Dell or HP for Small Business? 154
fruitbane asks: "I work for a medium-sized non-profit, approximately 50 full-time users and 100 desktop PCs. We're redoing all our technology plans and budgeting; that means it's time to pick vendors/brands and stick to them, something we haven't reliably done in the past. Sites like Consumer Reports review various PCs and manufacturers for home users. Are there any comprehensive reviews or advice sources for those trying to determine the best vendor/manufacturer for small business desktops and laptops?"
Find someone local you can trust (Score:5, Insightful)
As a small business computer consultant and a computer repair technician, I think the issue will be more about who can help you with the inevitable problems that will occur when you use the technology in your workplace. Everyone will have their preferences, I know that at our office, we recommend Acer notebook computers and desktops, and our users seem to be happy with the advice. (Incidentally, Acer is #1 in Notebook Computers in Canada, where our office is located).
For us, the important thing is not so much the brand of computers, as each consultant will have his or her own preferences in this area. The key is the business relationship between the person who is fixing your computer and the vendor. As an Acer Authorized Dealer who also has a service relationship, we are often able to order in parts to the store to fix the client computer systems when there are issues. This is quite different from many other computer stores where they may sell the computer to you, but have to send you right back to HP or Toshiba or wherever else for service. As for Dell, the direct sales approach offered by the company means that there is rarely a reliable channel for local support for your hardware, relying instead on centralized phone support that is not always with the same person.
My opinion is that nothing beat having a local reseller to call for service that knows your business and knows your network and knows your hardware, which can help you with your issues and fix your problems.
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What the fuck? I can see *maybe* doing that back when '98 wasn't too stale, but in 2006?
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Once again, though, I think it's more a
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You'll hit the file size limit building an ISO of a 4.01 gig distro, and that fits on a single layer dvd.
I remember when I first hit that limit I was stumped WTF the problem was, then I started googling around and found out and had a DUH moment.
This was on a W2k box that was purchased in early '01 and came with a fat32 system partition. did the convert to NTFS utility and all was well.
-nB
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No, it's not. XP installed directly as NTFS has most of the filesystem security set up properly by defult. If you install to FAT32 then convert to NTFS every single thing on the machine is defaulted to wide open file permissions.
And I'm sorry, but any company that decides to make their LCD monitors cheaper by silently removing half the onboard image memory and simply discarding the additional color bits that the video card sends is
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I'm not able to find the article any more. It was a couple of years ago when 17in LCD monitors really started to drop in price and Acer suddenly came out with a low end model that was $50 cheaper than anybody else. I was looking for info on it at the time and found a review site that had done some color testing and weren't seeing what they expected to.
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Update your tools. Get a copy of UBCD4Win, Knoppix, and the GParted LiveCD. We use those at my job and together they handle all of my NTFS needs[0]. The latter two are free-as-in-beer and -speech, the former requires you to have a Windows XP license[1] but otherwise is beer-free.
As to the crapware: we usually buy Dell's business-oriented systems. They'll include Google Desktop
Acer monitors (Score:2)
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Hehhehhehheh, good one! Are you employed by Dell or something?
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Ah, then you probably had a direct corporate account with them. Yes, if you spend enough money you can sometimes get halfway decent service from Dell.
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And the OQS (Original Question Submitter) will most likely also have a corporate or corporate non-profit (if there's a difference) account if he decides to do business with a retailer or manufactorer which has such a distinction available to customers. How is the GP post invalid?
(I'm really high while writing this and it took like 15 minutes to write to a l
Re:Find someone local you can trust (Score:4, Insightful)
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The key is to kn
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Similarly, it would take a lot to get me to drop HP and go to Dell. As a (small) business customer, I can go to their website, fill out the form, and I've got my replacement part in hand the next day. No questions. They trust that I know what I'm doing when it comes to diagnosing a hardware problem.
