Require new PCs

[glennda]

Don't you love companies who try their best to rip you off to begin with, then after many harassing phone calls and emails finally give you the right price

 

its called business...

[RTFM]

its called business...

 

really?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?! whats that when its at home?

[Chuckster]

Thanks very much guys. Your input has given me ideas and some avenues to explore.

 

I have given both RM and Stone a phone call so now I'm waiting on their quotes. I didn't realise they can custom make some of the components so I will get back on their case after I've gotten their quotes.

 

With all that being said, I will try Novatech but I am reluctant to try HP as they try their damn hardest not to honour their warranty support.

[Edu-IT]

Personally for custom Builds I would look @ Stone computers or for Standard desktops the Lenovo Kit is brilliant.

Would echo all the praise of Stone.

[tmcd35]

 

Edit: just looked at Stone's website, no prices. I'm always suspicious of companies who can't/won't put their prices on their website.

 

One thing I would say with Stone, never accept the first price. I'm sure your following your own financial guidelines when obtaining quotes, but I have to get at least 3 competing quotes and use these as bargaining. Just when you think you've got the best price, Stone always seem to come back with a better offer; so, never accept the first price.

 

Pete

 

Mmm, re-enforces my initial skepticism.

[Edu-IT]

Edit: just looked at Stone's website, no prices. I'm always suspicious of companies who can't/won't put their prices on their website.

Prices change too often and there are so many options in terms of custom build. How would a company EVER be able to list all the options you can have, and give you an accurate price?

 

You ask for price. You get. It's that easy. ;-)

[north-ict]

Thanks very much guys. Your input has given me ideas and some avenues to explore.

 

I have given both RM and Stone a phone call so now I'm waiting on their quotes. I didn't realise they can custom make some of the components so I will get back on their case after I've gotten their quotes.

 

With all that being said, I will try Novatech but I am reluctant to try HP as they try their damn hardest not to honour their warranty support.

 

Just a helpful idea if its hard for you to decide I know stone if you spoke to them would send you out an evaluation machine to test, Rm would probably do the same aswell as others. It is nice to actually have a evaluation machine in front of you to see if it builds correctly etc makes decision making that much easier especially if your going to buy a large quantity. I am in the process of getting an evaluation machine from stone.

[OPSDanni]

You can't custom make components. You can only custom a build through asking for components. e.g I want a low voltage I3 2120, gigabyte H61M-S2PV, WD RD HDD, Kingston RAM. All manufactures that say they build custom can do this, unlike HP who use only seagate HDD's for example.

[3s-gtech]

Here - most machines come from ICT Direct. Upgraded to three year warranty, we've bought HP DC7700, DC7800, DC7900 and Lenovo M58P machines from them, always been great service. Older tech, but with lots of DDR3 in the Lenovos and an SSD, they're plenty quick enough; for a shade over £200.

[RTFM]

Just a helpful idea if its hard for you to decide I know stone if you spoke to them would send you out an evaluation machine to test, Rm would probably do the same aswell as others. It is nice to actually have a evaluation machine in front of you to see if it builds correctly etc makes decision making that much easier especially if your going to buy a large quantity. I am in the process of getting an evaluation machine from stone.

 

@VeryPC will do you a trial unit too i expect

[tmcd35]

Prices change too often and there are so many options in terms of custom build. How would a company EVER be able to list all the options you can have, and give you an accurate price?

 

I dunno, other companies (Dell, Apple, etc) manage it. And then tell you discounts are available for edu. I don't like the idea of companies hiding behind that excuse and requiring me to talk to a sales numpty every time I need a guide price (even then being wrong because he's waiting to see what the competition offers so he can under cut). Sure the final price might be lower, but at least have a website that lets me see what's on offer and some ball park prices. How else am I supposed to know if I want an i7 or an i5, or possibility of affording an SSD, etc.

 

The problem with their model is they force you to talk to a sales numpty, who'll take all your details and continue to arras you for the next three years despite the fact you've decided not to buy anything.

 

To be fair, never dealt with Stone, and their customer service may very well be better than that. But to the website isn't sending out the right messages.

[Scifigirl]

We bought some custom build zoostorm machines from idns - good price- good customer service, 3 or 5 yr warrantys

 

no probs at all.

 

pm me if you want the account manager number---- he is a nice northern lad--lol

[Guest Guest]

We are have dumped stone and gone with Dell due to the following.

 

• 
  
• The Pro Support offered by Dell is excellent
  
• The Design, everything is small, fits on the stand, lots of monitor choices etc
  
• People will be on site the next day for repairs
  
• If you get a continuing hardware issue they will replace with brand new
  
• You can get exact parts with repairs, for example the motherboard will be the same on a repair 4 years after the order
  
• The computers they offer are available for a long period of time, for example we ordered hundreds of Optiplex 790 over a few years and nothing had changed in them. Others change the motherboards etc
  
• The ability to manage the BIOS using SCCM
  
• Update BIOS via SCCM if need be.
  
• All the old kit matches the newer stuff, they don’t change the design often. so the majority of our kit is identical but different models. For example the Optiplex 780, 790 & 7010 are all identical looks wise.
  
• The matching monitor, keyboard & mouse.
  
• All machine as standard support dual output display
  
• The PC and monitor requires 1 power cable
  
• The stand really tidies cables up.
  
• Full support with imaging, include all WinPE drivers
  

 

This ^

 

We also dumped Stone as, although their support is a little better than Dell, IME Dell kit lasts longer. We have Dell kit which is 10 years old and still working. Any Stones over 4-5 years old develop lots of niggly faults. Dell driver and management is infinitely better than Stone.

 

Thinking about it I know I said Stone support is good we did have a batch of 100 Stones which wouldn't always recognise the keyboard. Stones answer; for me to update every BIOS myself, which didn't actually fix the problem. That alone put me off them.

