The Graduates

I'm looking at creating a new line of custom desktop/laptops to sell.

I would like comments on setups for a couple of distinct lines.

For business, there are two types of PCs.

Desktop - Desgined to run MS Office and Internet. Very basic business class PC.

Workstation - Desgined for Graphics Arts, or Engineering users (Gamers)

There are also 2 types of Laptops.

Travel - Desgined for someone on the move being small, light weight and inline with a basic Desktop.

Workstation - Basically, a glorified PC on wheels.

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So... comments on a standard configuration for each?

What kind of OS's are you offering with them?

My company just switched to Vista Business and it's really not bad at all for a standard office PC (word processing and internet). It also provides some handy tools for us IT folks like the live search funtion and whatnot.

But I'm a closet Linux fan, so I've been looking for a laptop that can dual boot a Windows OS and a Linux OS so that I can connect to any network and run my security tools and whatnot.

EDIT: it'd also be nice to run EVE on it

Windows XP/Vista would be the options for OS.

You'd like the last workstation class laptop I built.

I can load any flavor *nix on it also for options.

What's your price ranges and whatnot?*

Where are you based? (for shipping and whatnot)



*of course, I have to ask this question, because the old lady's having a fit that I want yet another laptop, lol

Bear in mind that these comments come from someone who ISNT an IT professional, just someone who's been shopping for PCs/laptops recently:

PC - Desktop (Office & T'internet)
Generally needs a decent amount of RAM (1Gb) and a decent but not brilliant processor to keep prices down, somewhere about a 1.8GHz Duo processor is about right at the moment. For work only a 120Gb HDD is needed, 19" flat screen monitor, probably wont need anything more than integrated graphics card. Probably should make it available with Vista and XP options, some businesses want to update PCs but not yet get Vista (no budget to upgrade their other 300 PCs just yet).

PC - Workstation (Graphics/Engineering & Gaming)
1.5 - 2Gb RAM minimum (upgradable as an option), 256Mb graphics card, high end processor (quad?), buckets of HDD space, 19" or 21" widescreen monitor (with dual monitor support) and DVD -/+ writer. Offer lots of upgrade options on this PC, because lots of people will want to upgrade something.

Laptop - Travel
Pretty much the same kind of area as the desktop PC - keep it cheap and cheerful. The people buying these will only be using it for t'internet and email, so no fancy stuff needed. In fact, if you can get a low price point per unit you can probably get a lot of good business. Plenty of people who just want to surf/email and dont have space for a desktop (i.e make sure it has wi-fi as standard - ease of use is the priority).

Laptop - Workstation
Laptops suffer from lack of easy upgradability once you buy them, so go in at a decent high end for these systems. Focus especially on the graphics side of the laptop: 17" widescreen monitors, 128 + 256Mb graphics card options, 160Gb + HDD. People wanna game with their laptops or download movies for when they're away from home; play to those strengths.

Just my $0.02...