Gateway (Score:2)
Gateway? Their support sucks unless they've changed since I last had a Gateway PC. And their hardware stinks too. I bought two PCs from Gateway for myself and the first had the motherboard and hdd die in the first year. The second one, a laptop, had the LCD crack after I had it only a couple of months and even though I got the extended service plan the LCD still wasn't covered. The first one, because Windows kept crashing tech support had me reinstall Windows a few tymes. And everytime I called tech s
Dells Support = Awful (Score:2)
- Dell's kit breaks more often than more vertical integrators. Dell builds systems with a much larger, active set of vendors. This helps them lower initial costs, at a tradeoff to level of confidence in the system as a whole. Especially hard drives.
- Dell (like some other vendors, admittedly) contracts out their field support (and increasingly their internal QA and phone support). That
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While buying very high end parts makes a good home built PC, no company can make money selling quality components locally and compete with the Dell or HP model. So you are either charging too much to the customer or using substandard/
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That used to be true but Dell has gotten so greedy lately that you actually can build a decent quality white box for less, even allowing fo shipping, labor, time spent ordering parts etc. Now granted that's not if you're just buying from NewEgg or something, but if you're actually in the business and dealing with the distributors directly Dell really isn't a very good deal any more. Too bad really, they used
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Our current white box systems are dual-core, 2GB RAM, 2x250GB RAID1, integrated video, DVD-writer boxes w/ Win XP Pro and Office 2003 Pro. Cost for us is around $1150, including shipping compared to around $1300-$1500 from Dell. Assembly & base software install (restore a standard image, sysprep it, re-enter keys) is around 2-3 hours. The WinXP / Office costs are aroun
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Reality (Score:5, Interesting)
1) What are your goals. Are they to save money?
2) Do you truly believe you will need "Gold/Platinum" support?
3) Can we get by without some of the big guys? (Dell/HP/etc.)
4) Is there room for savings/alternatives? (Dotproject vs. MS Project... Surgemail vs. Exchange + Outlook)
For 50 users, I'll give you a summary of what I worked with at one point a while back... Computers were a combo of Gateway and Acers we purchased off an auction lot. Most were from a business that went under. Minus HD's... We spent about $100.00 each for about 70 machines. Disks? We brought them in a lot as well. Servers, we purchased our own 1 Sun Netra 1 280r off of eBay for databases. Total cost about 500.00 for the servers. We purchased a brand new 2U server from Tiger and slapped on Linux for LAMP stuff and used SugarCRM, Surgemail, and Dotproject. Surgemail itself saved us big bucks from having to be scammed into using MS Exchange, etc.. Dotproject saved us from buying Project Server which we would have needed for what we needed to do. At first project managers didn't like it, but they also had Project on their personal machines anyway... They got over it. Project + Exchange for that SoHo (3 offices 70 or so people) would have been in excess of about 40k. (remember... seats, etc.). We ran NFS, Samba, and a couple of other things which were transparent to the layfolk. Bottom line we spent under 20k setting it up. Our most expensive purchases were Netscreen's to keep things secured (VPNs). Those cost us about 3k each.
Re:Reality (Score:4, Informative)
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That's a... let's see... helical penis?
Must be surplus tort^Winterrogation equipment from Abu Ghraib.
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oops...take off the 's'.
govliquidation.com [govliquidation.com]
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The second hand market for PC was already small, but with new PCs from Dell (and other major outlets) costing around $380, seconds hands are worth jack and shit.
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Lenovo? (Score:3, Informative)
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If I was buying equipment for a company, I'd seriously look at the lower cost Sun machines. If I was going to buy a brand new computer, instead of build it, I'd probably choose Sun.
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It's not a thinkpad -- there isn't the same physical quality in it, it's pretty ugly, and you get a touchpad instead of a trackpoint. There's no titanium case, etc.
But I've been very pleased with mine. It runs ubuntu well, if you're willing to use ndiswra
Macs vs PCs (Score:3, Interesting)
it's already outlasted an apple laptop a friend bought at about the same time.
