PC Product Blog from Hardsoft Computers

Being a HP Preferred Partner and offering PC’s from other brands such as Lenovo, Fujitsu and Sony; HardSoft Computers have been leasing the business world with IT for the last 25 years.

As technology has moved on, running multiple screens on a single PC is now a standard in most offices.For little extra cost it offers a greater working area.  However, the future may be running more than 2 screens. AMD Eyefinity Technology is a solution by AMD that allows you to run up to 6 simultaneous displays off of 1 graphics card. For example, you could add an AMD Radeon 6870 Eyefinity graphics card to a HP 3400 on a Flexi-Lease. Six monitors in your office may be slightly overkill with a more realistic choice of 3 monitors. The HP Pro 3400 PC with the Eyefinity graphics card plus  3 x 22” monitors is £8.40 + vat per week on a three year lease basis. HardSoft can lease and finance the stands to create a video wall as well.

As well as running multiple displays on your PC, this is now available on a laptop ! The HP Envy 17 is the laptop of choice for the Eyefinity technology; supporting up to 3 external monitors! The Envy 17 is the biggest and most powerful machine in HP’s top-end line of laptops; and will cost you circa £11.50 + vat per week on a Flexi-Lease from HardSoft Computers. So, how can a LAPTOP connect to up to 3 external monitors I hear you ask? Well, the first 2 monitors are connected with ANY output on your laptop (HDMI, VGA, DVI or DisplayPort). The third monitor must connect via DisplayPort.  As well and revolutionising your office PC’s, the AMD Eyefinity Technology can now revolutionise your laptops!

The final choice you will have to make after you have decided to lease either a PC or Laptop with AMD Eyefinity Technology is the type of display you want. HardSoft Computers can lease both ‘standard’ type monitors from LG, Samsung and HP etc… However, we can also supply the more ‘specialist’ monitors from Iiyama, Eizo and LaCie.

Whether you want 2 or 6 displays; ranging from 17” to 27”,  please contact our sales team on 01279 718 693 or email michael.b@hardsoft.co.uk for a quote!

Many businesses believe leasing is an expensive alternative to paying cash but that simply isn’t the case.

With the reduction in the Annual Investment Allowance from £100,000 to £25,000 from April 2012 and Capital Allowances reduced to 18% it’s why even large ‘cash rich’ companies are choosing to lease  their new computers.

Budgets for new equipment need to be carefully considered as reduced capital allowances means companies have to plan purchases.  The impact for small companies will be massive.  It’s very easy to spend £25k a year on normal capital investment in a company and the almost biannual need to reinvest in computers means a company can easily exceed the £25,000 allowance just by adding a few Apple Mac computers or a HP Proliant Server. Hence many SME companies are turning to IT leasing just to gain the tax advantages of leasing which is 100% allowable.

Because lease payments are treated in your accounts as a rental then they are 100% allowable against pre-tax profits. The total cost of your purchase (capital and interest) can be offset during the lease period; with your payments deducted as a normal trading expense. The real cost of your lease can be significantly lower than the payments you make ! Typically a £1000 purchase is in real terms only £950. Leasing has been popular in the recession as it was and is easier to obtain than bank borrowing and is often cheaper than bank lending. The April 2012 reductions in allowances means leasing has become more popular.

The scenario is worse for Sole traders than Limited Companies. As of tax year 2012/2013 Corporation Tax is reduced by 1% to 20% but nothing changed in personal income tax. So the Government has ‘given’ a little to Limited Companies to compensate for these reductions in AIA. It’s really NOT great if you’re a sole trader/partnership though. With tax rates still at 40%-50% + leasing computers makes even more sense.

Check out the facts with your Accountant ….  A cash purchase will allow tax relief only on the capital allowances on the equipment. This is now18% of the cost in the first year and then 18% in subsequent years based on a reducing balance each year. For larger companies these capital allowances are even lower and therefore the benefits of leasing are greater.

Essentially the higher rate of tax a company or sole trader pays the better the lease advantages. The rate of Capital Allowances erodes this benefit but in all cases it is always better to lease than pay cash- unless a business simply doesn’t make a profit ! Unlike most high street bank facilities or overdrafts, that are subject to the change in market conditions, an IT  lease facility with its protected payment and fixed interest rates allows for effective budgeting. And leasing has very few ‘set up’ fees or charges on property.

Forgetting the financial benefits of leasing computers , that your accountant can tell you about , is another simple advantage of leasing and that’s cash flow ! In a recession Cash is King.

HardSoft Computers are a ‘one stop’ shop for the supply of both the computers and the finance on a simple and flexible lease agreement.  With a team of support engineers (all Apple approved)  HardSoft have been established for over 25 years and have a nationwide branch of offices including a new Apple store in Shoreditch – in the midst of the new London Tech City. Leasing finance is arranged through the admin team at the Head Office near Stansted Airport in Essex.

