Need to buy 8 computers

[kami333]

I'm pricing out computers to buy, due to support and staff reasons we'd like to go with HP. Dell is out since our IT department won't touch them. I've dealt with HP's Business side in the past at my old job and the support and replacement policies were wonderful, not too sure about the Home side. Is there a significant difference?

I'm working with a budget of $800-1000each, mainly used for Word and Powerpoint, less frequently for some light Photoshop and number crunching/analysis.

Looking at something along the lines of:

HP Compaq dx2300 Microtower
Genuine Windows? XP Professional-
Intel? Pentium? 4 641 3.20-GHz, 2-MB L2 cache, 800-MHz FSB
Intel? 946GZ Express chipset
1.0GB PC2-5300 DDR-667 DIMM (2x512)
80GB SATA SMART III Hard Drive
Integrated ATI X300 Radeon graphics
48X DVD-ROM/CDRW combo drive
Add a monitor $250ish
Comes out to about $900

Any thoughts?

 

[Stiganator]

I have a Dell Optiplex 745 for $350 if you're interested (spec'd about the same as yours) . We are trying out HPs, since we've been losing a lot of Dell PSUs lately. They haven't had any issues yet (9months). Can't really comment on the support, sales was a bit of hassle because IMHO their website is terrible.

 

[ryan256]

Yeah I'd say HP is your next best bet. Might want to look at IBM too.
What have they got against Dell? Gold business support has always been able to get stuff done when we've called.

 

[kami333]

I don't know, our IT department just doesn't like them. We are a research lab so while we get our support from them, our IT hardware budget is seperate. Which is nice, got a nice huge grant to work with so we can be budget concsious but not penny pinching.

What's the "standard" office configuration these days, last time I ordered a bunch was over a year ago so I've been out of the loop. I was thinking about getting P4 with 1GB as the standard, maybe get a Core Duo with 2GB for an imaging workstation.

 

[zagood]

Haven't used HP to order in a while, the only thing I can think of is that they may push you to get Vista on the machines. Make sure your office/lab peripherals have Vista drivers set up for them before going that route.

-z

 

[RebateMonger]

My standard office cofiguration is:

XP Professional
Lowest-priced Core2Duo processor
1GB of RAM
A hard drive
Integrated Aero-compliant Graphics unless they want dual monitors or need higher-end graphics
DVD-ROM/CDRW drive
19-inch LCD, preferably NOT wide-screen

We've been seeing these from Dell with XP Pro, Office 2003 SBE (and, up til a few days ago, free Vista/Office 2007 upgrades), complete with LCD for about $1200, give or take depending on promotions.

Watch out. Some of these PCs no longer have parallel ports or serial ports!