How long do your laptops usually last? Do you take good care of your gear?

[w1z4rd]

They can go a long time. Much longer if you regularly strip it to clean the fans.

 

[supersunbird]

I am currently on my second laptop in six years.

I got the first Lenovo G50 in October 2014 and used it until April 2018. The hinge was eventually broken and the charging port as well. I sold it for R600. Probably stupid now but I needed to get rid of it as I was travelling.

I have had my current one HP I3 since April 2018. I have probably spent over R2000 on repairs for it. It had a few mechanical issues last year and the original charger became faulty eventually which caused my original battery to stop functioning (I had to replace both with generics). The laptop also has some body damage (I dropped it once and also took a fall last year when I was robbed, fortunately the thieves did not take my back-pack). I covered the cracks with power glue to prevent them from spreading.

Overall, the laptop has been working fine since January. I got an SSD which made it faster than it was when it was bought.

But it's safe to say that I'm not the best at taking care of laptops. I'm much better with phones.

Lenovos are a bit more fragile in my experience, HPs and Dells are a bit better at taking abuse.

 

[Drifter]

Got my laptop in 2012, still in daily use.

 

[Geoff.D]

>6 years on average.

 

[Lupus]

My old Dell M4700 is still going after 8 years, yes the battery is poked. It was a top of the range spec when I got it though, first laptop that I had with 16GB, 128GB SSD and 1TB standard drive. I7 3470QM so pretty decent CPU, though I stupidly took the ATI version to save a bit for more RAM and the ATI card only has 1GB RAM so it was outdated quite sometime ago.

 

[Rickster]

My old Dell M4700 is still going after 8 years, yes the battery is poked. It was a top of the range spec when I got it though, first laptop that I had with 16GB, 128GB SSD and 1TB standard drive. I7 3470QM so pretty decent CPU, though I stupidly took the ATI version to save a bit for more RAM and the ATI card only has 1GB RAM so it was outdated quite sometime ago.

Just replaced the battery and upgraded to a SSD for a clients Precision M4500. Good machine, better than the celeron kak you get these days.

 

[Lupus]

Just replaced the battery and upgraded to a SSD for a clients Precision M4500. Good machine, better than the celeron kak you get these days.

Yeah I just saw a replacement battery is a grand now, which is slightly cheaper than they used to be, might replace it. Move the stuff of the 1TB and give it to my wife to use, her old Lenovo i5 is starting to chug along. The SSD is now a 240Gb and it was fast for the time, but now it's basically the same as entry level ones.

 

[mr_norris]

I think it also depends on the build quality and after sales support, not just how well you look after it.

My first laptop was an HP and built a bit like a tank. It was rather abused though. Order of things that went wrong:

- Stripped it for cleaning, warped the keyboard a bit, and had a few extra screws left
- Battery died a few years into its life, I never replaced it.
- Stood on it and broke the screen, retired it as a laptop and it took on more of a server role.
- HDD started packing up. By this stage it was nearing 11 years old. I dumped it in a recycle bin.

Through the years I did look for replacement parts, but people on Gumtree, etc, are out of touch with reality and asking prices, even for dead ones of the same model, were too high. If I could have bought one of the same model, chances are I could have scavenged parts to make it like new again. I remember thinking to myself "I will never get an HP again" because I was unhappy with the touchpad buttons just after I got it. Boy oh boy, if I only knew what I had in store for me next.

