Deals on Small Business IT Equipment

utsc on 17/07/2022 - 11:57
Last edited 17/07/2022 - 12:24 by 1 other user

My mate is setting up a small cloud-based office with minimal or no local storage. Mate is considering 4 or 5 Lenovo, HP or Dell Tiny PC or regular PC wth 27" Display. Business machines rarely go on offer directly from the manufacturer.

He has Commercial membership for Good Guys, Harvey Norman, and JB Hi-Fi
1) Any suggestion on a good reseller or any other way to get value for money than buying at inflated prices directly from the manufacturer?

2) Any suggestion between Tiny, SFF or regular PC? Getting a powerful (gaming) laptop and connecting via a docking station might cost the same.

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  Elegant Giant on 17/07/2022 - 12:36

  +1

  From your question:

  1) No, no good suggestions
  2) Tiny / SFF systems can be great to buy, but limited options for expanding system parts if needed. They look good and can allow for smaller impact setups (tidy desks), but if you find you need a more powerful system / more RAM / a GPU, this can be limited.

  Things to consider as well:

  • If you're setting up a cloud-based office, consider laptops over a desktop, to permit remote working as needed
  • If you're getting laptops, gaming laptops are of course more powerful, but will be louder - decide what the need for the laptops will be (office work, design work etc) and if you don't need the power, you may not need a 3080 as part of the laptop
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  CodeXD on 17/07/2022 - 12:43

  How attached are you to the 27"?

  You can get a few of these for pretty cheap, but they come with 23". Deal is marked as expired but looks like it is still the same price.

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  MrHyde on 17/07/2022 - 12:53

  +2

  Second the recommedation on getting laptops over desktops. When we set up our office; we negotiated Lenovo laptop prices with CPL and got them at a good price - at later times; directly from Lenovo was the best we could get - Cashback was good as well.

  Get laptops, docks and 2 monitors per location and you've got a reasonable solution.

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  Mechz on 17/07/2022 - 13:47

  Refurb Lenovo tiny PCs like the ones on sale last week are ideal if still available.

  To me, when you say 'cloud based office' I would take that to mean you don't need much processing power.

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    GordonD on 17/07/2022 - 14:58

    That's the important question, what sort of work will these "cloud based" computers be doing, and accordingly how powerful do they need to be.

    Along with whether there any value in them being being able to be taken away, that is laptops. And if they are laptops, could they be chromebooks.

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  pharkurnell on 17/07/2022 - 16:36

  We run Dell micros at work with the Dell Micro All-in-One Stand with 24s mounted to them.. work really well

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  utsc on 18/07/2022 - 09:46

  Thank you all for the feedback.

  Will shop around for inventory clear-out of last year's models. I am inclined to recommend SFF which seems to be a good compromise between size and upgradability. There are going to be permanent workstations with logins for cloud-based setup so laptop will not be an advantage.