Laptop Conundrum

[whotheheckami]

Alexi leaves his Primary School and starts at Secondary School in the Autumn. Mendi and I have chosen this school because it has attracted Beacon Status for IT and technology. This means that a large proportion of lessons make use of PC and pupils are encouraged to use Laptops. The school has a pool of them for each year-group and they are shared, but they have a scheme where you can lease-to-buy your child's own laptop.

This year's model is:

Toshiba Satellite Pro 2100
Celeron 1.8Ghz processor
256 Mb RAM
30 GB Hard DIsk
DVD/CDRW drive
Wireless LAN integrated
14.1" TFT Screen
56k Modem
LAN 10/100
Microsoft Windows XP Pro
Microsoft Office XP
Typing Tutor Software
Anti-virus software
Insurance

Cost is £26.75 per month for 36 months (£963)

What do you think? Should we go for it? Or should we buy one separately and let Mendi bung it through her business accounts?

Comments

[daemongirl.livejournal.com]

i dunno love.

[dotty.livejournal.com]

More to the point, would Mendi get hers VAT-exempt if bought via business? If so, I would go for Mendi buying it (same specs, VAT exempt). If not, then go for the thing at school.

Re:

[whotheheckami.livejournal.com]

Not sure about the VAT - will check, thanks

[coxtrill.livejournal.com]

I can find it in a couple of places: Kelkoo £820ish, and what seems to be a Toshiba run website: £950ish. without insurance.

It looks a very nice machine and you probably will only just match the price on something similar at best.

I would probably go for it. But its your decision.

(I would also probably see if I could buy in one payment cheaper from the school but then I don't know your financial position)

Re:

[whotheheckami.livejournal.com]

We're tempted to go ahead with it because it seems the path of least resistance and the schooll technical support team are very wary about working on other equipment.

[hawkida.livejournal.com]

That's this year's model... but if you're leasing do you get to swap for a newer model later? If so that may be better. In five years it'll probably be a doorstop, after all so having the techies willing to work on his machine would probably be useful and worth the cost overall. Probably.

I dunno, though, I'd be tempted to buy despite this. And my laptop is well over a year old and still perfectly good - it's a Toshiba, too.

Re:

[whotheheckami.livejournal.com]

The lease is for a three-year fixed period (no bale out or cancellation) and the expectation is that you sign up for the next annual scheme when you consider your machine to have been passed over by technology

[lostcarpark.livejournal.com]

It's a good spec (although whenever I read these things, I automatically go into "but how much for an extra 256MB" mode).

Price seems reasonable. I would make sure I know the total cost of credit (i.e. the difference between the total of the installments and the total cash price if you buy it now) before I sign on the bottom line.

Re:

[whotheheckami.livejournal.com]

>>total cash price if you buy it now