What Laptops would you choose for corporate environment?

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Hi Guys, I have been looking into refreshing a couple of older Dell laptops (D430's) to full size machines with better performance. We are predominantly Dell although we have no alliance to any particular brand as we have under 10 users and are therefore have the benefit of being very dynamic and flexible in our choices! I have contacted Dell to get some details on some models and they want £700 for there bottom line Latitude machine which is an E5520 (I3, 3gb ram, 250GB HDD & integrated video card) this spec would suit our needs perfectly although it seems expensive compared to the Vostro 3550 (I5, 3gb ram, 500GB HDD & 1GB graphics) which comes in at £620 but has the drawback that it does not dock, why would dockable models be more expensive, look worse and have much less performance compared on the same price range of a different model from the same vendor?

I have also looked into HP and they have offered a dockable 6555b (with similar specs to the dells but with AMD Phenom II CPU's) laptop for £517 that is looking pretty good compared to the Dell's!

Has anyone used HP and Dell Laptops and can confirm whether their is much difference in build quality/general weight/overall performance?

Should i look into some additional brands? Any in particular?

What laptops would you buy (that docks) with a budget of £500-700 for the base machine?

Do any vendors supply laptops with no images, as we have lots of licences we can transfer?

Thanks in advance!
-Asterix

 

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Last work laptop I had was HP, build quality was good but think they're not cheap. Never had an AMD chipset in a laptop, not sure if its a good idea or not, maybe AMD has caught up by now.

Dell build quality has been very suspect in my experience.

Think few people on here like Acer laptops for SOHO use.

 

We have a mix of Acer, HP and Stone Laptops where i work, I don't really use any but I like Toshiba laptops.

Just did a quick google and came across these guys

View our great range of all round Laptops @ Novatech

not used them so may be worth investigating..

 

we use thinkpads. x201i and x220i. very good

 

Novatechs a local company to me, they are pretty good generally, they import lot stuff from asia obviously, so got lot unbadged cheap laptops, not sure if they upto company use though.

 

We use HP laptops some Dell XPS. My previous job we used Thinkpads and Toshiba laptops. In a corporate environment you need a laptops that can take abuse. Unfortunately users don't care much if it is company equipement as opposed to their own. On that note the Dells were not as sturdy as the others.

 

Dell E6410's, a great work horse but it's starting to get EOL now days.

I like some of the HP stuff as well as Lenovo, not too keen on Toshiba tho.

 

I have a laptop that I use on a daily basis and it is an HP - actually I like it so much I use it at work instead of the desktop at my desk. I also come into contact with quite a few Dell laptops at work. Honestly I don't see much difference in the new Dells & new HP's that are of similar price range and specs. But, there are a couple people at work that will swear that Dell is much better than an HP. Actually they'll tell you that an ASUS, thinkpad, or Toshiba are better than Dell and I disagree.

 

I've personally never liked acers very much all of the ones i've seen are low quality builds which do not stand up to the rigours of a road warrior or frequent home worker who does not care a hoot about it cause "its not theirs". Dell is fairly similar and the HP seem to be slightly higher quality.

I would try and get them to splash out a bit more for some proper thinkpads or better yet toughbooks(hehe). I guess at the 5-700 mark they are all going to be much of a muchness just go for the ones that have all the features you want decent spec and look alright.

 

Thanks Guys, much appreciated!
No real bad feedback on the HP range so think I will be going for them! As for a Supplier, I will be going to HP direct (as it is a business account) which is much cheaper (£140) than buying from a reseller, although the prices Dell gave me direct do not seem any cheaper that just purchasing the same models online from a reseller!

 

What usually happens with a decent hardware vendor who wants to use a dealer network rather than selling directly is that they will offer the reseller discounted goods and sell directly to market at an increased markup, this leaves the resellers as being the go - to people where that brand is concerned. I have a friend who runs a company that sells to a dealer network and yes customers can buy directly from him.. but his direct pricing doesn't compete with his dealers (it makes one off purchases ok but repeat business will always go through a network).

It makes sense if you want to rely on a network but it's coming to the point these days where the likes of Dell and HP don't need that and do sell directly to the end user, it's only the likes of ComputaCenter that now get decent discounts that they can pass onto their clients but unless you buy in comparitive bulk it's not worth it these days.