Looking at Thin Clients as an alternative to Desktops but cost for major vendors such as HP or Wyse looks to be around $500. Our Desktop cost for very decent Dell Desktops is around $700.
We're looking to perform just RDS connections, no Virtualisation or anything. All internal on a gigabit network.
My thought is though, as Thin Clients are something that:
- Don't break down very often
- Have a very long lifespan
- Don't change in technology often
Then buying refurbished may be a very acceptable option. Looking at costs would be perhaps $70 a unit for very basic, or around $150 for more modern looking (dual core CPU, Gigabit LAN etc) which I would be more inclined to purchase in case there is a need later for those extra resources on the client side.
Obviously buying second hand there'll be issues and higher rate of failure, but I'm sure if we say we buy an extra few when purchasing that will give us spares for that and we'll still be far ahead?
What are peoples thoughts on this? OK to buy refurbished Thin Clients? Or anyone else have input or experiences?