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Posted

Humour me on this one... Mr gee40 wants a new desktop at home and is attracted by various all-in-one offerings because they look nice and there are fewer trailing wires.

 

While I can use my usual disdain for all-in-one anythings with school staff on the grounds that if one bit breaks then you'll have to replace the whole s*dding lot, this is not a tactic that works with my husband. As a techie, he's a very good accountant! :D

 

There seems to be a choice of Win 7 and Win 8 around at the moment... and that's another story... training Mr gee40 in the use of an OS other than XP is going to be like helping one of the less quick on the uptake teachers! Many have touch screens, though I'm not a great fan of these either!

 

So, assuming I can't get round his arguments and I end up giving in... Does anyone have any experience of these who could recommend one? (or definitely say don't get a particular brand)

 

I know they are not cheap. I'd be looking at a minimum i5 processor. It wouldn't be used particularly hard... internet, office, itunes and photo manipulation mostly, certainly not gaming.

Posted
I've heard good things about the touch screen toshiba desktop doobry... but personally I would get an ordinary desktop with a touchscreen (elo for preference) and win 8.
Posted
Lenovo's are great. We just installed 108 of them and all good so far.

What have you got @reggiep ?

 

Do they have touch screens, are you using Win 7 or Win 8 on them and how well did staff adapt to using them?

Posted

I'd be dubious about a touchscreen AIO as "on a desk" is really not a comfortable position to be using a touch interface, and you'll just end up with smudged greasy fingerprints all over it.

 

Win7 is, at the end of the day, not all that different from WinXP, and shouldn't take too much adjusting; the only differences are nice additions rather than outright removals as with Win8. Personally I reckon Win8 is probably, actually, ok, but it's certainly a bigger change than XP->7 was.

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Posted

We have around 70 2-year old Lenovo A70z units, half in Admin/support, the rest in Art & Music. They certainly have a smaller footprint & look less cluttered than a 'normal' setup. They are not touch screen, we use them to run Windows 7 64-bit Enterprise. Ours are i3 and with 4gb memory make a reasonable job of handling photoshop.

 

They are pretty solid; I have had no complaints from users. We did have quite a few (10%) with fan failures that were repaired under warranty. As you might imagine, they have limited upgrade potential or expansion capability. You need to check what ports you need, we had planned upon using a couple in a classroom hooked up to a projector but they didn't have VGA or DVI ports.

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Posted
Does anyone have any experience of these who could recommend one? (or definitely say don't get a particular brand)

 

I've actually been quite happy with my Advent (i.e. PC World / Currys own brand) all-in-one - I think it was around £400 a couple of years ago and has lasted fine so far. The fan buzzes when first switched on now, but it seems to run okay and has had pretty heavy use - I have it on most evenings. It does okay being a TV and playing DVDs, too. It has a touch screen but I don't think I've ever had occasion to use it. It's actually quite a versatile machine - it even has input ports for both VGA and HDMI, so I have other machines plugged in to it.

 

I bought it from Currys - where (unlike PC World) the sales staff were actually really, really helpful. After I'd ordered the PC, the store manager saw that it was out of stock and brought one in on the train with him the next morning, at which I was suitibly impressed.

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Posted

Mr gee40 is now telling me my antipathy to AIO is nonsense... after all a laptop is an AIO with a lid. He has a point :rolleyes:

 

I'm interested to know whether the Lenovo fans on here have touch screens and/or Win 8.

Posted
Mr gee40 is now telling me my antipathy to AIO is nonsense... after all a laptop is an AIO with a lid. He has a point :rolleyes:

 

I'm interested to know whether the Lenovo fans on here have touch screens and/or Win 8.

 

no but am waiting for a Lenovo win 8 touch screen jobby to arrive

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Posted
I bought 12 x Lenovo Thinkcentre Edge 91z 7075 this summer. 7 are on the Admin network and 5 on the Curric. They run W7 enterprise and are not touchscreen. They come with wireless keyboard and mouse. All the users in the school love them. 3 sets of the k/b's didn't work out of the box but that was because the supposed 'new' batteries supplied were flat. Once they batteries were replaced they were fine. I have had no problems with them and would definitely recommend.
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Posted
My PFY Apprentice has ordered himself a HP Touchsmart something or other with a decent spec the other night, but as W7 on it not 8 which I said was maybe a wrong move as W7 on touch isn't as good as W8 on touch (That is one area W8 is good at with the touchy feelyness) will try and find out what model it is and how he finds it but it will be another week before it arrives apparently but he is excited as it looks pretty....
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Posted
My PFY Apprentice has ordered himself a HP Touchsmart something or other with a decent spec the other night' date=' but as W7 on it not 8 which I said was maybe a wrong move as W7 on touch isn't as good as W8 on touch (That is one area W8 is good at with the touchy feelyness) will try and find out what model it is and how he finds it but it will be another week before it arrives apparently but he is excited as it looks pretty....[/quote']

 

I think the mouse & keyboard will help override the Win 7 clunkiness on touch screen. I suspect he'll barely use the touch and operate it the traditional way most of the time.

 

This is early days shopping for me... I'll be holding out for as long as possible before I buy things. I'm just wondering if prices might dip in January.

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Posted
if one bit breaks then you'll have to replace the whole s*dding lot

Not if you get a HP Z1.

 

http://s17.postimage.org/rp0fp6xjz/hp_z1_002.jpg

 

http://s17.postimage.org/mcblb29nj/hp_z1_001.jpg

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