smoother process.

 

I've had a few Stone AIOs on a previous site that looked like someone had forgotten to screw the heatsink down onto the CPU, eventually looking at it found the heatsinks were flapping around and the fan running at top RPM.

 

My preference is usually HP then Lenovo and Dell, most of them have configuration toolkits available to things like BIOS passwords and other Motherboard settings can be done remotely by script or SCCM, which makes getting them deployed much faster.

[Max_Power]

I've been looking for quotations for kit to install in the summer and Stone have a new AIO being released, but as of yet have no images or product sheets. They will quote me but i'm not willing to buy blind (i want to see what they look like) even through the processors they will house are 12th Gens, compared to HP and Dell who will only ship me an AIO with 10th Gens.

[Norphy]

Admittedly, it's been a long time since I've seen one but the last time I saw a Stone AIO, it was based on a Thin ITX motherboard with a desktop CPU and a fairly generic Thin ITX AIO monitor from someone like Mitac.

 

It wasn't anything spectacular, but it was adequate.

[DrBeaker]

Not AIO's but Stone i3-2nd gen SFF baseunits were some of the best most reliable brand I've ever worked with.

 

We had 2x IT suites full of them and only every had a couple of failures. 1x was a CPU fan blade fractured and replaced under warranty. The other 1/2 were hardware failures out of warranty.

 

Looked at the AIOs but did seem a bit more fragile compared to other brand who seemed more heavy duty. Went with some other SFF's in the end simply due to budget.

[paulellam]

Not AIO's but Stone i3-2nd gen SFF baseunits were some of the best most reliable brand I've ever worked with.

 

We had 2x IT suites full of them and only every had a couple of failures. 1x was a CPU fan blade fractured and replaced under warranty. The other 1/2 were hardware failures out of warranty.

 

Looked at the AIOs but did seem a bit more fragile compared to other brand who seemed more heavy duty. Went with some other SFF's in the end simply due to budget.

i,ll second that on the i3 units, I have some that are 8 years old, added some RAM and slapped some SSD's in and they are still flying. Always had great service from Stone also.

[RMUser]

Have quoted HP against Stone against Dell against Lenovo.

 

Stone win hands down - Price, Build, Ruggedness, Support

 

Purchased 300 over the years - Very happy.

[computer_expert]

Not really a fan of Stone kit to be honest, I've never really liked the system integrator type systems after having numerous issues and having to mess about with drivers for various makes and model motherboards. While that can still be said for HP and Lenovo on a few occasions, it usually is a smoother process.

 

My preference is usually HP then Lenovo and Dell, most of them have configuration toolkits available to things like BIOS passwords and other Motherboard settings can be done remotely by script or SCCM, which makes getting them deployed much faster.

 

These are the main reasons I stick to the big manufacturers. I'm dreading the summer when I have to touch 200 older machines one by one to change them all from BIOS to EFI. The Dells & HPs EFI conversion is all done with the manufacturer tools as part of the SCCM TS.

 

There is better spare parts availability with the big manufacturers in my experience (ignoring the current supply chain issues). A recent discussion with one of the system integrator types said to buy 5 or so extra motherboards with the machines to keep them all the same if one failed.

Edited May 18, 2022 by computer_expert

[RMUser]

I rolled 115 out in one summer. Same build.... Injected the drivers, not a single one failed to build or didnt load a driver.

[Oaktech]

Not been a customer for a few years, but the machines were excellent when I did use them and their warranty service was exceptional. I've never bought laptops so can't comment on them. We had around 500 Stone desktops and about 100 AIO at the time, we had a few power supplies go, but that was the extent of the issues.

[noelmm]

We've recently purchased 7 stone machines (standard desktop form) and not had a problem and the customer service was great, I really couldn't ask for more. What sold me on Stone was the 5 year, next day onsite warranty.

[Jaan]

Do stone still all in ones?

 

I can only see desktops

[stumot]

They don't seem to advertise them on the website but I think that's because they aren't in stock yet, if you ring them up then they will let you know pricing for them

 

Hope that clears things up

[stumot]

Also just want to say thanks to all who've replied to this thread, I think we will end up going HP but next time around it may be stone, its mainly just to match other kit on site and also the fact that we aren't able to see any Stone AIO PCs before purchasing and we don't want to buy blind, again thanks for all your replies