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Just wondering what people were going with these days? We usually go with Dell Latitude E64XX’s but they stopped offering reasonable configurations in the last couple months. Today I went to order 3 new for our organization and found only 2 builds:

  1. i5, 4GB RAM, 320 GB HDD, standard graphics - $1099

  2. i7, 8GB RAM, 500 GB Hybrid drive, Radeon graphics - $1656

Option 1 is too slow. We NEED SSD pre-configured here. Will never buy a laptop without SSD. We can add on one after purchase, but this is more work for our team (i.e. it adds cost to the bottom line). Option 2 is ludicrously expensive. We don’t need i7 or discrete graphics. Hybrid drives might be okay, but I’m not paying almost $1700 for a computer without a full SSD. BTW - Last time I called our rep, they said this is all they have to offer. No option to customize a system to our needs.

All we need is:

i5, 4 GB RAM, 128 GB SSD, standard graphics, Win 7 Pro

How are the Lenovo T-series looking these days? Anyone use HP? I can’t seem to make sense of all their options. Which HP is closest to the E64XX series? Any other vendors I should be looking at?

Thanks!

@HP @Dell_Technologies

5 Spice ups
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have you tried talking to a dell sales rep to get what you want?

3 Spice ups
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The Lenovo’s are awesome. That’s all I get anymore! Their support is much better than Dell’s too IMO

3 Spice ups
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The beauty of Dell is having someone to phone up and get a quote on exactly what you need. Ditto their server part picker - never has all the options you want.

2 Spice ups
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depending on what size screen you need. the T440s with SSD fits your pricing and spec requirements. almost the same as the dell I5.

6

I’d definitely talk with a Dell rep, as others suggested. Dells configuration pages can be extremely limited.

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I think Dell is slowly getting out of personal computers and concentrating on servers and storage. I live right behind their offices and the building that takes care of desktops/laptops has a nearly empty parking lot.

HP ProBooks thru CDW +++

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We can still get Latitudes configured to our whim if the wind blows the right direction. (Seems like the latest models always take a bit to show up under the custom configure-enator.) We’re also a Dell Partner, so that might have something to do with the availability we see - It certainly impacts our pricing!

1 Spice up
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Our company purchased the HP EliteBook 850 G1’s when they first came out. They had a special then:

256GB SSD

16GB RAM

i5 proc

15 inch screen (1920x1080 native)

802.11AC wifi.

$1199.

Smoking fast, love my laptop. Its an ultrabook class, weights right around 3.5 pounds. It looks like that same build will run you around $1900 now. Can’t recommend it enough.

HP EliteBook 850 G1 page

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I got a 1st generation Lenovo X1 Carbon w/8GB, i7 2.5GHz and a 256GB SSD drive for ~1200 bucks from CDW. This was a promo price so I’m sure it’s no good but I bet if you call CDW you could negotiate the price if they still have gen 1 X1 Carbons in stock.

You may pay a bit more for Lenovo sometimes but the fact that their support is based in Atlanta, GA and nowhere else. That’s worth the money in my opinion. I never have to ask for US support / native English-speaking support. Warranty issues are rare but I’ve always had good experience dealing with warranty returns.

You do have to work with your rep whether it’s with CDW or another reseller. Dell folks are rather inflexible in my experience. I think they figure that if you’re calling Dell you want a Dell and will pay what they want you to pay. That’s why I took my business elsewhere.

@Dell_Technologies

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Thanks for the Lenovo mentions!

There are a lot of options that you can customize here when it comes to what you want. If you get a ThinkPad E540 from our small business E-Series line at our Spiceworks store, you can get it with an i5 processor, 4GB of RAM, a 128GB SSD, a 15.6" screen, and Windows 7 Pro preinstalled. If you are interested in the T-Series line, but still want that 14" screen, I’d probably look at the T440 . You can get this with an i5 processor and the 128GB SSD, but it’s going to be a bit more expensive than the E540.

What is your budget looking like?

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The HP EliteBook 850 G1 is a great option. We have one with 4GB RAM and 240 GB SSD for $1,242.49. Not sure if that is in your price range, but it is a solid laptop!

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Hey Adam, I’d recommend checking out HP’s new line of Elite 700 series notebooks. They’re powered by the AMD PRO A-Series APUs and combine the power AMD CPUs and Radeon GPUs on a single energy efficient chip.

This one should meet all of your requirements at 14", with Windows 7, 4 GB RAM and a 180 GB SSD priced at $1139!

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I can see the explanation on not installing the SSD yourself except that you said you are getting 3 machines. If it were 50 or 100 sure that takes a lot of time. I could swap the drives in 3 E64XX in about 5 min. If you use an image then the excuse of preloaded drive also goes out the window. Don’t get me wrong i would probably not settle for this either and just call the Sales Rep. We tend to find things on Outlet as new especially when there is no rush.

I have worked with Lenovo Warranty Support and you can pretty much count on getting only about 50% onsite first time fix. We had on site NBD warranty to match the Pro Support onsite NBD from Dell. On many occasions they would not send a tech for field replacement and the machine would have to go back to the Lenovo Depot and take at least 5 business days. Then when i did get them to send a Tech about 50% of the time they broke something else while working on the machine. Not sure if this was poorly built parts or terrible techs. Either way i was corrupted to not want to go down that road again. This was in the Denver Area. Maybe Techs are better in other places?

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The options usually are HP EliteBook, Dell Latitude, Lenovo Thinkpad T-series and now Dell has something that is not so sturdy but fits the bill for most business: Vostro 5470 (bought one last month and it does the job and is very fast with 128GB SSD, discrete graphics, i5, etc).