Discussion on:

Deciding which laptop your IT consultancy should sell

"In addition, these systems are likely to provide the same lifecycle or reliability of business-class machines."
I think you meant "aren't".

I had the same experience at my previous employer. It was decided high-up to get cheap consumer-end laptops. Of course we would install our own software on them (Win7 Enterprise, Office 2007/2010 etc) - but the build quality simply wasn't enough. With a workforce largely consisting of mobile workers including lawyers and copy-editors, many laptops quickly had loose hinges, missing keys, and defective mice.

We also had some enterprise equipment, I was lucky enough to be able to buy one from the company when I left - an HP EliteBook 6930p. We also had the HP 6730b (not labeled, but I believe it's considered part of the ProBook series) which was decent as well but rather plasticky.

I lost count how many times my customers decided I was wrong and went out and bought $400 machines...both desktop and laptops. Then said, "We've bought the computers, we just need you to connect them to the network." You clearly have a very good customer base Erik.

BTW....I closed my business. I still do freelance work and have had some good months from it, but I won't be getting wrapped up in this kind of frustration any more.

Honestly....most small businesses really don't need a directory service. You have to get beyond my definition of "small" before worrying with things like group policy becomes practical...let alone necessary. They do need a file server and virtualization platform though. So I would, and still will, hook them up to the Samba servers I installed, mapping drives on login with a .bat, etc. and install the virt clients, even when they went out and bought the cheapo specials. But they pay my rates to do that, and if it breaks the next day, it's their problem.

Laptops/Notebooks used heavily or frequently suffer great wear and tear. So better build and servicing are must.

They both used to be good, but after getting burned on both, I swore off of them. These days I like ASUS. Thinkpads also have a good rep.

I have stopped selling hardware as such quite a few years ago -- not worth my hassle -- I advise my clients to buy at Tiger Direct or other online sources and I will do the part that makes the stuff play nice together -- end of story.

I've been reselling Dell business PCs for years. I really like their products, and I find their tech support to be excellent. As a result, I haven't shopped HP or Lenovo for many years.

I recently ordered a Precision Mobile Workstation M4600 (supports two internal drives). It has been on order for over a week now and hasn't shipped. Dell provides no information on the production status of their products, so I just have to wait. While I'm glad that my client's current laptop is still running, the delay is irritating the client.

While this client has special needs (which is why I chose this particular laptop), this is a standard model that Dell sells.

I will be looking long and hard at HP and Lenovo as backups to Dell. If Dell had a better way to determine delivery time before and after the sale, I wouldn't have to do this.

I've had to explain the difference between consumer computers and corporate for many years and it is tough to get across.
A couple of points that I would add:
Adding a consumer computer to a domain can invalidate the warranties offered by retailers like best buy unless you had upgraded to their 'business use' warranty.
Due to the rapid release schedules for consumer models when you call a major vendor like Dell for support the experience is entirely different for corporate and consumer. Consumer support techs are supporting dozens of models and may never have seen your flavour of the month. Corporate support techs will have several models to support but they are all based on just a couple of architectures.
In any case, powerful laptops are becoming a niche product and they'll all be disposable consumer devices soon enough IMHO.

I know all the cost-benefit stuff on having standard systems but it's mostly unexamined assumptions. If you are providing laptop support, it seems at first glance that having one brand and configuration will be the easiest to support, but after three years,you realize that no matter what your specs are, laptops bought 18 months after the initial purchase are different from those now being bought today and from those purchased initially 18 mos earlier.

And the users calling on the phone cannot tell you the difference. OTOH (I found this out when we had contracting officers who changed every year), if the first year you give out Dells, then next year you do Lenovo, then do Acer or whatever, the users can usually read you off the brand name. And the support person, given the brand name, only has to know it's one of two or three configurations at most.

As a solo IT consultant for micro businesses, I'm not ready or willing to take on the load of becoming a product vendor. I do, however, help clients make purchase decisions based on their needs, then charge a reasonable fee to integrate the unit(s) into their environment. That leaves me free to act more as an I.T. staffer than a vendor. So far, the Dell Vostro with an Intel i5 is the best deal that I've found for notebooks.