Thin-client with dual-monitor support

Question

I'm doing a feasibility study on migrating 30 of our in-house researchers from desktop towers to thin-clients. The problem (among others) that I'm facing is that our researchers have grown used to dual-monitors. Can anyone suggest a good thin-client which would allow for dual-monitors? Other qualities that are of interest to me are fan-less, low-cost, and disk-less/flash memory. Companies with resellers located in Canada is a plus. Duty is a pain in the arse.

Also there's the question of OS. Our network is composed primarily of Windows (2003, 2000, XP) and the users would be using RDP to connect to a terminal server. Should I go with an embedded version of Windows? Stripped down XP? I'm not opposed to Linux and would willingly go that route if there was a good locked down flavor with RDP support which could be easily integrated into a AD environment.

Thanks in advance for your answers! I'll post further information here if I've forgotten some details.

Solution 1

We have used the HP t5145 thin client before, which supports dual monitors and worked very well. This uses HP's thin connect OS to connect to your terminal server.

Solution 2

ChipPC Extreme PCs have dual and quad screen supporting models. After running an environment with lots of Wyse and HP and even testing some Igel clients - ChipPC is by far my favourite thin client platform, for what it's worth.

They're easily integrated with Active Directory using their management platform - never got around trying their Linux versions though.

The Windows CE versions boot extraordinarily fast compared to other brands imo, which is just fun to watch but not really a killer feature in any way as thin clients aren't really rebooted that often - but it was one of those little things, the attention to detail, including how easy they're to rebrand (both the software and the hardware boxes themselves), that swayed me.

alt text http://www.chippc.com/img.asp?url=/images/gallery/Xtreme_PC_NG_6600/6600%20all%20connectors.jpg&width=364&height=256

Solution 3

Wyse V90 - XPe, Dual Monitor, Max ram 1GB - great little box (also a linux version V50)

Solution 4

We's been using Wyse R50L thin clients because they support dual monitors. Ours connect to a Windows Server 08 R2 box via RDP. I don't think dual screens are possible on Server 03's version of RDP.

These are fan-less, and have 1028MB flash memory.

http://www.wyse.com/products/hardware/thinclients/R50L/index.asp

Sorry to rehash an old topic, but I wanted to add my experience for anyone else looking into this.

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Comments

[Chopper3]

I was just about to recommend their t5540/t5455 models too, the first is a Win CE 6.0 box and the second is a ThinOS one.

[ewwhite]

With this model, are you forced to use a VGA and DVI connector in order to use both monitors? Are there any dual-DVI thin client options?