I've bought 4 new, well really 3 and a factory remanufactered one, Windows PCs and of them only one did not have any hardware troubles in the first year I had them. On the other hand I've also bought 2 used Macs and they both lasted longer than the PCs did. The first Mac I got was an SE30 in 1992. It lasted without problems until 2000, when the floppy drive died. The second's a Powermac 7300/200 I got in 2000, a few months
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Go local (Score:3, Funny)
Multinaional PC Companies lost the plot: Buy local (Score:5, Interesting)
That's all changed. HP are now heavily outsourced with increased breakdowns from PC's made in China (which, lets face it, never understood 'Quality'). HP have outsourced customer support to India. If you do have a problem, you'll have to argue with an arrogant call center operator who has been told he holds all the cards and that you are at his mercy. The company doesn't give a damn about quality or customer support.
Another poster suggested the local guy. I'd concur. The most important part of the PC is the motherboard (ASUS have a good name as a Taiwanese supplier who 'got' quality), HDD from Seagate or another reputable HDD manufacturer (fortunately most of the bad ones like IBM have been driven out of the business). Using a local guy you can get your own PCs built that'll be far better than any of the cost-cut, outsourced crap you'll get from the Multinationals. These days smaller companies have a much better grasp on quality and reputation. You'll also be supporting your community and country.
Re:Multinaional PC Companies lost the plot: Buy lo (Score:2)
I'm not arguing against buying local, but a local business may not be able to handle the volume of a 100 pc + order, and that is a factor that the company will need to take into account.
Re:Multinational PC Companies lost the plot (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course you need to check them out before you buy them, have a trusted referral or ideally have been buying from them for several years. Their service is light years ahead of the Multinationals. These guys need customers. 'Chandler' who wants 'to provide you with Excellent Service' from some outsourced HP call center on the other hand doesn't care if you live or die.
If you're talking very large orders, say a few thousand PCs, there's are medium-sized businesses who can integrate it for you on a contract. I'd trust an ASUS Motherboard far more than whatever the hell is inside a HP or Dell this week.
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The good new, though, is that the machines are built with all off-the-shelf components, so if something breaks, it is easy to fix or replace.
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My favorite build right now for office machines is:
Motherboard bundle from MWave (AMD Athlon X2 AM2 3600+, Asus M2NPV-VM, Kingston 2GB DDR2 667MHz, Assembly + Test), Antec Sonata II case, DVD writer, floppy, (2) 250GB HDs running in RAID1. For someone who needs a bit more CPU power, we spend another $100 and upgrade to an Athlon64 X2 5000+ (
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I'm not sure whether this is really necessary any more. Taking a look at a Dell Dimension E521 [dell.com], which goes for $309, then who cares whether it's reliable or not. For that price you can have one or two spares. Properly configured desktops with not too much bullshit locally installed can just be swapped out and in. Call support and they can pick it up whenever they feel like it.
Please (Score:2)
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Also, I'd leave off a CD/DVD writer, why not use USB thumbdrives? Actually I'd probably leave off a drive altogether. Installation can be done via the network. For transfer of data outside of the network, as a business I'd prefer people to use VPN or else issue thumbdrives.
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HP Uses ASUS Motherboards (Score:2)
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I've had good experience with ASUS Motherboards in Desktops. Don't know what's inside HP laptops, but my last HP laptop broke shortly after I got it. It was under warranty so I thought "Hey, no problem!", only to find service consists of arguing with Indian Call Center workers who have been trained to think customers are cockroaches, and then fixed by a 'HP
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i've worked in computer repair for too long to really suggest anything but HP if you're going with one of the big companies. if you're going desktop, you'r
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the HP Media Center PC I bought for my wife is damn soild really. So has every other HP PC I've owned over the many years.
On the first and only HP PC I've bought both the motherboard and the hdd died in less than a year after I bought it new. Now, I used to love their calculators, I've still got my 15C which I've had for about 20 years.
FalconRe:Multinaional PC Companies lost the plot: Buy lo (Score:2)
Call center? Arrogant operator? Local guy?
