I am a school teacher and my school needed replacement laptops for the slow old HP bricks we were currently using. The old laptops were running Win XP and I needed to be sure that a W7 machine will be compatible with our network. Advice given was to make sure it was 32bit W7 and not 64bit and to be aware that many laptops these days come with all sorts of 'bloatware' that may give us issues.

I chose PC-Specialist for this laptop simply because I could choose what was going to be inside it. I have used this company for personal gaming/video editing PC's twice before.

The specs were...

Genesis III: 15.6" HD LED Backlit 16:9 Widescreen (1366x768) Super Clear Glossy
Intel® CoreTMi5 Dual Core Mobile Processor i5-2410M (2.30GHz) 3MB Cache (Sandy Bridge processor)
4GB SAMSUNG 1333MHz SODIMM DDR3 MEMORY (2 x 2GB)
Intel® HD Graphics 3000 Video Memory Technology up to 1.7GB
250GB SERIAL ATA II 2.5" HARD DRIVE WITH 8MB CACHE (5,400rpm)
8x SATA DVD±R/RW/Dual Layer (+ 24x CD-RW)
Internal 9 in 1 Card Reader (MMC/RSMMC/SD: Mini, XC & HC/MS: Pro & Duo)
INTEGRATED GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS 802.11N CARD (AS STANDARD)
3 x USB 2.0 PORTS AS STANDARD
Genesis Series 6 Cell Lithium Ion Battery (4,400 mAh)
1 x UK Power Lead & 65W AC Adaptor
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 32 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£79)
INTEGRATED 2 BUTTON TOUCHPAD MOUSE
INTEGRATED 1.3 MEGAPIXEL WEBCAM
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)
£556.00

Many of the above specs were standard and even though I paid for it on my credit card, to be reimbursed by the school, they can at least get the VAT back.

The screen is a high aspect one and this make the laptop much smaller than the HP bricks we're replacing, even though its still a 15 inch display. It's a very nice case, glossy black and the keyboard has good size keys.

When I came to add it to our network, I realised that in the specs. I had inadvertently clicked W7 home premium, knowing full well that I needed professional to be able to join our domain. A quick call to PC-Specialist
and they agreed to take the home premium disk back, as long as I removed the license label off the back of the pc and returned the disk. I also must not have registered it so that they can assign it to another pc. I didn't activate it so I sent it back which has been acknowledged. Today is the first day back to school after the holidays and so maybe it'll come in the post today.

If this pc works with our network without major issues, we'll be buying many more. Maybe we'll get a bulk discount?

The delivery was a bit of a farce, which was probably due to a multitude of errors... Firstly, even though I paid for it, the laptop was due to be delivered to school, before the holidays. Last day came and went and no laptop. The address was just my name and postcode. No mention of the fact it was going to a school and therefore it couldn't be delivered. It eventually got re-routed to my home 4 days later. Oh well- mistakes happen. I have used PC-Specialist before for personal computers and both of these were delivered on time.

I'll add to this review as and when we have it on our network and is being used by the teacher and I've had time time to fully evaluate it. Lets hope the new disk with the all important key license comes soon.