HardSoft are pleased to announce a new retail store in the heart of Shoreditch, London. Opening in the middle of March the store will offer customers a hands on experience with the full Apple range of Macbooks, iMacs and Mac Pros as well as the chance to sit and discuss your needs with our Apple Product Professionals and Apple Certified Technical Coordinators. 

In the heart of London’s Tech City, HardSoft will be the area’s only Authorised Apple Reseller. Steve Hill and Anthony Graves who have been working at HardSoft head office for over 5 years each are heading into town to head the operation. PC Customers are not forgotten and HP Graphics Workstations will be available to buy and lease with special 0% interest free financing for business users.

Not only will HardSoft be offering customers their new flexible lease offers, outright sales, but we will also be offering both in and out of warranty repairs on all your Apple Macs. In partnership with our Apple Service Provider we can honour any Apple Warranty repair (and AppleCare) even if the Mac wasn’t originally bought from us. The in-house Apple trained tech team can also upgrade your Mac so if you fancied 16GB Ram in your MacBook Pro (£185 +VAT fitted whilst you wait and have a coffee with us) or a superfast SSD in your Mac Pro we can help. On site visits are available.

Based at 38 Cheshire Street, E2 6EH  just off Brick Lane we are only five minutes from London Liverpool Street or Bethnal Green Underground stations (find us here) and are happy to book appointments or just drop in; the new phone number is 020 7111 1643 or drop us an email  shoreditch@hardsoft.co.uk . We are going to have some fantastic opening offers on both leasing and purchases, email us for further details.

…So how much punishment can a Laptop really take, especially if you are in the field of some of the harsher working environments like a building site or a desert ? If you opt to use a Panasonic Toughbook quite simply the answer is A LOT.

The Toughbook range of laptops come up to a Military specification (MIL-Standard 810G) for resisting, Drops, Spills and Temperature Extremes and with the price being a factor with these units they are yet another example of a product that is ideal for a HardSoft Lease. So what is there to know about these machines that have become increasingly popular here over the last few months? The Portables are available in 3 class of Laptop; Fully Ruggedized, Semi Ruggedized and Business Ruggedized…………….

Fully Ruggedized are the brutal elite, being able to survive falls from 90cm without any effect on functionality at all, thanks to a Magnesium-Thickened casing and Hard Drives which are secured against shock and impact. These are coated against dust and water equally, making them ideal for field work in dusty / wet environments, amazingly these also tolerate temperature extremes of -20°C to 60°C. An Example of this type of unit is the Panasonic Toughbook  CF-31 MK2 13” with i5 Processor which starts on Lease at £34.95 + Vat per week.

Semi Ruggedized are the step down which are as resistant to Drops and Water however they lack the protection from Extreme Temperature and Dust. These do however look a little more elegant for those who are customer facing and rely on their laptop for presentation work. The Panasonic Toughbook  CF-52 MK4 is a 15” Machine with a similar spec to the Laptop above but starts on Lease at the more affordable price of £19.20 + VAT per week.

Business Rugged is something that gets thrown around a lot – like in the back of a car. Apart from Panansonic ; Lenovo offer the Thinkpad T520 at £8.20 on a three year lease. Both Dell and Samsung also have business rugged laptops however they still don’t quite compare to Panasonic, which is still significantly protected from a drop and a spilled glass of water. Though the Panasonic are not cheap! For options on any of the available “Business-Rugged” units send your enquiries to ryan@hardsoft.co.uk and we can get some lease quotes across.

For those with an Apple iPad in mind you may also be keen to hear there is a Panasonic Tough Pad which brings all the joys of Android in a Rugged Case to the arena of those working Outdoors.

HP have unveiled a brand new All-in-One Graphics Workstation, set to rival the Apple iMac 27″. Many creative professionals seeking a very fast all –in –one PC have been using the i7-3.4GHz  iMac and installing Windows 7. Until now there is has been no serious PC alternative …… The HP Z1 is the world first PC All-in-One Graphics Workstation. AND, it is available on flexible lease with HardSoft Computers.

You know the deal with HP workstations such as the Z201 or Z800; they are generally highly powered machines but come in a big, dark, grey and boring chassis. The HP Z1 is the complete opposite; an All-in-One machine that has a 27” LED-backlit IPS display. Such a high quality display is down to the fact that the Z1 comes with NVIDIA Quadro 4000 Graphics- which is far superior  than either the iMac or Mac Pro offers as standard..

Inside the HP Z1 packs next generation E3 and E5 Intel Xeon processors, a Solid State Drive, up to 32GB RAM, Blu-Ray and more such as a height adjustable stand. Unlike any other all-in-one computer ,a tool less flexible chassis  allows you to snap the machine open without using any tools whatsoever. The end user can now add a second hard drive, upgrade the memory or access the graphics card by simply a few simple steps!

