Laptop purchase help req'd from US forum members

Website · Post by **DaddyHoggy** » Tue Mar 23, 2010 2:10 pm

Long story short:

My boss and his boss are teaching a course in the US (at a US Uni/Military College) - they taught it last year, they will be teaching it next year.

Last year the US Uni failed to provide the right spec PCs for the course and this year, despite assurances to the contrary - with 3 weeks to go they have again admitted that they've stuffed up and cannot provide laptops of the correct specification.

Original plan was to hire them locally for the duration of the course. As this course now has at least two more years to run, my work, has decided to purchase the necessary laptops instead (we gain the assets whether the course runs for 2 more years or ad infinitum).

However, I've been tasked to come up with the Spec and find a company in the US that can deliver to the US Uni in time for the course (we will spec the machines, the US Uni will buy them and subtract any costs from the overall course fee).

So far, Dell (almost by default) has become the logical choice, specifically their newly purchased Alienware sub-division, because we can customise to the right spec and they can deliver in time (allegedly)

The laptop we're looking at is a slightly better spec'd version of this machine: http://www.dell.com/content/products/pr ... l=en&s=dhs

However, can anybody in the US recommend, some GOOD, reliable, online PC stores where I could purchase some laptops between these specs:

Absolute minimum:

Intel Core2 Duo 6600/2.4 GHz or better
Minimum 2 GB RAM
NVidia GeForce 8800 GTX or better GPU, dual head, minimum 512 MB RAM (or AMD Radeon equivalent), min screen res 1280x1024
Win XP SP3 32 bit

Desirable:

Intel Core2 Quad Q9550 or Core i7 920
3-4 GB RAM
NVidia GeForce GTX 285, 1 GB RAM, dual head, (or AMD Radeon equivalent), Win 7, screen res 1920x1080p

For about US$1500 per unit (the Alienware units come somewhere between the two (i5 CPUs Nvidia 240M GPUs).

Screen res is important as most laptops are WS now but we need a minimum res of 1024 in the V or some of our tailored gfx apps can't run.

We plan to buy 10 of them.

Any help much appreciated.

allikat · Post by **allikat** » Thu Mar 25, 2010 5:18 am

Check out and print out: http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductLi ... 0Core%20i7 then go to places that will price match newegg. I hear Frys will do that?

Chrisfs · Post by **Chrisfs** » Thu Mar 25, 2010 5:49 am

I buy all my computers second hand, but here's my two cents,
Dell is not a bad choice. It's a big reliable company.
I don't know about prices, but
BestBuy
OfficeDepot
OfficeMax
are all big name retail stores in the US with online sales as well.
Amazon comes to mind as well.

I ordered from NewEgg once a few years ago. Good prices and quick, but I made the mistake of giving them my home addess instead of my office address and they refused to change it when I realized there was no way I would home to get the package to sign for it, and they wouldn't allow the delivery company to leave it unsigned either.. So I just let it get returned and bought the item elsewhere.

Where will you be? Anywhere near San Francisco? If so, private msg me and we can have a beer or something.

Website · Post by **DaddyHoggy** » Thu Mar 25, 2010 9:11 am

Chrisfs wrote:
I buy all my computers second hand, but here's my two cents,
Dell is not a bad choice. It's a big reliable company.
I don't know about prices, but
BestBuy
OfficeDepot
OfficeMax
are all big name retail stores in the US with online sales as well.
Amazon comes to mind as well.

I ordered from NewEgg once a few years ago. Good prices and quick, but I made the mistake of giving them my home addess instead of my office address and they refused to change it when I realized there was no way I would home to get the package to sign for it, and they wouldn't allow the delivery company to leave it unsigned either.. So I just let it get returned and bought the item elsewhere.

Where will you be? Anywhere near San Francisco? If so, private msg me and we can have a beer or something.

Thanks for the info - and the offer of a beer - sadly - it won't be me coming out - it will be my two bosses and also - Detroit is the location of the course - as for what to buy and from whom - it looks like we're going for 10 of these:

http://www.shopping.hp.com/webapp/shopp ... mailconfig