How long do you keep your laptop?

[spat55]

I have a Acer Aspire with a T6400 CPU, 4GB RAM, 500GB HDD and Windows Vista 32bit. It still works fine and if I could get a cheap SSD and Windows 7 for under £50 I would upgrade it. If I did do the upgrade it would cost about £100 so not worth it imo.

 

[deerslayer]

My current laptop is 4.5 years old, but I don't use it much anymore, so I can't really see myself replacing it anytime soon.

 

[mindwreck]

still using my dell 610 in the garage since battery is dead. still works great for looking things up and recording projects to google drive. love its 1400x1050 screen back when they still made high res laptop screens.

 

[tsupersonic]

Not for long - I gave away my first laptop (bought in 2006) Compaq to my dad in 2009, and it just recently died. I have a Surface Pro 2 that I purchased last November, and a Macbook Pro 13" that I purchased last month. I hope I don't get bored, and keep them a long time (if they don't die).

 

[RU482]

I've got a wife and three kids to hand down laptops to, so they last quite a while

 

[Flapdrol1337]

until it breaks

 

[genin88]

Still running a Dell Inspiron E1505 with Win 7/4GB Ram/90GB SSD. Purchased new from Dell in 2006 and have had only one issue (video card replaced under warranty). I am getting ready to upgrade the wireless card, CPU (from Core Duo to Core2Duo) and add a bluetooth card. Parts are cheap so why not, plus the Core2Duo will allow me to install the 64-bit version of Win 7 (CPU was from another laptop upgrade for friend, so free).

I'd have to say it's hard to place a value with regards to the years you keep a laptop. For someone like me, as long as it continues to do the things I need (surfing web, email and VPN/remote desktop into work) then I see no reason to not keep on going until it becomes unservicable or not used.

 

[RossMAN]

Anywhere from 2 - 3.5 years.

 

[Red Storm]

No more than two years, with the exception being low price laptops like Chromebooks. Keeping it any longer is just wasting away what value it has left. Two years is a long time in the mobile computing world, I sell my devices while they still have value and use that money towards getting the newer models.

 

[crashtech]

No more than two years, with the exception being low price laptops like Chromebooks. Keeping it any longer is just wasting away what value it has left. Two years is a long time in the mobile computing world, I sell my devices while they still have value and use that money towards getting the newer models.

Whereas I'm likely in the niche below you, buying the two year old model, keeping it two years, deciding it has very little value left, and then keeping it as long as it suits my needs. I kept my T60 until the non-Win7 compatible display driver drove me nuts by causing blue screens coming out of sleep. Put XP back on it and promptly sold it for $100. So far the T510 I replaced it with does everything I want.

 

[Ethrem]

I kept my M17xR1 for 5 years and I plan to keep my Sager NP9377-S for 4 to 5 years as well. The Sager was far more expensive than the Alienware I had though, I went for top of the line this time (although with the lackluster performance of the 880Ms compared to the old 780M chips, that part is debatable but the 880s are father than my 780 Ti and certainly faster than the 260Ms in my M17x), so I'm not abusing it like I did the Alienware.

 

[SingleAction]

I still have my 1997 IBM ThinkPad 760XL 166mhz win98se, that still works!

 

[Zodiark1593]

Hard drive died yesterday on my HP DV7-4285DX, currently working on using system recovery to get that going on my new SSD. Been a complete PITA so far (doesn't want to boot), but the BIOS recognizes it, so I'm hopeful. Once the SSD is finally running, I expect a few more years out of this lappy.

Edit: OMG YES!!! My laptop finally booted from my ssd. After the system recovery, I needed to rebuild my MBR via a Partition Manager. Future reference ftw.

 

[Raduque]

Have a Dell Inspiron 6000 (Dothan) from 2004ish maybe, that was replaced with a Studio 1735 (Penryn) in 2007. The Studio 17 is going strong except for the left hinge locking up and breaking the bezel about two years ago.

I bought a Toshiba Satellite C55 last year in November, but I wanted something with a dGPU for gaming so I bought my current laptop in March, a Lenovo Ideapad u530 touch. Didn't do much research on this and ended up with a gimped nV GT730m so I'm selling it and buying a Lenovo Y50.

 

[Zodiark1593]

Have a Dell Inspiron 6000 (Dothan) from 2004ish maybe, that was replaced with a Studio 1735 (Penryn) in 2007. The Studio 17 is going strong except for the left hinge locking up and breaking the bezel about two years ago.

I bought a Toshiba Satellite C55 last year in November, but I wanted something with a dGPU for gaming so I bought my current laptop in March, a Lenovo Ideapad u530 touch. Didn't do much research on this and ended up with a gimped nV GT730m so I'm selling it and buying a Lenovo Y50.

Did kinda the same thing with my current laptop, but aside from the weak GPU, it's been good to me. The Core i5 still holds strong, and outpaces the Phenom triple core (the other choice I had at the time, but with stronger GPU) in every metric. I don't regret my choice.