It’s not cheap though but given a Quadro 4000 graphics card is £500 to buy anyway then the overall spec offers good value for money. It is expected early April with an estimated lease cost of £16 per week plus VAT over 3 years, including on site warranty.  As an idea the Apple 27” iMac with i7-3.4GHz, 16Gb Ram , AMD 6970M graphics running Windows 7 is  £18 per week on a three year lease.

As a HP Preferred Partner, HardSoft Computers can offer all the HP Graphics Workstations from the entry level Z201 to the Dual CPU Z800. All available to lease and hire. Please contact a member of our sales team for more information on 01279 718 693 or email sales@hardsoft.co.uk.

In 2010 there was a 29% increase in leasing according to the Finance & Leasing Association- with the strongest rate of growth reported in business equipment finance, which increased by 37% year-on-year.  25% of companies already use leasing options because of the advantages of…

Improved cashflow- By making equal monthly payments over the duration of the lease  finance agreement, you can spread payments over the useful life of their equipment, rather than having to find the capital up front. This way, they can generate instant ROI.

Tax savings- With lease finance at HardSoft , monthly payments can qualify as a trading expense and are therefore tax deductible – making finance an even more cost effective option.

Increased flexibility- By leasing or financing IT, you can expand or upgrade their systems as the need arises, often without an increase in monthly payments.

Access to a wider range of technology – Our solutions enable the leasing of software, intangibles and services, as well as hardware.

Unaffected bank lines- Our finance solutions have no effect on other borrowing options

More available budget to benefit other areas of the business- Instead of spending lump sums on rapidly depreciating assets, you can allocate resources to help business where it is needed most.

No need for security – Unless you are a new start up company then HardSoft do not require a pledge on personal or company assets… the equipment itself is its own source of security.

A straightforward solution- IT finance is easy. Once a proposal is submitted, we aim to respond within 24 hours. All we need  you to do is sign one contract and we take it from there.

HardSoft Computers are that ‘one stop shop’ that takes the mystery and pain out of leasing PC and Apple Mac computers. HardSoft are both the arranger of the lease finance and are an Approved IT Reseller for such brands as Apple and HP and have a team of support engineers to back it all up. If you need us to demystify leasing then contact HardSoft.

The BVE Expo 2012  is underway at Londons Earl Courts. Join thousands of broadcast & production professionals reviewing  the wide array of new product and equipment launches on show from over 300 exhibitors.

HardSoft are exhibiting at BVE and we look forward to seeing you there and with some great products like the JVC Professional GY-HM150E Pro Hand Held Camcorder, available for only £20.45 a week plus VAT on a three year lease. This model is the choice of industry professionals with Native Support for Apple Final Cut and features dual SDHC/SDHX card slots. Use a HardSoft lease and you can then upgrade it in 2 years time as well.

The shoulder mount JVC GY-HM750E is the only PRO AV HD camera recording straight into Apple Quicktime(MOV) format. The JVC GY-HM750E is the industry flagship delivering 1920×1080 quality and recording upto 1080p and 1080i. It has a 4.3 inch flip out LCD monitor and has a modular upgrade system with a 68 pin chassis connector to directly link to satellite uplink or microwave transmitter. HardSoft can deliver the JVC GY-HM750E for only £ 47.80 a week on a tax efficient 3 year Flexi Lease.

Also at BVE Expo at Earls Court 2 HardSoft will have on display the Apple iMac 27” with Intel Core i5 2.7ghz for only £ 12.50 a week and the Lacie 5big Office an essential network storage device for only £ 4.20 per week. Ryan and Michael our Apple Sales Product Professionals are at BVE to discuss the full Apple Mac range with the Apple Mac Mini Server from £ 7.50 a week, the Macbook Pro 15” Quad Core i7 2.2ghz at only £ 13.70 a week on a lease deal.

Adobe will also be displaying their full range of software and HardSoft can offer software on our Flexi Lease scheme. We find the most popular products are the Adobe CS 5.5 Design Premium, available at £ 9.50 a week and the full package of Adobe CS5.5 Master Collection for only £ 13.50 a week. All products come on a HardSoft Flexi Lease with full 3 year warranty and unlimited telephone and remote dial up support.       BLOGGER – MIKE BAILEY

Nvidia Maximus powered PC Graphics Workstations solve the challenges of speed .By combining a NVIDIA Quadro graphics card and the new computing power of  new NVIDIA Tesla GPUs. (Essentislly a second graphics card in a PC designed just to process the graphics.) Tesla co-processors  perform the heavy lifting of rendering or CAE/CAD computations, freeing the Quadro to do what they do best-enabling rich interactive graphics.The total solution is called Nvidia Maximus..and its now available to lease with HP Graphics Workstations from HardSoft.

