Ever wonder what becomes of the computers that companies lease and then return? If it's a Dell it ends up at Dell's DFS Direct Sales dept. The equipment is given a once over and then sold on the DFS site for way cheap...typically with about 6 months warranty still left.
I purchased about 30 of these off lease units for the school system to put together a small lab on shoe-string budget several years ago. The great thing is that we could buy optiplex units that fit our standardization model...but get them for a song. I've also gotten a couple Latitude laptops in the past as spares.
I got an email from DFS Friday that they were having a big sale. Perfect timing! I needed to get some inexpensive laptops to have available as loaners, spares, training, workshops, etc. The deals are very good...but only last until the 20th. I snarfed up 6 Latitude C610's (Dells previous laptop standard) and after double discounts...sale discount plus volume discount...paid only $2700 total!!! And all 6 are same specs: 1200MHz, 1GB ram, 30GB drives. We already have a C610 ghost image so getting these into production will be cake. Only things lacking are internal wifi cards (~$45) and probable weak batteries.
So if you need some good business class hardware, but have a limited budget check out Dell's off lease equipment. And no, this is NOT the same as Dell's Outlet site.
This is a great find, thanks for passing it along!
Posted by: Terry Chapman | July 19, 2005 at 09:58 AM
Remember to always check http://outlet.dell.com for a phenomenal deal on current hardware (dfsdirect is a great site to find previous models). I was able to get my mother-in-law a new Inspiron desktop for $269 plus shipping and taxes...$312 out the door. They carry consumer and business lines and you can save a fortune.
Posted by: Jeremy Smith | July 21, 2008 at 09:28 AM