I run a small company. Not even close to 100 computers. We have our "own" key account manager at Dell. This person has always been from Scandinavia (we are based in Norway). If we have a problem we call our key account manager who then takes care of business. We usually buy silver/gold support (the one which is maximum 4 hour assitance, 24/7).
I've never talked to an arrogant person at Dell customer service. Then one time I really needed som
Dells Bells (Score:2)
Your (good) experiences are with Dell. I was talking about HP. Dell did try and move their call centers to India a few years ago, but it was a complete disaster so to their credit they pulled out. Support needs to be "culturally sensitive."
> I would never put my trust in a local computer guy.
> The small computer stores usually don't last more than a few years.
> Also, most often, their service deals are actually more expensive
Outsourced Customer Support (Score:2)
Dell learned the folly of this few years ago, and to their credit pulled out, only to have HP blunder on and make the same mistakes a few years later.
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HP's Indian support only comes online for after-hours calls to their 24/7 support lines. And the nice thing is they are NOT glued to a damn script. I've actually called on a server that had 4-hour parts response at around 1am in the morning and the Indian call center picked up immediately. Even better, we didn't know exactly which hardware component was causing the problem and he said it was beyond him as well, so rather than fo
Clarification... (Score:5, Informative)
This doesn't rule out the smaller, local sources, but there can be a longevity issue there, as well as priority. Who says he can be there tomorrow with a replacement part in hand to get you back up and running? Yes, we're trying to save money, but staff time is more expensive than any single technology decision, so Linux and used computers are really not the way to go. We have adequate funding to get what we need, but we have to spend that funding wisely. When trying to standardize the products one uses, for ease of ordering, support, and keeping consumables in stock, making a bad decision can really set back the entire institution. And for that matter, when ordering 100 - 120 computers every 4 year cycle, paying an extra $50-$100 per computer can be worth it if you know you will get reliable, timely, and quality support for a quality product in return.
But how do you predict?
And to the individual who stated technology cycles every 3 years, I think that's a wonderful ideal. On a practical level, however, especially where smaller places with tighter budgets are concerned, a 4 year cycle makes more sense. Also makes it more worth investing a little extra up front.
Call them and ask them. (Score:4, Insightful)
So try to focus as much as possible on getting the SAME model for everything that is possible (without under-powering something).
Then get a couple of extra hard drives and a spare machine. In case of disaster, just drop in the spare machine or a replacement hard drive.
Otherwise, get on the phone and talk to the vendors about getting a 4 year, overnight replacement warranty on your hardware. Shop around. See what prices you're quoted.
Local sites will PROBABLY not be able to provide that kind of support. That requires a warehouse where you can leave extra parts. So don't expect that. Understand that you'll be storing your own emergency replacements AND spending the weekend getting the replacement server up and running after a disaster. You'll save money up-front AND maybe get some good-will. But you're trading your time for those savings.
If you keep churning the technology on a 3 year basis, you should be good.
If you're looking at 4 years, you're running a bigger risk. It depends upon what you're comfortable with. Hardware can fail at any time.
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I know of a number of organizations that were bit by the Dell Inspiron 1100/1150/5100/5100/5160 systems. (As someone that works day-to-day with fixing notebook computers, we run into a lot of these systems). These systems have a great deal of problems, from motherboard issues and overheating to physical problems with the design. The issues are serious and with some models these issues lead users to launch
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> How does an IT department reliably evaluate the big vendors to determine who's going to go the necessary distance
> and be a good business partner, especially for a smaller customer?
Exactly! Multinationals are focused on the next balance sheet. Once they have the money and you've signed for the boxes, you're a liability. Sure in theory if you like them you might buy something in the f
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> computer existing with a different patchwork of replacement parts and the driver hell that can go with that.
If you were building a PC five years ago, that would have been true.