My second and current laptop was treated like a queen, but I have had spades of bad luck with it. Order of things that went wrong:

- Got it, mobo faulty, sent in for repair
- Got it back, same issue, sent for repair again. Another mobo replacement fixed it. I was told it was because Skylake was new and they hadn't quite fleshed things out yet.
- Screw mounts failed, and the hinges parted ways with the chassis. Took it to Rectron for repair, came back fine.
- Screw mounts failed again, ordered the part (pretty much a new chassis) to replace myself as a cost cutting measure.
- Noticed things were not looking good again, thought I'd lubricate the hinges to ease the load on the screw mounts around them. Lubricant leaked into the screen and wrecked it. This was a fine moment for me. Replaced screen.
- Screw mounts died again, and Rectron couldn't source the part anymore. Gigabyte themselves were of no help either. Over the next couple of months I went on a mission to find a suitable epoxy that would do the trick. Lots of attempts and failures later, I found something called Q-bond, and repaired things myself. I do not wish the pain I went through on anybody.

Unfortunately the years of use, and being stripped and reassembled has taken its toll. It is no longer in mint condition, but it still looks good. I have also lost some screws which have proved challenging to replace. The screw mounts are now solid too, and I haven't had issues in about 9 months. The touchpad sticker also needs replacing, as the new chassis didn't come with one. As it's a minor cosmetic issue, I haven't bothered. It's nearing 5 years old now. I advise anyone to avoid Gigabyte at all costs.

 

[Lupus]

I think it also depends on the build quality and after sales support, not just how well you look after it.

My first laptop was an HP and built a bit like a tank. It was rather abused though. Order of things that went wrong:

- Stripped it for cleaning, warped the keyboard a bit, and had a few extra screws left
- Battery died a few years into its life, I never replaced it.
- Stood on it and broke the screen, retired it as a laptop and it took on more of a server role.
- HDD started packing up. By this stage it was nearing 11 years old. I dumped it in a recycle bin.

Through the years I did look for replacement parts, but people on Gumtree, etc, are out of touch with reality and asking prices, even for dead ones of the same model, were too high. If I could have bought one of the same model, chances are I could have scavenged parts to make it like new again. I remember thinking to myself "I will never get an HP again" because I was unhappy with the touchpad buttons just after I got it. Boy oh boy, if I only knew what I had in store for me next.

My second and current laptop was treated like a queen, but I have had spades of bad luck with it. Order of things that went wrong:

- Got it, mobo faulty, sent in for repair
- Got it back, same issue, sent for repair again. Another mobo replacement fixed it. I was told it was because Skylake was new and they hadn't quite fleshed things out yet.
- Screw mounts failed, and the hinges parted ways with the chassis. Took it to Rectron for repair, came back fine.
- Screw mounts failed again, ordered the part (pretty much a new chassis) to replace myself as a cost cutting measure.
- Noticed things were not looking good again, thought I'd lubricate the hinges to ease the load on the screw mounts around them. Lubricant leaked into the screen and wrecked it. This was a fine moment for me. Replaced screen.
- Screw mounts died again, and Rectron couldn't source the part anymore. Gigabyte themselves were of no help either. Over the next couple of months I went on a mission to find a suitable epoxy that would do the trick. Lots of attempts and failures later, I found something called Q-bond, and repaired things myself. I do not wish the pain I went through on anybody.

Unfortunately the years of use, and being stripped and reassembled has taken its toll. It is no longer in mint condition, but it still looks good. I have also lost some screws which have proved challenging to replace. The screw mounts are now solid too, and I haven't had issues in about 9 months. The touchpad sticker also needs replacing, as the new chassis didn't come with one. As it's a minor cosmetic issue, I haven't bothered. It's nearing 5 years old now. I advise anyone to avoid Gigabyte at all costs.

Oh yeah those HP Elite books can be built like tanks, my dad is still using my old one from 2009. Still ticking, slow now though and it was still equipped with DDR2 RAM.

 

[Pandarye]

The only laptop I own is an Acer eMachines laptop from about 2009. I used it at university and then at work for a few years. It initially had a painfully slow celeron M900 processor, 2gigs of ram and a mechanical HDD. It's now running a dual core processor that I harvested from another dead laptop, a whopping 4gigs of ram, and a dual SSD + HDD setup.

I still use it when working from home and my SO uses it for her studies. Besides the poor battery life it still gets the job done without too much fuss.