[glennda]

Thinking about it I know I said Stone support is good we did have a batch of 100 Stones which wouldn't always recognise the keyboard. Stones answer; for me to update every BIOS myself, which didn't actually fix the problem. That alone put me off them.

 

Thats more likely the components chosen rather then stone themselves being at fault. I always specified everything including mobo etc so that its not going to end up with a gigbyte one for example!

[Guest Guest]

Thats more likely the components chosen rather then stone themselves being at fault. I always specified everything including mobo etc so that its not going to end up with a gigbyte one for example!

 

But that is Stones fault. They should choose better components, Dell do. When I go out to tender I specify a minimum spec and that's it. It's not up to me to choose the exact model of mobo, HD, RAM, etc. AFAIK if I did do that for Stone then I would be breaking purchasing rules as my spec would not be "like for like" between the 3+ bidders.

 

Forgot to mention, Dell are actually cheaper than Stone most of the time when using a premier account.

Edited October 12, 2012 by Guest

[Edu-IT]

To be fair the Stone sales people aren't' numb ties, they know what they are on about. Plus I do not think I have ever had a call from them out of the blue that I didn't want. So that isn't really a true reflection of them I don't think.

[Chris_]

I dunno, other companies (Dell, Apple, etc) manage it. And then tell you discounts are available for edu. I don't like the idea of companies hiding behind that excuse and requiring me to talk to a sales numpty every time I need a guide price (even then being wrong because he's waiting to see what the competition offers so he can under cut). Sure the final price might be lower, but at least have a website that lets me see what's on offer and some ball park prices. How else am I supposed to know if I want an i7 or an i5, or possibility of affording an SSD, etc.

 

The problem with their model is they force you to talk to a sales numpty, who'll take all your details and continue to arras you for the next three years despite the fact you've decided not to buy anything.

 

To be fair, never dealt with Stone, and their customer service may very well be better than that. But to the website isn't sending out the right messages.

 

Stone have various price lists available which are good for a rough guide then you can phone up and say you'd like so many certain PCs with extra memory, no DVD drives etc.. their prices always seem very competitive first time round for me and they're always very quick if you ask them to make amendments to quotes (i.e. larger screens, faster HDD's).

 

And as @Edu-IT says, I've never had a phone call from Stone

[pmdc199]

This ^

 

We also dumped Stone as, although their support is a little better than Dell, IME Dell kit lasts longer. We have Dell kit which is 10 years old and still working. Any Stones over 4-5 years old develop lots of niggly faults. Dell driver and management is infinitely better than Stone.

 

Thinking about it I know I said Stone support is good we did have a batch of 100 Stones which wouldn't always recognise the keyboard. Stones answer; for me to update every BIOS myself, which didn't actually fix the problem. That alone put me off them.

 

The website seems useless for Dell schools though to get prices and product info. Do you just go straight to phoning them?

[Guest Guest]

The website seems useless for Dell schools though to get prices and product info. Do you just go straight to phoning them?

 

? Dells site? I just go on the premier site. All product info is there with a nice configurator doodah. In fact I wish all PC manufacturers would follow dells lead.

[pmdc199]

I must be being dumb where is that?

[mattianuk]

I used Novatech here for our summer rebuild, spent a lot with them as well. We went for some custom build i5 all in ones with 4GB RAM and SSDs - they preimaged them for us and all have a 5 year warranty, they send us the parts NWD so very little downtime.

 

Their tech guys are very good too. I used them to spec, buy and setup our hyperv setup, and I still get brilliant support (like today when our server went down!) even when it has nothing to do with them.

[pmdc199]

What dell machines are people using ?

 

Also 5 years is along time, how many people are running computers for 5 years effectively. Is a three or 4 year rolling replacement not the norm please?

[gshaw]

We've got 5 year old Stone PCs (BTX case towers) running flawlessly on Windows 7 with no issues apart from the odd HDD now and again.

 

They're Core2Duo E6600s and chances are I'll run them into the ground then replace at leisure

 

Wouldn't touch Dell with a large barge pole, Lenovo for me as the other alternative.

[pmdc199]

We are have dumped stone and gone with Dell due to the following.

 

• 
  
• The Pro Support offered by Dell is excellent
  
• The Design, everything is small, fits on the stand, lots of monitor choices etc
  
• People will be on site the next day for repairs
  
• If you get a continuing hardware issue they will replace with brand new
  
• You can get exact parts with repairs, for example the motherboard will be the same on a repair 4 years after the order
  
• The computers they offer are available for a long period of time, for example we ordered hundreds of Optiplex 790 over a few years and nothing had changed in them. Others change the motherboards etc
  
• The ability to manage the BIOS using SCCM
  
• Update BIOS via SCCM if need be.
  
• All the old kit matches the newer stuff, they don’t change the design often. so the majority of our kit is identical but different models. For example the Optiplex 780, 790 & 7010 are all identical looks wise.
  
• The matching monitor, keyboard & mouse.
  
• All machine as standard support dual output display
  
• The PC and monitor requires 1 power cable
  
• The stand really tidies cables up.
  
• Full support with imaging, include all WinPE drivers
  

 

What models are you using. Their monitors are great but expensive.

[sonofsanta]

What dell machines are people using ?

 

Also 5 years is along time, how many people are running computers for 5 years effectively. Is a three or 4 year rolling replacement not the norm please?

 

I don't buy machines with less than 5 year warranty, they're normally good for that amount of time. Any less is too expensive on the rolling replacement, and in these halcyon days of good-enough-computing, a 5 year machine is still perfectly workable. Stick an SSD in and a Core2Duo with 2GB RAM is all most people actually need.