Lifespan of a laptop

By lifespan, I mean the period that the laptop is not yet obsolete. In the olden days, the lifespan of a laptop is around 5 years but based on the stats shown by the tech in our office, it is just a little bit more than 2 years before it can be considered obsolete. But I don't agree because laptops come and go every 6 months. My husband is going to buy a laptop that's why we are doing a personal research on the matter.

 

I'm not sure what you mean with obsolete per se? I've an old laptop that is 8 years old, Windows 7, I had to buy a new one almost 2 years ago because of a heating system. I'd say at 2 years it's too early if you want to buy a new one, specially if it's for personal use and the laptop is working well. But I guess it's matter of choice and taste.

 

It's all dependant on what you are going to use it for.

Complicated cad graphic design, or the very hungry super fast games a faster machine
is always a consideration.

For the internet or office type work it's not necessary to be updating a laptop so often.

If the laptop you have is performing well then keep it.

Just clean out the vents,and replace the motherboard battery every 5years or so

Most new laptops are not upping there speeds, some manufactures are just listing a
newer version cpu's which may well be slower than the previous versions.

Here's a site to compare the speed of cpu's

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/

 

My first laptop was HP and I used it for 7 years until the fan got to hot, and my son Toshiba is 6 years old and still is working. So I believe, they made better laptop back then, and the new ones are not that durable because my second HP was only two years old when it got in trouble.

 

I have been using the same laptop since six years. Considering what I do on my laptop I never have had any problems. I use my laptop to write online offline and surf internet.I don't do programming, gaming or graphic designing, therefore even if it is too old it performs well. However, I want to replace my laptop before it stops working.

 

I still have a very old Dell inspiron from 2006 that I occasionally use, the battery is dead so I have to use it while plugged to the wall, and also the optical drive died on me, but I installed a lightweight linux distro and it still works like a charm, I even can run the latest Firefox so I can browse all modern sites.

So, there you have it, 10 years going strong. My MacBook Pro is also like 5 years old now, and it is as good as new even today.

 

Laptop or mobile technology is a sphere which is developing rapidly unlike the stagnancy in the desktop department. But I have to know ywhat you mean by the term Obsolete?
Do you play high end games? Then any laptop will get obsolete in less than 2 years. Do you do only office work or just browse the net, then it suddenly rises to 5 years. Though, after 5 years, your laptop will decrease ten fold in value.

 

Oh, pardon me for not being clear about being obsolete. Just like the cell phone which new models emerge from time to time, a laptop or even desktop is almost the same - there are new models every year and sometimes every 6 months. With those new hardware models come new software and in 2 years, there are softwares that cannot properly run in an old laptop. When I said obsolete, it doesn't mean that the laptop is not serviceable anymore.

Well, this is just my opinion based on my experience since we are in the process of purchasing a new laptop for home use.

 

I thought it was only me who is using old laptop. I have seen people using a desktop computer since 15 years without having any major problems. However, I have never heard about using a laptop since 10 years.

 

I think it will depend on the user and the quality of the laptop. If the quality is great, and it is not used too often, then the life span of the laptop would be great. If the laptop is being taken cared of, and not being dropped, then it should probably survive for several years. The question will be, will it be able to function at par with the future laptops? Technology changes so fast nowadays.

 

I'm not sure if I'm buying bad quality laptops but they seem to only last a year maximum for me. They completely just stop working somehow. This is why I prefer to use a desktop computer over a laptop. You could have those for about 20 years before they stopped working! They also perform better overall.

 

I think it really depends what sort of a laptop you buy. If it's a entry level laptop, it can never last as long as a high end laptop. There are a lot of people that buy very cheap laptops just to find out a year or two later that they can't run a certain program on it because the speed of the CPU isn't enough or it doesn't have enough ram.

 

Assuming that usage is normal and does not differ across users, it's also good to point out that the lifespan of a laptop does not really depend much on its RAM, CPU or GPU. And neither do they get slower over time. A CPU's expected lifespan is about a decade or two, while the GPU about half a decade. The ones that will break first will be the hard drives. If the hard drive breaks, it doesn't mean the end of your laptop, you can easily replace it. With proper maintenance and usage, your laptop could last for about a decade. Of course, it doesn't mean it won't get obsolete. Obsolescence is another issue.

 

Lifespan is a vague term. Some consider this to mean how long the hardware lasts, while others signify how long the laptop is 'usable' i.e not obsolete to the point of being too slow to run anything. I infer from your post you mean the latter. In that case too, the answer may vary. If we are talking about intensive tasks such as gaming or software design, you may need to swap your laptop every 2-3 years. But if it's for more routine tasks, a laptop may last you up to 5 years, or even more.

 

I can never keep a laptop that long, but they do last a long time if you're able to take care of them. I do try and take care of the laptops that I have, but something always ends up happening, and it breaks. I actually had a very nice Toshiba that I brought to Staples to have fixed for a huge virus on the laptop. Well I got it back and less than 6 months later it was toast.

 

I had mine for 8 years but in the end it was really annoying.
I do think that lifespans are around 2-3 years, but with proper cleaning and software updating maybe more.

 

Well, just because upgrades are constantly happening and technology is evolving at a rapid rate, it doesn't necessarily make the older models obsolete as such for a reasonable amount of time. I've just bought a new laptop myself for the first time ever. The one I was using before that, I was using for over five years but it's now ten years old and is out of date. I would probably say about five years on average, if buying a brand new model. I've also taken out insurance on the laptop which lasts indefinitely as long as I keep paying it. I plan on keeping this laptop for a good few years.

 

Yes, technology companies are constantly manufacturing and offering something new to lure new customers so it's possible that the laptop you bought 2 years ago will be considered a very old model when the new releases come out but i don't really care, as long as it's still working fine, then it's all good.

 

I am using the laptop for basic word processing, spreadsheet, and database programs, and though I'd like to buy a new one to learn CAD, animation, and game programming, I plan to keep this laptop for the same stuff I'm presently using it for. I'm still using MS Office 2010 and have not encountered any difficulty. In fact, some clients actually require their document to be in doc format instead of docx so I have to save the file as an older Word version file. So I think no, it's not about to become 'obsolete' in 3 to 4 years time.

 

I have a gaming laptop that I bought for $1k a year and a few months ago and it's still going strong, I expect his lifespan to be around 5 years and after that it's still going to be a great laptop for browsing the internet and pretty much doing all sorts of tasks. The hardware will get outdated though, no doubt about that. Newer games will be hard on it.