 

[Raduque]

Did kinda the same thing with my current laptop, but aside from the weak GPU, it's been good to me. The Core i5 still holds strong, and outpaces the Phenom triple core (the other choice I had at the time, but with stronger GPU) in every metric. I don't regret my choice.

Don't get me wrong, it's a great laptop, and it has an i7 dualcore with 8gb ram, so it's plenty fast, but it just can't play the games I want at 1080p with the detail settings I want to use.

 

[TeknoBug]

Roughly 4 years, though the longest was my Compaq served me 1991-1999 until screen quit working then IBM Thinkpad 1999-2006 (just tossed that laptop at the electronics recycling last month).

 

[Zodiark1593]

Don't get me wrong, it's a great laptop, and it has an i7 dualcore with 8gb ram, so it's plenty fast, but it just can't play the games I want at 1080p with the detail settings I want to use.

I wasn't bashing you. I stuck with mine because while I play games on occasion, they're not a priority to me. Even when I played games though, the Radeon 6370 is still orders of magnitude faster than the GMA 4500M in my previous lappy, and I was satisfied with that.

 

[poohbear]

Its right under "check this box if you have something useless to post."

Rofl thanks for the laugh!

 

[Sattern]

I keep my stuff for at least 10 years before I upgrade, that allows me to save a large amount of capital and also enjoy new technology as it comes out and not take things for granted.

 

[Charlie98]

My original business Dell Inspiron 6000 I bought in 2005. I upgraded the RAM, installed a bigger PATA HDD and even put a faster CPU in it, but once they discontinued support for XP, I really haven't done much with it. I installed Puppy Linux on it in an effort to continue to utilize it... but, really, I don't use it anymore. For me, the days of lugging my laptop everywhere are over... my iPhone does everything I used a laptop for, and, in the odd event, I can log into my desktop using TeamViewer to look up invoices or something, either on another computer or with my phone.

My daughter's 2007 Dell Inspiron is a little different. It has a SATA HDD, which I updated with an SSD. I also pumped up the RAM and put a faster AMD processor in... but it's still stuck with XP and I'm loathe to waste my time and money trying to get W7 to work on it. I put Puppy Linux on it for a bit... but it doesn't really play well, for some reason. She will be headed to college in a few years, I'll probably buy her a new laptop at that time...

I bought my wife an iPad for Mother's Day this year... after using that I don't see a need for a laptop anymore in any event.

 

[Zodiark1593]

My daughter's 2007 Dell Inspiron is a little different. It has a SATA HDD, which I updated with an SSD. I also pumped up the RAM and put a faster AMD processor in... but it's still stuck with XP and I'm loathe to waste my time and money trying to get W7 to work on it. I put Puppy Linux on it for a bit... but it doesn't really play well, for some reason. She will be headed to college in a few years, I'll probably buy her a new laptop at that time...

I bought my wife an iPad for Mother's Day this year... after using that I don't see a need for a laptop anymore in any event.

I'd wager Win 7 or a full Linux OS (Linux Mint) would work reasonably well on that Inspiron with little to no cash input. No need to let your upgrades on it go to waste.

Also, I'd take my laptop over any tablet any day of the year. Just sayin.

 

[Charlie98]

I'd wager Win 7 or a full Linux OS (Linux Mint) would work reasonably well on that Inspiron with little to no cash input. No need to let your upgrades on it go to waste.

Also, I'd take my laptop over any tablet any day of the year. Just sayin.

I stand corrected... I do have Mint on it right now, that's what's not playing well.

I don't want to spend $100 for a Windows license for something that may not work... :\

Oh, I like my laptop... I just don't have a need for one, my phone handles all my mobile needs. I prefer working on a lappy...

 

[Anonemous]

Still running a Dell Inspiron E1505 with Win 7/4GB Ram/90GB SSD. Purchased new from Dell in 2006 and have had only one issue (video card replaced under warranty). I am getting ready to upgrade the wireless card, CPU (from Core Duo to Core2Duo) and add a bluetooth card. Parts are cheap so why not, plus the Core2Duo will allow me to install the 64-bit version of Win 7 (CPU was from another laptop upgrade for friend, so free).

I'd have to say it's hard to place a value with regards to the years you keep a laptop. For someone like me, as long as it continues to do the things I need (surfing web, email and VPN/remote desktop into work) then I see no reason to not keep on going until it becomes unservicable or not used.

Is there a guide for upgrading the core duo to C2D? I have an E1505 with a core duo T2050 and I use it as a fileserver but would like to give it a boost. Where would you get the parts cheap? (ebay? saw some T7400 cpus at $95 which is kinda not worth it to me)

 

[TeknoBug]

I bought my wife an iPad for Mother's Day this year... after using that I don't see a need for a laptop anymore in any event.

Yup iPad has all the bells & whistles now with all the available apps on the app store. I don't find my Android tablet nearly as useful as my iPad Air, but there's still a few things the iPad isn't good at yet compared to a laptop but that'll change pretty soon as seeing how the market is moving onto pseudo-laptop tablets popping up all over.