donald said:
Does anyone have any idea where I can find a comparison of the HP/Compaq
home class computer and the business class computer? I usally build the
computers in our company but the higherups want me to purchase the home
class computers. I think this is a mistake since you have absolutly no idea
what type of hardware is going into the machines. Not to mention the CRAP
which comes preloaded on each computer.
HP is very much in flux these days. However, traditionally HP's
high-end machines have been superlative, lasting for many years and
working and performing extremely well. This is a bit less so for
Compaq, which built good machines but put so much Compaq-specific junk
on them that they were hard to run and maintain. HP's consumer stuff
is the same as everyone else's, as far as I know.
If you buy consumer-grade computers, they'll probably fail sooner.
This is not a problem if you plan to replace them regularly, anyway.
It's a considerable extra expense if you wish to keep them for a long
period, though.
The last two computers I bought were rock-bottom SonBook cheapos.
They lasted about 18-24 months, not counting numerous initial failures
(mainly fan failures). The latest two computers (which replaced the
cheapos) are homebuilt machines; they didn't really cost any more than
the cheapos, and hopefully they will last a lot longer. The
difference is that you get whatever the vendor provides when you buy a
ready-made cheapo, whereas if you spend the same money on a machine
you configure and build yourself, every dollar you spend goes to
something you want and need, and none of it is wasted on frills that
you don't require. So you get more bang for the same buck.
I don't know that it's practical to build your own machines in a
corporate environment (depends on how many machines you have, but
probably it's not cost-effective), but the question of cheapo vs.
high-end quality is more difficult to answer.
When I worked for a major IT vendor, we bought corporate machines from
a variety of vendors over the years: Gateway, Dell, Compaq, HP
(rarely). Servers were Compaq Prolinea. Printers were always HP.
Desktops varied: Gateway was dirt cheap but garbage inside ("no two
Gateways are ever the same inside" was what they told me, and you
could recognize someone who had been working on a Gateway by the cuts
on his skin from the unfinished metal frames of the machines). Dell
was usually pretty good. Compaq similar, although too much
Compaq-specific junk. HP was good but rare, since HP machines were
very expensive and this company typically upgraded all machines every
24 months or less.