The Motherboard *is* the computer. Changing a power supply, HDD or even memory won't make a scrap of difference. Add-ons won't bother you, since these days most peripherals go through USB rather than needing a card. There isn't that much
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Integrated everything in the motherboard fixes a lot of ills. Especially the NVIDIA chipsets. A motherboard based on NVIDIA chipset NNN can generally be swapped out for any other mothe
cycles (Score:2)
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Our planned lifespan for desktops is at *least* 5 years. (Hell, I'm still trying to retire some machines from 1998-1999.) The new machines (dual-core, 2GB, RAID1) will probably last us close to 10 years. Figure in year 5 or so, we'll boost the RAM up to 4GB, but otherwise those machines should be fine for general office work for the duration. The du
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On the other hand, if you go with a local vendor who builds the machines, the spare parts will always be available because they'll be industry standard parts. Whereas if you go with HP or Dell, you might find your spare part uses a non-standard connector or is a slightly different size. (Particularl
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The truth is nowadays you simply cannot take apart big names from local builders. But you know big names are more expensive (once upon a time Dell managed to ship decent equipment cheaper than a local builder could do, but that's not true anymore except for the cheapest crapware).
"there can be a longevity issue there, as well a
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The question is: who says the big name will have spare parts for you in a three year timeframe?
The fact that they sell 4 and 5 year warranties means that, to a limited degree, they have to. If we buy on a 4 year cycle and pick up a 4 year warranty, or really, even a 3 year warranty, they have to be able to provide parts during the warranty period. If they can't provide parts they're on the hook for entire replacement machines. And if hard drives or other commodity parts fail, those are easy enough to replace. Only motherboards and power supplies are likely to hang us up and though both have been get
HP = business class, Dell = consumer class (Score:2)
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What you can do is evaluate and shop around. I'd suggest you contact a few resellers/vendors that deal with de
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And there is an online site that you can order through.
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And that's where Dell falls down. An hour of my time is worth more than the cost of buying the part new. If I can call HP or Cisco or IBM and only spend 5 minutes getting the part sent out it actually costs less even in the short run, never mind the TVM equation...
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Only servers, we don't use/recommend their desktops or laptops at all.
Don't rule out Gateway (Score:2, Informative)
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Gateway sends out replacements on pretty much a "no questions asked" basis
Maybe it's different with organizations, business, or other institutions but I've bought 2 laptops from Gateway and everytime I've had to call tech support, which I had to do a lot, the first question I'd be asked after giving the rep the serial number of the PC was "has anything been installed?" If the answer was yes then I'd be told I had to reinstall Windows but nothing else and see if I still had a problem. With some things t
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Here's my take (Score:2)
I think Lenovo is worth investigating. They feel more durable than either HP or Dell too.
HP (for Windows) servers , Dell desktops/laptops (Score:2)
Re:HP (for Windows) servers , Dell desktops/laptop (Score:2)
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Dell. (Score:4, Informative)
Their PowerEdge servers are solid. I've had hundreds, maybe over a thousand, in service over the years and haven't experienced too many problems -- certainly nothing out of the ordinary.
Their Latitude laptops are pretty nice. Maybe not the nicest laptop in the world, all of mine have lasted at least three or four years, not including time spent in friend's and family's hands after I give them away. In service in the corporate environment, again, I've had very few issues.
In terms of service, I've never been disappointed. With Gold support, you get excellent service, IMHO. It does cost a lot, so be sure you need it first. But even with the lowest form of support, I've had decent experiences. Does it take longer to get ahold of someone? Of course. Do I have to wait longer for parts? Yup. But that's what I paid for, and it has never been excessive.
Anyhow, that's my short answer.
robert
Dell. Period. (Score:3, Insightful)
HP, however, has a ton of problems it needs to resolve. It's site is counter-intuitive, both on buying a system and getting support for whatever you have. It's offerings are very fixed, even after it borged Compaq. Some offerings have variations that are hard to find, and some even harder to find support to. I hear the customer service isn't worth the phone call.
I'm not sure about Lenovo, since they're owned by the Chinese government. Gateway I haven't heard from, but depending on how hard you're on laptops, maybe Panasonic?
Two Answers: (Score:2)
From a support view (Score:3, Informative)
At my last job, I ran a much, much smaller datacenter with only about 6 Dell servers (I use the term data center loosely). There we had what Dell called 'Gold level support'. The fact that I usually spoke with native English speakers was awesome all by itself. But I could usually get a tech on site much faster, and with much less hassle. And we got a direct line to Tier II support.
