witch Posted January 4, 2007 Posted January 4, 2007 Can anyone recommend some kit? This is for a first school (4-9) IT suite. Just your basic fastish computers plus flatscreens. I know I asked the question about 10 months ago for my other school, and ended up with some Dells, but I just wondered if anyone knew of any offers or can recommend something? The Dells are good, have had no problems with them - so will probably go with them again if no one suggests anything better thanks
broc Posted January 4, 2007 Posted January 4, 2007 My vote would be for DELL still. Depending upon numbers & how fussy you are about specs, take a look at http://www.europc.co.uk/ as they sell refurbished DELL Optiplex equipment (amongst others) with full 3 year warranty. Delivery next day too. PM me if you want the name of a sales contact there, you may be able to negotiate a bit on price.
localzuk Posted January 4, 2007 Posted January 4, 2007 I would suggest contacting European Electronique (01865 883300) and asking for a quote for HP pc's as I have been given some good deals by them.
Guest richard Posted January 4, 2007 Posted January 4, 2007 I'd also have a look at Viglen. I have always found them to be very reliable and know you don't have to buy their Classlink product if you don't want to.
Ric_ Posted January 4, 2007 Posted January 4, 2007 @WITCH: You could also speak to the lovely people at 1st Technologies who can usually source all manner of 2nd-user and new kit. Education prices are very cheap and you could probably get 2 or 3 2nd-user machines for the price of one new one.
MkII Posted January 4, 2007 Posted January 4, 2007 HP have cashback offers all the time which make them very competitive. http://www.second2digital.com/SCC/SCCE324/ http://misco.co.uk/content/hp/more/desktops.htm I'd be inclined to stick with what you know, but I personally think the build quality on HPs is slightly better than Dell
localzuk Posted January 4, 2007 Posted January 4, 2007 Ooh! Thanks for that! I have just found via those sites that I can claim back the price of the second processors we bought for our new servers
john Posted January 4, 2007 Posted January 4, 2007 HP do seem to have some good offers on at present with cashback on some stuff as well, so do have a look at them, but in terms of cost, I still have not managed to beat having them built for me by CCL Computers.
crc-ict Posted January 4, 2007 Posted January 4, 2007 Make sure you specify glass-front flat screens. Sticky little fingers don't mix too well with the normal TFT covering - as our iBooks will testify when Reception have been using them... We have glass front TFTs in virtually all of the rooms and they're tons easier to keep clean!
john Posted January 4, 2007 Posted January 4, 2007 Sticky little fingers don't mix too well with the normal TFT covering - as our iBooks will testify when Reception have been using them... On this thought, if you have non-glass TFTs one item that was suggested to me by a friend that works in a primary school was get large sheets of acetate and tape them over the screen like the plastic thats over them when you get them(apart from these are clear and not covered in writing) that way sticky fingers go on the plastic, you either wipe that or bin it and put a new one on. I know glass TFTs are the best solution but this may well work if you couldn't afford them, got existing ones that suffer etc...
witch Posted January 11, 2007 Author Posted January 11, 2007 Further to all this - have had some quotes. After everyone telling me that RM would be really expensive, the base units are coming up cheaper than Dell! It is a special offer but I am an old cynic and would like opinions please. The RMs are Ascend 2020 P4 3GHz 512MB RAM 40GB drive - £271.05 each The Dells are Optiplex 745 DT 2.8GHz 512MB RAM 80GB drive - £420 each The Dells have a three year warrenty whereas RM only have one, but this price difference is huge and could make all the difference to this school. SO - any opinions please? Also can I have opinions on the RM ONE as well thanks
ChrisH Posted January 11, 2007 Posted January 11, 2007 Tell Dell how much the RM ones are and see if they can get anywhere near it. Watch you dont have Dell gold warranty or something next day bronze would be fine. Also have you considered second user equipment?
witch Posted January 11, 2007 Author Posted January 11, 2007 I have considered it, but the school won't consider it. After 8 years they think they deserve new kit! Will do what you say regarding Dell
broc Posted January 11, 2007 Posted January 11, 2007 If you want DELL desktops/laptops quickly & cheaper than Dell direct try EuroPC. How about DELL Optiplex GX620 base unit P4 3.2ghz 512mb 80gb XP Pro 3 yr warranty next day delivery £329 ex vat , currently showing 107 in stock. Even cheaper, Optiplex 210L P4 2.8 512mb 40gb XP Pro 3 yr warranty next day delivery £269 ex vat, currently showing 129 in stock. Honestly, I don't work for EuroPC, but am a happy customer.
