Laptop Purchasing

(The information below is information. It should not be interpreted as a recommendation of any particular supplier. Better deals may exist. Worse deals certainly exist.)

Finance

The rules for who can fund what from where seem to change faster than the administrators making the rules can get them onto a website. I do not intend to try to out-type them. I would only comment that it is generally much easier to get things funded in advance, rather than to submit expenses claims after purchase. Expenses claims for things which could have been purchased via the University's systems tend to be refused.

(In mid-2019 Physics was refusing to allow laptops to be funded by a mixture of personal and non-personal money, but was allowing up to £1,500 of student's RTSG money to be used, with the supervisor's consent. Physics believes than anything it buys it owns and insures, and vice versa.)

Choice

People purchasing laptops have very different priorities. In no sense does one size fit all.

Screen size, weight and battery life may be important. The upgradeability of the memory and disk may be worth considering, along with the replaceability of the battery. One may wish to consider warranties, and also insurance cover.

I don't believe that powerful CPUs are generally helpful. They make laptops heavier, and the battery life shorter. If run for any significant period of time, the laptop may well become noisy, and/or start to overheat. The same CPU in a desktop is likely to support faster memory too (and ECC), leading to faster, and more reliable performance. Running a desktop 24/7 is much easier than running a laptop 24/7.

Discounts

The University has negotiated discounts with several major manufacturers. In some cases these discounts are available also for private purchases (via personal credit/debit cards).

The University's list of "framework contracts" can be found on the Procurement Office's website. It is possible to purchase from suppliers not listed there.

Apple

The University will not buy Apples from Apple (don't ask).

It will buy via this national agreement (link works from Cambridge IP addresses only). Price-lists appear not to be available (they were in the past).

Individuals can make personal purchases from the EDU store. This is open to all staff and students at Cambridge. It offers significant discounts on some fixed configurations, rather less discount on build-to-order machines, and it seems to offer a free warranty extension too. Of course individuals may also purchase from Apple directly, or from Apple's own education store, which can be cheaper than the EDU store if Apple is running an educational promotion (which it generally does around August).

Dell

Dell offers a Premier Portal behind which lie reasonable discounts. Unfortunately the portal is accessible via individual accounts only, and I do not believe that students can register. I (MJR) do have an account, so can forward quotes.

The good news is that Dell accepts personal orders at the pricing on this portal (subject to a few terms and conditions to stop you becoming a Dell reseller). As a 10% discount on a £1,000 laptop can be worth having, do ask if considering a personal purchase of a Dell. The discounts available are quite variable, and cover accessories too. Dell sells some laptops with Linux pre-installed.

Others

The University quite likes HP, Lenovo and Acer amongst others. With a reasonable reason, almost anything can be purchased, save via eBay and, in general, Amazon.

Note that HP laptops are also available via the EDU store.

The End

The last word must be that a laptop alone is not a suitable desktop replacement. If you spend long hours typing directly on a laptop you risk all sorts of muscular and eyesight problems. Do dock your laptop to an external keyboard, mouse and monitor if you wish to work from it. All monitors in TCM have a spare VGA socket for this purpose. All recently-purchased monitors in TCM have a spare HDMI socket for this purpose. There is no reason to unplug any desktop - they all use DVI, which no laptop does.

If your laptop is foreign, and so uses a foreign plug, rather than using some dodgy UK to foreign converter, do obtain the correct UK lead for your power supply. Stores should be able to provide, as can I. (MJR).

And finally, if important work is on your laptop, do back it up! Preferably lots! The list of possible backup destinations is huge.