Ed Foster's Gripelog (Score:2)
However, on 2007-05-19 at 22:58 PM PDT his web site seems not to be functioning.
Low power now needed, reviews needed. (Score:2, Interesting)
The answer to "what kind of new computer?" is "It must be low energy consumption now."
The first point I would suggest is: Now is the time to begin aggressively moving to low energy consumption computing for general purpose office machines.
The conventional mass market machinery that I see is not dramatically better than my 700 mhz 19
Pick machines, not vendors (Score:2)
1. You can create a Norton Ghost install image so that deploying a new machine is easy.
2. Joe doesn't get upset because Suzy has a better PC.
3. When its time to buy the next model (after a couple years you'll typically have 2 or 3 in production at once) you can compete the major vendors for the best price and hardware.
Dell and 'business' line (Score:2)
The onsite warranty for the 'home' range isn't as good and harder to get someone out to fix.
For me the extended warrenty is the big selling point over HP.
Stear clear of big international brands (Score:3, Insightful)
Find a small or medium sized vendor, preferably headquartered in your area, that carries a good small-name brand, store brand, or whitebox lineup. Ideally you want systems composed entirely of bog-standard interchangeable off-the-shelf hardware components.
In Ohio, for example, there's an outfit called Microcenter, with locations in Columbus and Cleveland. They carry big-name computers like HP and so forth, but they also carry a whitebox brand called PowerSpec. After I discovered this brand we quit buying Dell and HP and so forth where I work.
I got tired of having a computer that's six months out of warrantee have a part go bad (a CD-ROM drive, say) and not being able to replace the part because it was non-standard in some way (e.g., designed to fit behind a non-standard case front). All the big international brands pull those sorts of schenanighans, for no good reason, and it leaves you with computers you can't service the minute they're out of warrantee and therefore must replace entirely when even a cheap component dies. Oops, I can't replace the power supply because it has a special connector for that weird fan in the front of the case. Oops, there's a case fan making a racket and I can't replace it because it has a non-standard mounting form factor. These are the sort of unpleasant surprises you can expect with the big brands. Usually you discover it about two months after the warrantee expires.
Do yourself a favor. Avoid the big international brands that like to have a new non-standard "feature" for each model line. Instead find a brand that uses 100% standard off-the-shelf components.
Dell (Score:2)
I disagree with the comments from people suggesting going with a local "white box" vendor. With Dell and others you can purchase machines for
Never buy a computer that rhymes with "Hell". (Score:3, Insightful)
Three years later she was saying "You were right". Every model was a unique design, the motherboards, power supply connectors, cases, and everything was designed to force you to replace the computer when you needed to upgrade, to force you to go to Dell for support, and when the warranty runs out you're out of luck.
HP? The HP desktops I've seen have been bog standard ATX cases and motherboards, maintainable and upgradable without HP's help. Much better value.
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Whatever you buy, make sure it's NOT part of a lock-in scheme.
What's in it for you? (Score:2)
Not really the issue.
1) How easy will it be for you to reimage one of these puppies? Will Dell/HP supply you with all of the drivers when you build your image or make you hunt?
2) When your lease is up, how bad will it be if you don't return, say, the original b
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And since this is about my third post correcting the misinformed I'll go ahead and lay out what we're recommending right now:
Servers = HP
Workstations = "whitebox" (either build it yourself or ha
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And they have a lifetime warranty! Something they really should play up to more in their marketing.
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Dell for desktops.
You have lots of money. While Dell had a good thing going the price of PCs are now low enough taking out a $1000+ service plan is now redundant if your I/T department and management can plan at all. Say your servicing 100 users...
Go out and buy 106 PC bundles at the local mega store, for this volume they will provide some extra service. Say you want 20 per week in the next 5 weeks and then the extra 6. Skip the fancy service plans, any that die are likely to die in the first 30-60 d
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