How long do you use/keep a laptop?

[gmaster456]

So, you have bought crap, and you have bought quality? Any difference in the overall experience other than elapsed time?

Was that meant toward me? Sorry I haven't been on in a few days.

All the laptops I've purchased I've gotten at least a couple years use out of. The 1 year remark was more hypothetical than anything.

That being said I don't usually demand a whole lot out of my laptop. Honestly if it weren't for poorish battery life Core 2 Duo would probably do it for me on mobile.

 

[gmaster456]

Hmmm... I don't know what qualifies as "main" laptop, seeing that I have various uses for my equipment, but here goes:

1) I have a Toshiba Satellite A110 (Celeron M410, 3GB RAM, 60GB HDD) bought in 2004, which is used exclusively for desktop publishing (QuarkXPress & Photoshop), when I work on a newsletter in my community.

2) I have an Acer 1410, (Core2Solo [!], 4GB RAM, 120GB SSD) bought in 2009, which I still carry with me everytime/everywhere I need something more than a tablet.

3) Last year, I got a repaired a HP 2540p (Core i7-640LM, 4 GB RAM, 120GB SSD), which I occasionally carry as an alternative to the Acer machine (since it has an optical drive). It's also five years old...

4) Finally, I also keep a Toshiba Satellite Pro 4600 in my house (PIII-900 MHz, 256MB RAM, 60GB HDD) for some old-school Windows 98 gaming (yeah, baby!)

It seems for 1-3 you could consolidate machines.

 

[AnitaPeterson]

I can consolidate 2 and 3 (which have 11.6 and 12 inches screens, respectively), but for DTP duties the 15-inch Toshiba is still kicking...

 

[Zodiark1593]

Got my HP DV7-4285dx literally a week before Sandy Bridge launched. Been out of the tech loop at the time due to my only internet machine dying months before, lmo. Still, been a trooper for the past 4 years, and upgraded to SSD in September. While demanding games are a no go, everything else works just fine, and it's got plenty of uumph for mobile game development in UE4.

Ironically, my phone's gpu has a tad more compute than the Radeon 6370. Compute bound, my tests show they're close, though anything memory bound, the Radeon walks all over the phone gpu.

 

[Craig9080]

I'm horrible with this, I end up getting ADD and upgrading every year. Wife thinks im crazy...I agree

 

[Puffnstuff]

My alienware m17xr3 is almost 4 years old and still performs well on windows 8.1 pro x64 so I'm going to be hanging on to it. It has a win 8 wei score of 7.2 so I really can't complain about it.

 

[PricklyPete]

At least 5 years.

 

[marcplante]

Wife had a samsung that seemed like cheap plastic that lasted 8 years despite her worst efforts to kill it (drops, etc) She just replaced with the Samsung ATIV 9 that should last another decade. I use my work PCs until they replace them 2-3 years. They don't to a lot of powerhouse work. At home I have an ASUS N56 that I use on the couch (home brewed desktop). I upgraded the HD to an SSD. That plus 8 G of RAM and a nice 1080 screen and backlit keyboard should keep me happily surfing and doing lightweight work for 5+ years.

Any heavy graphical/video work (archiving our DVDs doing spreadsheet work etc) happens on my Desktop. I'll replace components every 3-5 years, usually driven by the requirements of some game I'm playing. My driving sim. runs fine on the TV with good resolution, so I'm probably set unless the MS windows 10/ MS VR goggles combination proves too compelling this Christmas...Holodeck? Really? The kids will go nuts.

Marc

 

[pauldun170]

I'll keep a laptop for as long as it can run a modern operating system, a modern office suite and can browse the web without bogging down on scripts\flash\whatever.
Last laptop served well into 7 years before the power connector broke on the mainboard.

 

[Commodus]

Two to three years.

I'm a performance junkie, but I also know that you don't normally get major speed boosts (or other feature upgrades) every year. That and going SSD in 2011 with the MacBook Air has reduced the urge to upgrade. I'm on a 13-inch MacBook Pro from late 2013 right now, and the PCIe SSD is so fast that it still feels like a cutting-edge machine. I'm not even in a rush to get the Broadwell-based model.

 

[Seraphimcaduto]

I have an aluminum MacBook from 2008 that's been through some pretty heavy use, but after SSD swap and 8GB of ram, still running strong. My wife has an old 2006 C2D MacBook, finally showing its age. I recently bought a HP elitebook 8460p off of eBay as my "new" windows 7 laptop, ought to hold me over for a bit.