NVIDIA Maximus desktop workstation configurations start with the pairing of the NVIDIA Quadro 600 +  NVIDIA Tesla C2070 at £18 per week plus VAT on a three year lease …. there is a also choice of a C2050 and a C2075 model  for Desktops and two options for Servers (rendering farms ?).  Essentially you chose your Quadro graphics card the match it to your choice of Tesla card to match your software application. If you let HardSoft know your speed problem and your application we can recommend a solution.

If you use Autodesk 3ds Max 2012 ; rendering times have been proven to reduce from 10 minutes to 30 seconds ! Rendering a movie which is an overnight job is now estimated at 30 minutes.esla companion processors bring the power of high performance computing to the PC workstation. With 448 application-acceleration cores per board, Tesla processors offload parallel computations from the CPU to dramatically accelerate the floating point calculation performance.

The Nvidia Maximus solution of Tesla Processor and Quadro graphics card is available to lease with all the HP graphics PC’s the entry level i5,i7;  Z210, the Z600 with Dual Xeon CPU’s and the ultimate HP Z800. HardSoft are a HP Preferred Partner and established for over 25 years – offering high end Apple Mac and PC solutions. Come and chat with us at the Broadcast Vido Expro 2012 this week …

As a HP Preferred Partner, HardSoft specialise in the HP Proliant range of Servers from Tower to Rack with a range of options to suit your needs andbudget- and all is available to lease !

The HP Proliant ML310 is suitable for the smaller 5-10 user company. Our standard 5 user package uses a mirror of hard drives to protect each other and is complimented with Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2011, AVG Network Anti-Virus protection (or Sophos) and a Draytek 2830 Wireless Router PLUS Five HP 3400 PC’s. This is available from £43 per week on a three year lease. Our SILVER support options that includes Installation and daily off site data back up is at £49 per week plus VAT. Structured Cabling can be added into the monthly lease costs.

For larger users we offer the more powerful HP Proliant ML350 with a compliment of 3 X Raid 5 Hard Drives for complete redundancy in case of failure to keep your business running. Dual Processors and fast SAS drives can be included on the lease. Ten PC’s, the ML350 Server and all the necessary extras .

All networks are available from HardSoft  are offered on a Flexi Lease scheme meaning its both 100% tax efficient and can includes full on-site maintenance. Our Microsoft Certified Professional and Apple trained engineers means we offer a full installation and configuration service.  We are happy to work with your existing PC’s or Apple Mac’s and just add a new HP Proliant Server.

All the Proliant Servers we offer include Microsoft Small Business Server 2011 which provides many software benefits:

• All in one Microsoft solution for email, file and print sharing and support for mobile devices.
• Allows collaboration of both Apple Mac and Windows platforms.
• Supports Business Growth – easily add new applications and upto 50 new users.
• Centralise Files and Updates- keep all documents centrally located on your HP Proliant Server and although Windows and AVG Anti Virus updates to be done by the server.
• Remote Working- full access from any remote site of files, documents and emails by any users
• Security- SBS 2011 allows different security levels ensuring you can determine which user  can access the appropriate data.

Talk to Hardsoft today about leasing a new HP Proliant server for your business, available on a 3 year Flexi Lease scheme it will only cost one months rental to get the latest Microsoft SBS 2011 software fully functional in your company.

Firstly its easy at HardSoft – We have taken a unique approach by being the Authorised Supplier of the PC or Laptop as well as the Licensed Credit broker. WE ARE A ONE STOP SOLUTION. By being in control of both the equipment supply and the lease finance we can offer tailored solutions and support. It also makes us far cheaper- we only take one bit of the cherry !

‘Flexi-Lease’ by HardSoft is the fusion of this and over 25 years experience  and is the unique alternative to the purchasing of your IT.

-       We include 3 years warranty and support and have our own team of engineers.

-       Guaranteed ownership at the end  for just £1.

-       The option to Upgrade and keep the old kit ! without paying anymore per month. We call it our ‘Two For One’ option and is exclusive to our lease schemes.

PC’s and Laptops are available to lease from Lenovo, Toshiba,  HP, Fujitsu and Sony. We are Authorised Resellers for these and many other PC manufacturers. Our Network solutions include HP Proliant Servers and all are installed and supported by our own team of certified engineers.  HardSoft  flexibility means we can offer leases from 1 to 4 years, monthly, quarterly or annual payments, by invoice or direct debit. We can defer payments, or can accept a deposit to reduce the future rental payments. Software and licensing can also be leased. Almost infinite options on the way you wish to structure the finance and payments and a choice of over 250 laptops or 35 All In Ones or 55 PC’s PLUS Apple Macs as well !

Finance is available to Start Ups and those with difficult credit scenarios. If you want a confidential chat for a frank view on whether leasing is available to you call us.