 

[zoozi]

2009 Lenovo still going strong, although the battery is farked and it's really showing its age now, only used as a streaming device.

 

[Alton Turner Blackwood]

I got my Dell in 2015 and apart from one stick of RAM dying last year, it's still going strong. Originally had 2 x 4GB so when the one stick died, I replaced it with an 8GB stick so now have 12GB.

My wife bought her laptop earlier this year and accidentally cracked the scree after a few weeks.

 

[ChuckMeFarley]

1st ever laptop Acer Travelmate 6492, bought 2003 ish - Battery died long ago. Now running Chrome and sister still using it daily.
2nd laptop Huawei Matebook x bought 2019 - Still going strong.

 

[Budza]

Dell Latitude bought from Flashgear.
3yrs plus now (out of warranty)

Time to open it up and get some dust out.

It's my BYOD work machine, so sees a lot of use.

Good machine.


Next Machine needs to be something like this:

Affordable
USB-C charging
FHD or better 13 or 14" screen
iWhatever can play 4k media
16/32GB RAM
NVME SSD
Light and strong (I cycle to work)

Haven't seen anything like that yet so will hang on to the Dell for now.

 

[PhireSide]

I had an older Toshiba X205-S9349 that I had for about three years. I purchased it second-hand in 2009, and sold it in 2012 and it gave no issues.

Prior to that I had a second-hand Asus EEE PC that I used for about two years that was also solid.

I currently have a Lenovo IdeaPad 330 that I bought second-hand as well, which I have had for a couple of months. Seems solid enough but the build quality is really not good at all, so I wouldn't really use it in a mobile sense too much (which seems counterproductive but it is what it is).

My work Dell Latitude is about 4 years old and is still going strong. The SSD was replaced last year, but otherwise I don't think it has had any issues besides it being a little on the slow side. Dual Core machines really didn't age well at all.

 

[Jet-Fighter7700]

personal T420, still have it, but Motherboard issues.
work Lenovo ideapad 3, working well,
previously had a HP probook 450 G5 also lasted a long time,

I tend to keep things forever, literally wear out the keys before I break them.
cellphones besides the stolen ones still have my old Nokia 3310 and my ancient Sony Ericson z600
Hell, I still have my ancient Ericsson GA628 somewhere, Im a hoarder of note.

 

[Magnum]

Been using trusty old Dell since 2009. Need some help with Ram upgrade. It does not compute.

 

[PhireSide]

Dell Latitude bought from Flashgear.
3yrs plus now (out of warranty)

Time to open it up and get some dust out.

It's my BYOD work machine, so sees a lot of use.

Good machine.


Next Machine needs to be something like this:

Affordable
USB-C charging
FHD or better 13 or 14" screen
iWhatever can play 4k media
16/32GB RAM
NVME SSD
Light and strong (I cycle to work)

Haven't seen anything like that yet so will hang on to the Dell for now.

Sounds like the Tongfang/Schenker/Mechrevo Air S2 might be the fit for you

They are sold locally by Wootware as the Wootware Metal II.

You can spec one with a 500GB NVME SSD, 32GB RAM and a three year warranty for a little over R16k:

WootBook Metal II - Wootware

WootBook Metal II - Wootware

www.wootware.co.za

 

[Mrcricket]

Lenovos are a bit more fragile in my experience, HPs and Dells are a bit better at taking abuse.

I have a HP I5 i3 right now for two and a half years. I would not say it has been the best at taking abuse but I have taken it on two rushed overseas trips and it is still operational. I'll probably use it until it becomes unusable.

I have power glue on it now to cover cracks and had to replace the charger and battery. Altogether, I must have spent just over 2k on repairing it.

 

[Jet-Fighter7700]

Been using trusty old Dell since 2009. Need some help with Ram upgrade. It does not compute.

old RAM modules? broken socket?
BIOS update available?