Top choice for new ICT Suites

[HTCPCP]

We have a load of zoostorms, good spec for the price, but you will get a couple that wont build or have some faults develop, but for £190 ex VAT for 6GB of ram, a 250 GB hard drive and a Pentium G840 processor, they aren't bad. We've had a couple of faults, mostly a dodgy stick of RAM, and hit and miss customer support, but only 1 has needed to be sent away for repairs. There's no OS license supplied, but that's not a huge issue if you have a site license. Can easily build to a RM CC4 network too, with the driver helpfully on the disk provided. Best bit is they also provide a free keyboard and mouse. Won't win any awards, but performance on the network seems quite good.

[RTFM]

RM took over our LEA support, so they know when we try to get other companies in to supply computers.

 

Then suddenly, the other company isn't interested.

 

 

Not even joking... This actually happened.

 

It might be worth speaking to VeryPC next time you need some machines quoting anyway, i'm sure little old RM dont scare them haha

[RTFM]

Wouldn't know; they don't put prices on their site. Soooo frustrating ... I usually click X

 

In fairness its fairly obvious why they don't list prices on the site, as @FN-GM said, a web price isnt worth the pixels it takes to display once you get into the negotiation phase of proceedings so it might as well not be there

[sonofsanta]

hmm... attempted anon-negrep because I stated I can't choose anyone other than RM...

 

The hell is wrong with people?

 

You know what was being said in the other thread about how RM keep an eye on this forum...?

[ellisteph10]

Thanks for the various comments. Has anyone had any issues with Very and Imaging? What do people use to Image them?

[RTFM]

Thanks for the various comments. Has anyone had any issues with Very and Imaging? What do people use to Image them?

 

When we first used Very we actually sent them a hard drive with our image on and they did it all for us (4 years ago now i think?), since then we have used Ghost to image them and now we use WDS. The drivers for the boards just inject right in no issue.

 

I think we have 4 or 5 different types of boards across our range of Very's and we can image them all no issue.

 

Tom Marsh is also pretty good with his deployment stuff, when we have had issues in the past he has sent us updated drivers etc over no problem

[X-13]

You know what was being said in the other thread about how RM keep an eye on this forum...?

 

Strangely, that IS what I was thinking... Plus, the fact it was gray rep and not proper negrep means they don't have enough sway to actually effect anything.

 

Which could be attributed to it being a lurking account.

 

 

It might be worth speaking to VeryPC next time you need some machines quoting anyway, i'm sure little old RM dont scare them haha

 

I'll bare that in mind. [bare... bear... who knows?]

 

Our head has a company he likes and has used before... but they got scared off.

Edited September 27, 2012 by X-13

[localzuk]

Wouldn't know; they don't put prices on their site. Soooo frustrating ... I usually click X

 

Its always a very bad idea to go by website list pricing for any PC, by any manufacturer. Viglen online prices are a massive amount more expensive online than via the sales team, as are Dell and HP.

[VeryPC_Tom_M]

Thanks for the various comments. Has anyone had any issues with Very and Imaging? What do people use to Image them?

 

See PM

[multipoint]

We have a load of zoostorms, good spec for the price, but you will get a couple that wont build or have some faults develop, but for £190 ex VAT for 6GB of ram, a 250 GB hard drive and a Pentium G840 processor, they aren't bad. We've had a couple of faults, mostly a dodgy stick of RAM, and hit and miss customer support, but only 1 has needed to be sent away for repairs. There's no OS license supplied, but that's not a huge issue if you have a site license. Can easily build to a RM CC4 network too, with the driver helpfully on the disk provided. Best bit is they also provide a free keyboard and mouse. Won't win any awards, but performance on the network seems quite good.

 

I think the VeryPC Value Line is more or less the same price as that for the same spec in a small form factor chassis with VGA and DVDI-D (could be wrong). The Value Line (VL) is unleashed when it's all about price wars. Give 'em a whirl.

[dhicks]

If you can PM me some details of when would be a good time to call you and I'll give you a call to discuss the above (dual screen, usb etc).

 

Just to update this thread: I spoke to VeryPC, who were very helpful - excellent service. The front USB/sound ports are optional - they're updating their website to make this fact a bit clearer, but if you're buying do remember to ask for the front USB/sound option as they are more handy to get to than the default round-the-side location.

 

The second monitor works fine if you have an actual HDMI-input monitor - a VGA-to-HDMI adaptor won't be sensed by the graphics card, and there doesn't seem to be a option to force the graphics card to just do what you jolly well tell it. I don't know if anyone knows about low-level forcing an Intel graphics chip to output on two ports, or if anyone sells a VGA/HDMI converter that will be sensed by the graphics card? I've managed to find one spare HDMI-enabled monitor, but I imagine finding 4:3 aspect ratio HMDI-input monitors to match the aspect ratio of our SMARTBoards/projectors/iPads might be tricky.

 

The plastic cover at the end where the cables come out is loose - it tends to pop off if you grab the machine at the sides to adjust the viewing angle or move it for any reason. It shouln't be too much of a problem in most cases, I just forsee it coming loose quite easily. A lock feature would be great for some schools to stop grubby fingers poking around the cables. This isn't really a complaint as such, the machines should be fine for what we're using them for, it's just a point to maybe consider for the 2.0 design.

 

Also: the CD/DVD drive opens with its back facing you, so you have to reach around the other side of it to insert/remove CDs. It's a bit fiddly - it'd be handy if it were the other way round. Some cable management of some sort on the back might be handy, too - just an optional hook or something to keep cables out of the way.

[dhicks]

Has anyone had any issues with Very and Imaging? What do people use to Image them?

 

I've just set up an image for our VeryPC machines using FOG - a standard 32-bit Windows 7 Syspreped image. After some initial confusion (I had to run Sysprep twice), possibly caused by the dual-screen setup, everything seems to be working fine - the machine has finished the Sysprep setup, has been renamed and joined to the domain by FOG and is currently running through our install script.