How long do your laptops last?

[Bluebird]

I have an old Alienware laptop that I've had for about 7 years, and it still runs some basic games. I have formatted the hard drive a few times when it got sluggish.

I managed to get a super cheap laptop with no drive, for browsing only, for about £100. I was thinking about upgrading my gaming laptop but I can't justify the cost. I mentioned this to my partner's dad, who is loaded with money, and he then tried to sell me his. lol it's true what they say about the poor being the most generous.

 

[HowiMetdaSlayer]

Got my PC (from the 'rents) via Amazon a few years back along with a 25" HP IPS monitor for like $350 for both. 🙂

 

[November]

Got my PC (from the 'rents) via Amazon a few years back along with a 25" HP IPS monitor for like $350 for both. 🙂

Wow thats a great price! Sounds like a suited set up 🙂

I was in the city today and had time to price some SSD and laptops. I was quoted ~$500 for a 1 tb SSD fully installed in my current laptop. I checked a couple other stores and only one other sold SSDs, they did not go smaller than 250GB and the cheapest was $98. 1TB was about $460. A new laptop with a 64GB SSD was $397 but it would be a down grade in screen size to 14inch. I really don't know how much storage I need for what I do. I think I would cope ok with it, it was quite light weight too. I love the Lenovo type and I probably don't need excessive storage in the laptop, as I have external hard drives and these seem to just get cheaper as time goes on.

I am still mulling it over. This laptop isn't dead yet, still whirring to life, and I do like it better than the HP's I had before. I think it will last until next year and I will keep checking out the clearance sales. I don't think I am tech savvy enough to switch a HDD for a SSD on my own.

 

[The Bronze]

I checked a couple other stores and only one other sold SSDs, they did not go smaller than 250GB and the cheapest was $98. 1TB was about $460. A new laptop with a 64GB SSD was $397 but it would be a down grade in screen size to 14inch.

I don't think I am tech savvy enough to switch a HDD for a SSD on my own.

Are you using Windows as your operating system? If so I wouldn't recommend going below 250GB anyway. Even if you don't have much stuff to store it has a habit of taking up more space than you'd think.

I changed the drive in mine and it was a pain. That was because I was transferring everything including windows across as well. If you've got your data on external drives and a disc with your operating system on then it would be quite simple. Unscrew the laptop, switch the drives and then use the disc for a clean install and fresh start.

 

[November]

Yes I use windows but it came pre installed. I'll dig out my hard drives, I will have a bit more to move to them if I do decide to try it myself. Thanks for sharing your experience and advice 🙂

 

[The Bronze]

You're welcome. If you're going to do it yourself then you'll need a back up / cloning programme like acronis. Also a dock or something similar to connect the new drive while you're transferring everything.

Definitely no less than a 250GB drive. I was in the same position, pre installed version of Windows and whatever the manufacturers put in there. I bought a 128GB drive initially and somehow managed to fill it up without really having much of my stuff. Had to replace it with a 500GB but that's now been fine for a long time.

 

[ILLYRIAN]

Just a thought Bluebird but how about buying a HDD plug in (like a back up drive) then maybe some extra memory.

 

[white avenger]

Just an update on my current primary laptop. A couple of days ago, it made an obscene noise and died, so I'm now using my spare while it's getting a new hard drive installed. I'm sure that everyone here has heard the warning about baking up all your files, right? Take it from me, that's very good advice. Luckily, all of my important stuff is kept on a secondary drive, and I was able to salvage it.