Buy Outright or Lease a PC?

loveandlight

Just wondering as a business is it better to lease a computer or buy it outright?

Savvy_Sue

I guess the answer would be 'it depends' ... I don't know how it works for accounting purposes, but it also must depend on how much you'd be spending on it if you bought it up front, and what the lease arrangements and charges would be if you leased it.

For a bog-standard office computer not required to do anything too flashy, I'd have thought buying outright was the way to go, but maybe that's just because it would never have occurred to me to lease!

paddyrg

When you can buy a lappy for £350, why lease?

cavework

Your computer becomes an assett of the company and you will get Tax relief when you buy it outright.
Leases are expensive and tie you into a contract.

ukbandit

certainly given the cost i would suggest purchasing one outright.

getting one through lease is more paperwork, and your never going to get a good deal.

Sicksorry

Wait a second mate, Honestly.
Think about what you will need this PC for firstly. Are we talking the basics, such as Office programmes, email and internet browsing? Then if so, Get in touch with your local Freecycle or Gumtree and grab something basic for as little as £30..even less. If you are after something that requires a little more kick such as editing videos or using photoshop to edit large image files then a Duel Core PC with a couple Gb of Ram will be plenty also. Again, Freecycle or Gumtree and you can have some to suite your needs for less than £100. These second hand PC's will also likely have a licensed operating system certificate on them and that shall save you money also.

If you want something new and up to the job then for the love of Martin himself, do NOT go near Argos, or PC world, You will get ripped off with a package PC that is not worth the money. Speak to a friend who is good with computers and go for a custom build. These are much cheaper than pre-builds in general and will offer you 100 times more flexibly on each of it's components. It's much easier repaired if a part breaks down also.

texranger

Sicksorry wrote: »

If you want something new and up to the job then for the love of Martin himself, do NOT go near Argos, or PC world, You will get ripped off with a package PC that is not worth the money.

I agree and i dont agree.

buying off the shelf as such, you are not really being ripped off, all you are buying is a basic system, with a basic bottom range graphics card, sound card etc. which is OK for the light user.

but if you are serious then custom build is the way to go either do it yourself or many companies now will allow you to design your own system online and then you just purchase it after you have configured the way you want.

steve1980

Take a look at https://www.awd-it.co.uk . I have just purchased a system from them and can't fault their service.

InsideInsurance

Having custom built systems for years but now having bought two prebuilt systems I would certainly argue against self build and be cautious with small companies offering custom build. In theory many millions of individual components should work with each other and with motherboards but the reality can be there are conflicts that either prevent them from working together or reduce the efficiency of the system. The same goes with different versions of drivers etc etc. When paying for a professional system you are including large amounts of research and testing time that goes into identifying the components that work together well.

A relative used to work for a company that did custom builds including for many universities, video production companies etc which required high spec PCs. Certainly their price per unit was much more than the sum of its parts but each time a new g/card was released or a new driver for a card they were using there were several hundred hours of testing done to see if in real world situations it was an improvement or not.


To the original question, there is insufficient information to be able to give any advice on. What level of cost/ spec are you looking at? Are you an incorporated business or a sole trader? Are you VAT registered? Are you flat rate VAT registered? Are you newly set up?

Sicksorry

I have to say that the Likes of the big retail stores overcharge for what they offer you. Sure, research and effort has been put in to ensure the PC's work well, but these are mass produced units and as such the costs shouldn't be as high as they are for the parts being sold in most cases. Then theres the awful freeware most companies bundle with their PC's aswell.
I have to admit though, some places will charge an arm and a leg for putting a custom build together and so It's always best to shop around. My original point stands though, 9 times out of 10 when it comes to computers, you'll find it cheaper if you dig a little. Don't spend more than you need too and you keep yourself away from silly leases and expenses.

bluenoseam

PC World et all are massively overpriced for what they actually are and their aftersales are amongst the worst i've ever experienced, i would rather go back to slate & chalk before using them for a PC again! It's actually not all that difficult to build a PC if you're willing to be a bit adventurous and have enough smarts to understand the basics of computing to keep it maintainedm however if you're tax registered then it may be better value to buy a cheaper laptop from Asda/Tesco (Asda have one at the moment for about £287 if i remember correctly) and reclaim the tax as opposed to building your own.