Adrian Brentnall wrote
Bill wrote
Weatherlawyer wrote

Here is a recycling charity that I know is very good for what they
attempt:
http://www.terc.org.uk/

To try to wind up this thread, here's where we are after having a brief
discussion about the actual need.

It's for a school that needs temporary computer provision. He is hoping
to connect 25 machines wirelessly. I have expressed grave doubts about
doing this with just one router or access point.

Likely to have problems with a 25-into-one connection, I'd have thought.

Nope, our highschools manage a lot more than that fine.

Depends if they all need access to something at the same time..??

Nope.

The school has MS Office licences so he doesn't need to buy machines
with that installed. He doesn't know which version they are on.

He is not sure whether the school can install the OS, but getting
machines with XP should be no problem.

Ex-corporate machines seem to have the hard disk wiped - and you 'may' get
XP put on them by the vendor...

My experience with the company named below was that, in formatting the
hard drive, they also installed an OEM XP (which didn't match the COE
sticker on the laptop, so couldn't be legally registered). They's also
failed to provide the laptop-specific utilities - so power save didn't
work, neither did the various function keys (brightness / volume /
trackpad etc)
Took some hours trawling the net to get back to 'usable'.

He wants large laptops to get decent keyboards and all-in-one units,
ideally that can be run on battery for about 2 to 3 hours per day, as the
room only has standard desks without power. He was hoping to be able to
have all machines put away on charge overnight. I have expressed
doubts about the battery life and battery usability on old machines.

Battery is the thing that goes first - so budget for new 25 batteries to
go with the 25 laptops. My laptop, when running on battery, wants to dim
the screen to extend the battery life (can be defeated, but then the
battery life drops).

Thanks everyone for the suggestions of dealers and charity suppliers
here (the school is a registered charity). I will have a preliminary
ring around tomorrow to see if any have any suggestions or offers.

Avoid cheaplaptops.ie or any of their clone companies (generally part of
TekOne ITS UK Ltd) - I had a very bad experience with them. Don't deal
with any company that doesn't have a contact phone number listed on their
website. If your man is intent on following this route (which seems full
of potential problems) then he should be able to get a reasonable discount
on that quantity of boxes.

I, and he, certainly don't have the time or inclination to set anything
up with Linux for this. He just wants something that will work with no
fuss. He says they have a good IT technician to help setting it up and
who will sort out security issues.

Lucky old IT technician! - he's going to have so much fun!
If they've got their own IT tech then I'd be tempted to pass it over to
him / her. Otherwise you'll end up being an unpaid systems support person
for all 25 machines - and you'll be expected to fix everything...

I think if I had to go that way I'd find a local 'bucket' dealer and see
if I could get a good deal on 25 off last year's model _new_ machines - at
least that way you'll know where they've been, and there will be some kind
of come-back if any of them fail. If you need 25 seats then perhaps you
need a couple of spare machines..??

Sorry to be so negative - but I think you'll regret getting involved!