[Atharva4545]

Voted 8+ years,
As I am typing this on a 13' mid 2012 Macbook pro. This is one of the last macbook on which you can upgrade the internals. 2 years ago I installed a 8gb RAM in one of the slots so now it has a total of 10gb RAM and a Samsung 870 SSD( I had bought the 860evo but faced some issues with it so Samsung replaced it under warranty ). Only issue I am facing is the battery which lasts only around 1.5-2hrs.

The laptop boots in under 20 seconds and runs regular tasks without any hesitation. Also although apple does not support the latest macOS, I have installed Monterey using OpenCore Patcher.

[NiInJa]

voted 8+ years or till it breaks down or no longer usable or lacks a feature that is absolutely necessary! Few years back I would have voted less than 3 years, but now its all about how much value I am getting from a particular device.

Fed up of constant need to upgrade and FOMO by getting cheaper spec chips earlier, I spent a bomb back in 2015 and got a PC that had everything, 16GB RAM with expansion slots, Solid State HDD, high end i7 processor, an average external graphics card as I knew I wont be playing games much in future, but can still play games well. At one point I was running a high demand applications requiring DB server, Webserver and all the works on that one machine, it did not disappoint, but later cloud applications took over and our work domain shifted to Oracle/AWS cloud services. So my machine is no longer redlining the way it was before, but it still packs a punch. Plus, most work related things are now shifted to office issued laptops. I personally feel these office IT guys have no knowledge on which laptop they should offer employees :P

Also, One advantage of sticking to devices for longer period is that you don't generate a lot of e-waste.

[hema4saran]

My Thinkpad T450 is on its seventh year and still running like a champ. For the past 2+ years due to WFH, I am running VM and remote desktop connection alternatively and it takes all the load boots up within 15 seconds. I just started facing battery issue and I'm looking to replace the battery. I have another Macbook pro for family usage which me and my wife uses.

My previous Dell Inspiron ran for 6+ years. I left it in India when I travelled to US and it was gone as nobody is using it back home. So my answer is until it runs. The moment I diagnose any issue with hardware, it will be replaced. My choice of laptop for Windows is Thinkpad whether it is for official or personal use. My mantra is spend once on a quality product and cry once. Even my iPhone is on its fourth year and just started showing his age.

[HammerHead]

Well, personally I prefer a PC over laptop. I have a age old HP Elite 8000 SFF with 8GB RAM which is not being used much other than downloading stuff.
Last couple of years its being used by my daughter for her online classes.

I'm hooked up to my office laptop!!

Originally Posted by GTO

My sister works with a Big 4 firm and in their office, as a rule, laptops are changed every 3 years which I feel is quite a waste.

Company for which I work does the same. After 3 years cause that's when the OEM warranty ends. I too feel its a waste especially when there is no need hardware or software compatibility wise. Moreover I keep my office laptop in 'A+' condition so it looks brand new even after 3 years

[n33rav]

I have always bought top of the line configuration and all my 5 systems(including two Laptops) I owned are still usable for my work after 8-10+ years, with only upgrades I did of HDD to SSD.

I had to buy new laptop cause my previous laptop battery died and I can't find genuine replacement. My current workhorse I have to buy cause the previous one become so shy that even a light touch on the cabinet would cause the ram to disconnect and put her off. Then I have to spend 30-60 mins to get it sorted. Few times I did that then decided to move on.

[Carmine_pepper]

i too believe in in going for top of the self specs and running it to the ground before moving on. last laptop was a HP which lasted more than a decade with a few upgrades. finally moved on to ASUS Zen duo this january. anything less than a decade on this one will be a let-down .

[dipdawiz]

Voted for 8+ years or till it "works". Now "works" means the laptop can handle what I want to do, so could be less than 8 years also in that case. Its similar to cars, prefer to buy as much as I could afford to a latest and highest configuration one, so that it lasts long.

Currently, I have an office laptop provided by Company and replacement policy is 4-6 years (have to be 4 years at least or must replace at 6th year). And I have my own laptop. Last one survived for 8+ years and then I replaced; it worked 8+ years partly because heavy duty task was taken by office laptop and browsing, paying bills or shopping done on personal one. But after 8 years 2nd Gen Core i3 was slowing down with Windows 10.

But before that two laptops and a MacBook (parallelly had desktop) were replaced just 3-5 years gap; as those days I used to play some game and laptop/desktop needed to be up to date with graphics card, RAM etc. etc.

I prefer to keep laptop/desktop as long as possible, mainly because its difficult and time consuming (and at this age not fun anymore ) to setup new one similar to the old one, every time you change them.

[RGK]

Originally Posted by Eddy

Some companies don't like having machines without the OEM warranty. But I agree, it is definitely a waste.

Without a doubt. It is determined by the conditions of the warranty agreement between the company and the OEM supplier. Depreciation is also taken into account from a financial standpoint.

My prior latptops lasted 4 to 5 years in my experience, and it is best to replace them after that time. These technological devices are made in such a way that you must either upgrade or replace them after a specific amount of time.

[gary]

It would depend on the use. If it's your primary work laptop and your productivity depends on it, I wouldn't think twice before an upgrade. The key question is productivity and the number of hours spent on it.
It could be a facelift or a replacement.
I work for a company where we upgraded all desktops with SSD and 16 GB RAM and it almost doubled the life of the machine. The same is not true for laptops as peripherals tend to get damaged in 3-4 years. If you use a docking station, it may last longer.
Usually my work laptops last around 3 years, and personal use ones last 7-8 years.

[Holyghost]

I am still using my 2013 Asus Vivobook i5 3rd gen. This was my primary work/personal laptop for the past 9 years and is still going strong. This machine was running 10AM to 11PM every weekday without a break until this Jan. I changed job this Jan and now I have a new Dell for work, but the Asus is still used for my personal things.

The issues I faced so far:
Battery Replaced twice.
The touch screen (Not touch pad, This had a touch screen) had stopped working 3 years ago. Touch screen was anyways not useful.
It came with a 750GB HDD and 32GB SSD. The SSD died in 4 years and I replaced it with 256GB Samsung 850EVO SSD. The HDD still works, but I don't put much data on it as it could fail anytime.
The laptop still boots up in less than 5 Secs and I haven't seen any major performance degradation.
Feels bad it cant be upgraded to Win 11.


I believe this was their first Vivobook/Zenbook series and hence they were built well, with full metal body and good cooling. My friend also had purchased the same laptop in 2013 from US and that is also going strong, with just a replacement of HDD. The touch screen works perfect on that laptop and even the battery is original.