Earlier in the week, I ranted about how difficult it seems to be to get enough use-able computers into a school.

One problem I’ve noticed is that we tend to buy newer, more expensive machines. While new computers are nice and all, that amount of computing power is simply unnecessary for kids doing research on the internet and formatting documents in an Office Suite.

The New Computers…

If the brand spankin new machines were dirt cheap, I wouldn’t care. But here’s the problem. My school recently bought a ton of new computers – one for each classroom, and enough to fill the library (15 computers) and some administrative offices, and possibly enough for a couple of computer labs (which are used full time by certain classes).

What type of computer did we buy? I checked today. A Dell OptiPlex 755. Under the K-12 section of the Dell website, the Desktop version costs approximately $1,130. The Small Form Factor version is slightly more, at $1,169, and I’m not sure which we got.

I suppose we might have gotten a bulk discount, although I’m unsure if the Dell K-12 website already includes potential discounts. Either way, that’s got to be at least $1,000 or so per computer. Do we really need to spend that much?

Oh, and these computers still have floppy drives. Umm… wtf?

Cheaper Alternatives

In my last post, I mentioned some cheaper alternatives. I’ve reconsidered some of them – I underestimated the overall cost of the barebone kits from TigerDirect. I didn’t realize that they also didn’t have hard drives and CD/DVD drives.

But, I’d still bet you could buy something of great quality for about half the price. Heck, I went to Best Buy last Spring and bought a brand new computer, with 19″ High Def monitor and printer, for less money (~$750).

I just browsed through the TigerDirect site, and I was able to piece together a PC that’s comparable to the Dell OptiPlex 755 for about $375. That doesn’t include the monitor/keyboard/mouse, so you could call the final price $550.

• $29.99 – Case and Power Supply
• $199.99 – Motherboard and Core 2 Duo Processor (2.6ghz)
• $19.99 – CPU Cooling Fan
• $54.99 – 4gb RAM (Dual Channel DDR 2)
• $39.99 – 80gb Hard Drive
• $29.99 – DVD/CD Rewritable Drive

And I’m still confident that you could put together a machine with ample-but-less power and eke out between $4-500, monitor and all.

/sigh.  I’m sure glad we got those Dells.

At least I’m sure glad someone did. I’m still waiting for the new Dell to be installed in my room.