Laptops - Where to buy?

[Edu-IT]

Where are schools buying laptops from currently, with decent warranty, that don’t cost the earth?
 

Or with the RAM issue is finding a laptop  at a ‘reasonable’ price just impossible?

[jmak]

Reasonable has changed - it's comparative. 

 

We have been a mostly Dell shop. We'd just made a decision to double the RAM of a standard build to 32GB as we expect five years life and the £35 cost was negligible over that period, but now it's a £150 upgrade we're considering halving to 8GB instead! Or maybe going for the MacBook Neo which will probably manage well on 8GB.

 

We've also found that as well as quotes now only being valid for 14 days, we regularly find that the item we got a quote for is out of stock within a couple of days making process even more (upwardly) volatile.

[Edu-IT]

I found this Dell for £475. 16GB RAM, Core 5 120U. W11 Pro.

 

Dell Laptop 16

 

Just not sure on the build quality of these units.

 

https://www.dell.com/en-uk/shop/laptops-2-in-1-pcs/dell-16-laptop/spd/dell-dc16251-laptop/bndc1625104sb

[TheHyperTechie]

Stone (Converge) - https://www.convergetp.co.uk/

 

Usually the Stonebook Pro model, 3 years on-site next day warranty. Always held up well for us!

[itskdog]

We're an HP school, tend to get good prices from SystemActive.

 

If you're going HP, it's a good idea to make sure you're using a reseller in their Brighter Futures programme so you can get a rebate for sending in old devices (used to be up to 10 years old, now the max is 8 years, but they judge the age by the BIOS date, so you can sometimes update the BIOS to get the "age" of the device down). You get £50 back when you buy an i3/R3, £100 for i5/R5, £150 for i7/R7 or higher.

 

Make sure to let the reseller know you're looking to use that programme so they can make sure you get a qualifying device. They can even submit the claim on your behalf.

[ICTDirect_Joe]

I feel like its cheeky to say "me" but I guess there is no harm in it? We've (ICT Direct) got a stock list at https://ict-direct.co.uk/stock-list/ and we're actually getting into a position where we're considering lowering some prices on laptops soon, so worth giving it a look over later this week. 2-Year advance replace warranty with 6 months battery warranty as standard.

[mridgway]

+1 for Dell here

[itskdog]

5 minutes ago, ICTDirect_Joe said:

2-Year advance replace warranty with 6 months battery warranty as standard.

 

FYI, the DfE standards are recommending schools to get minimum 3 year hardware warranty for desktops & laptops now in their minimum requirements: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/meeting-digital-and-technology-standards-in-schools-and-colleges/laptops-desktops-and-tablets

 

It's not one of the core standards we are supposed to meet by 2030, but it's the current recommendation, at least.

[drutt]

11 minutes ago, itskdog said:

 

FYI, the DfE standards are recommending schools to get minimum 3 year hardware warranty for desktops & laptops now in their minimum requirements: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/meeting-digital-and-technology-standards-in-schools-and-colleges/laptops-desktops-and-tablets

 

It's not one of the core standards we are supposed to meet by 2030, but it's the current recommendation, at least.

 

We've not not bothered with extended warranties on student or staff devices for probably 14 or 15 years now, we get so much damage to the keyboards or screens that anything we did get would likely be void within a few weeks. Honestly can't recall the last hardware fault on a laptop that wasn't just replacing the battery or CPU fan after a few years either and those are cheap enough.

[psydii]

We always have three or four suppliers providing quotes. (unless we'd done a big RFQ/Tender with a long purchase window).

 

In terms of really knowing the product mix, being able to give the best pricing and right-sizing the kit/warranty while guaranteeing  non "grey-market" kit  we've had good results from Probrand, XMA and Bechtle.  But sometimes it really it really is how well the sales person is trained. We had a recent incident where three suppliers quoted £120+ on a 3 year warranty, but one of them had it down at about £30, while prices on the kit were pretty comparable. I queried it and the response was  roughly "yeah, the others will have quoted the warranty for that generic-class-of-laptop from that manufacturer. However that model is edu specific, and there is a edu specific SKU for the manufacturer warranties on those machines, though the £120 warranty is still valid, so we could sell you that if you really wanted."

 

Warranty though is one of those things that is almost never needed. If you buy "enterprise" kit, its battle tested (or will be) and software / firmware updates are issued for 5-7yrs. The only things that need fixing are things that get broken, and warranty doesn't cover that.  At £30 I'll take a warranty. At £120 the Finance Director and I sit down and look at repairs vs warranty sped/ vs age of kit over the last three years and then (usually) proceed without.

[MrEprise]

24 minutes ago, itskdog said:

 

FYI, the DfE standards are recommending schools to get minimum 3 year hardware warranty for desktops & laptops now in their minimum requirements: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/meeting-digital-and-technology-standards-in-schools-and-colleges/laptops-desktops-and-tablets

 

It's not one of the core standards we are supposed to meet by 2030, but it's the current recommendation, at least.

If the DfE are going to be requiring this soon, I wonder where the extra funding to cover warranties will come from as this is usually extra cost and we're strapped as it is.

[ICTDirect_Joe]

38 minutes ago, itskdog said:

 

FYI, the DfE standards are recommending schools to get minimum 3 year hardware warranty for desktops & laptops now in their minimum requirements: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/meeting-digital-and-technology-standards-in-schools-and-colleges/laptops-desktops-and-tablets

 

It's not one of the core standards we are supposed to meet by 2030, but it's the current recommendation, at least.

Makes sense! The 2 year warranty is standard but we upgrade it to 3 years once there has been a £5000 total spend within a 12 month period, and you qualify as one of our managed accounts.
On the desktops we do 3 years basic with an upgrade to 5 with the same circumstances.
We've got some pretty incredible stock holding capacity - on Friday I managed to send out 2 monitors that we hadn't sold since 2019 because one school's suite had 2 monitors die in the space of a week and didn't want to replace everything yet.

[psydii]

16 minutes ago, MrEprise said:

If the DfE are going to be requiring this soon, I wonder where the extra funding to cover warranties will come from as this is usually extra cost and we're strapped as it is.

That sort of thing is usually handled by Cabinet Office with suppliers directly. Which might explain the lead time - some of the vendors might have said "it will take time to build a portfolio that meets those requirements at the price point you expect". 

Anybody remember the 5 year Apple Care SKU? That only existed because without it (for while)  Apple would have been locked out of the school's market  by similar policy/requirements.

[tom_newton]

59 minutes ago, ICTDirect_Joe said:

I feel like its cheeky to say "me" but I guess there is no harm in it? We've (ICT Direct) got a stock list at https://ict-direct.co.uk/stock-list/ and we're actually getting into a position where we're considering lowering some prices on laptops soon, so worth giving it a look over later this week. 2-Year advance replace warranty with 6 months battery warranty as standard.

You're a sponsor, I think it's only cheeky if you try to do it on the sly! I can highly recommend ICT direct from my perspective. Their gear is always top drawer.

[sigma]

Our last laptop purchase was Dell, but that was done via one of the procurement frameworks.