Norphy Posted January 11, 2007 Posted January 11, 2007 I would second the EuroPC recommendation, that is where we source all of our Dell kit from. They come will full Dell warranties and offer (in my experience) excellent service. Witch, give NEC a try. They're generally very competitive when we try them, offer good support and good machines. I'd also suggest going with single core Athlon 64 machines if you're on a budget as they're on a price parity with current Celeron systems and are as good, if not better than P4 ones.
ChrisH Posted January 11, 2007 Posted January 11, 2007 Dont forget HP and Fujitsu as well though. Im sure between them all they can come up with a competitive quote.
localzuk Posted January 11, 2007 Posted January 11, 2007 I would personally steer clear of Fujitsu as we have had some bad experiences of late with them. Our next day warranty for one of our servers ended up being 5 days later when it broke, they said (to our supplier) they would contact the school to apologise but never have. Also, we seem to have a batch of their Esprimo machines which have a variety of faults - such as randomly deciding they no longer have a network card (even though they are on board), deciding not to turn on for 2 hours and then working fine etc... Along with that we have a load of the Amilo-Pro laptops and they have a few issues too - such as the keyboard being of low build quality (the keys become loose over time), the laptops randomly and for no reason lock up and turn the screen a single colour (we have had purple, red and green so far). Personally, as I said earlier, I would recommend HP stuff. They are reasonably cheap and of high build quality. The 3 year hardware warranty (next day onsite) is cheap too (£55 for each machine we have been paying in small numbers).
NetworkGeezer Posted January 11, 2007 Posted January 11, 2007 Dell reseller cheaper than Dell? How can that be. Surely there must be catch somewhere. Is it failed order stock or something?
Geoff Posted January 11, 2007 Posted January 11, 2007 reseller is probably builk buying from Dell and/or buying stuff that's going out of production. Thus getting discounts.
broc Posted January 12, 2007 Posted January 12, 2007 Dell reseller cheaper than Dell? How can that be. Surely there must be catch somewhere. Is it failed order stock or something? A lot of what they (EuroPC) sell is 'Dell Outlet' kit; equipment that has been cancelled orders, returned by customers, end of line. Dell Outlet equipment has full manufacturer warranty. It depends what you want & how flexible you can be with spec as their stock levels change very dramatically. I wanted 15x desktop PCs recently, minimum spec was P4 2.8ghz 512mb memory, 3yr warranty,no FDD or optical drive with XP Pro. I got a mix of GX520 & GX620 (identical cases & take same Ghost image) with processors that were between 2.8 & 3.2ghz, some had 512mb some had 1gb, some had FDD & optical, some not. faxed the order Thu pm, delivered Fri am.
witch Posted January 12, 2007 Author Posted January 12, 2007 Sounds good and will look into the Dell stuff. Still not as cheap as the RM quote though, so please can I have thoughts on that! Will look at NEC and HP, but not Fujitsu as we tried them at my other school and their response was lackadaisical at best, and the kit they sent us to look at was not screwed together properly and didn't work!
broc Posted January 12, 2007 Posted January 12, 2007 Sounds good and will look into the Dell stuff. Still not as cheap as the RM quote though, so please can I have thoughts on that! Will look at NEC and HP, but not Fujitsu as we tried them at my other school and their response was lackadaisical at best, and the kit they sent us to look at was not screwed together properly and didn't work! Whoever is on your shortlist of potential suppliers, be prepared to play them off against each other & use any website prices merely as a starting point. Establish contact with sales staff & push for free delivery, bulk discounts etc. My LA has a County Contract with a number of suppliers, I use their negotiated price as a starter in my discussions with potential suppliers. We almost never buy at the County price
Lee_K_81 Posted January 12, 2007 Posted January 12, 2007 I've also had good experience with computacenter. If you are buying bulk tell them you would like "bid" pricing and that you have them competing with 2 other suppliers (which you obviously are). I got HP: AMD Atholon 64 2GHz, 512Mb RAM, 40Gb HDD, CDR/W, FDD (which is unusual), XP Pro, 3Yr Warrenty for £358. Not the cheapest quote you've been given today and i'm sure the spec now will be higher as we bought last summer, but we;ve never had a problem with any of the HP machines we have. Build quality is very good.
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