Is my EPP sales rep being honest when he says I can't custom config an EPP laptop?

The reason I doubt what he says is at first he was insistant that if it wasn't on the EPP website as a pre-config then it wasn't available with the EPP discount. I told him that there were NO flexview models shown on the EPP site for T60s at the moment, yet they were all over the regular website and he told me they must just not be offering a discount on the flexviews.

But then I just ASKED him to type in a certain model number that I saw some people here mention.... 20077JU. It's not listed anywhere on the EPP site, yet when he typed it in, it immediately came up with a 'retail' of $2499 and an EPP of $1624, and low and behold, a 15" flexview screen with core 2 duo processor.

Magically at that point he started becoming more helpful and apparently had some other models to choose from that weren't on the website, but nothing he had matched what I would like to get in a T60:

14.1" non-flexview or 15.0" Flexview, no 15" non-flexview or 15.4" widescreen
Core 2 Duo processor of any clock speed is fine, no Core Duo or less
2GB of RAM is preferable though since I can get one with a single 1GB chip and upgrade it after the delivery, this isn't a necessity
6 cell battery is a must... 9 cell adds too much unneeded weight and dimensions and the extra battery capacity will never be needed
7200 RPM drive is preferred, 60GB is all the space that would ever be used anyway, but if 100GB 7.2k is all that's available then that's fine, just unnecessary.
The rest of the specs really don't matter. XP Pro is fine but Home would work OK, 3 year warranty is fine but 1 year would save some money and probably work out all the same.

Any ideas?

 

what are you asking?

 

Primary question stated in the title:
Is my EPP sales rep being honest when he says I can't custom config an EPP laptop?

The explanation below basically is showing what I would like to custom config, but in case that isn't an option, maybe somebody knows a model number that comes closer to meeting those objectives than "20077JU" does.

 

is epp the same as the student discount laptops...I know I had a pdf file of all the student deals.

All the notebooks were preconfiguerd

 

Employee Purchase Price

 

download tabook.pdf

from here

ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/pc/pcinstitute/psref/

and look through those for what you want....



I was able to get everything I wanted preconfig, cept for the thinkpad wireless that i ordered.

 

No, your EPP guy is either dishonest or stupid. You can get ANYTHING you want via epp as long as it's still in production. So any pre-config from the tabook or a custom build. Now, it is possible that the pre-config is a better price (when I bought mine a month ago the 20077JU was the best bang for the buck), but if it doesn't have exactly what you want you can get a custom for a very good price.

Talk to my main man, Mohammed Tahir at (866) 428-4465 ext. 32748 He seemed to know what he was talking about when I ordered mine. IIRC he works nights, though it seems like now (I recently upgraded my warranty) he is working day time 10am-7pm (before it was like 5pm-10pm...maybe it depends on the day of the week I never asked). Tell him Richard sent you, he might remember me since I just upgraded my warranty yesterday.