My brother's laptop is almost two years old and he expects it to last for two or more years. This morning, he opened his laptop and saw vertical lines and unstable images on the screen. We tried to connect an external monitor to its vga port and the display was fine. We suspected it was a damaged lcd and this was confirmed by a service center. We were shocked by the repair/replacement cost estimate, however. The quoted amount is almost half the price of a brand new laptop with the same specs. We are presently weighing our options. One is to just use an external monitor which will come out cheaper but will make the laptop less portable. Another is to buy a brand new laptop with the same specs. We don't think it's wise to replace the lcd because there's no assurance that the motherboard or hd will last long enough to recoup the lcd replacement cost. Any advice? Thanks in advance.