Laptop Tips For Your Small Business June 5, 2009
Go High or Low for your Small Biz Laptop?
Your small business needs new laptops - do you go expensive or do you go cheap? What’s the best bang for your buck? And do you go PC or do you go Mac?
PC vs. Mac
Let’s tackle the last question first. PC vs. Mac. I personally was a lifetime PC user until my Windows-based laptop blew through its 3rd hard drive in 18 months. My Macbook Pro-loving, Photoshop-guru wife suggested again - as she did 18 months ago - that I switch to a Mac. This time I listened, bought a new Macbook and I’m extremely happy about it. Does that mean that I think an entire small business should go Mac for all of their users? No. But my case is a little different - I still have an XP machine that I can use and still have that stupid Vista laptop that trashed 3 hard drives if I want to stick another hard drive in it.
So, basically, I didn’t exactly dive in headfirst. But one full month of full-time Macbook use later and I’m hooked. And I’m a Project Manager/IT Consultant, which means most of my laptop use centers around the MS Office suite, and MS Project. I have MS Office for Mac, but there is no MS Project for Mac, so when I need it, I have to use OpenOffice…which so far seems to work fine and is very interchangeable with MS Project.
Expensive vs. Cheap
If you rule out Mac, you’ve already cut the price somewhat…meaning you no longer have to look at $500 vs. $1500-2500 in your price comparison. Now you’re down to comparing $500 laptops with $1000 laptops. Let’s assume you’re a small business with 15 users. That’s $7500 vs. $15,000…that’s a $7500 difference and also means you could replace/upgrade your cheaper computers again for the same price - or add to them if your company experiences growth.
I’m not a fan of paying a lot of money for a laptop. I used to be, but my laptop that killed hard drives was one of the more expensive ones and it certainly didn’t pay off for me. Meanwhile, my kids are using cheaper laptops and they are surviving longer (except for the necessary DC jack repairs due to misuse…teenagers!). I cracked open my laptop after this last hard drive issue and found out that the company replaced it (it was still under warranty then…but it isn’t now of course) with a refurbished sub-standard 3rd party hard drive - not one of the preferred big two like Seagate or Western Digital.
Summary
In my opinion, skip the Apple products, buy a Windows-based line and save your bucks for additional machines or the few replacement machines and fixes you may need to make. A $500 machine is going to get you everything you need: wireless networking, a 120-160Gb hard drive, a CD/DVD writer, a 15.4″ screen, and at least 2Gb of RAM if not more.
