Longest you've had a "daily/heavy use" laptop? (1 Viewer)

[snellman]

Lenovo will be 4 years old in January. By far the best laptop I have had. Originally had windows 7 on it, but I upgraded to windows 10. Seems to run warmer after upgrading. It is on every night from when I get home to when I go to bed and have had no issues at all with it.

 

[James Daulton]

I'm responding to this on a 2008 Dell Inspiron. It pretty much runs like ####, but my daughter and I have it covered with stickers that I like, it's like nothing anyone else uses, and I don't want to give it up. I've replace the batter twice and keyboard once. Added memory once too. This thing is also at least 3x the weight of current laptops.

Not giving it up.

 

[Kumerica]

Still relying on my mid-2010 MacBook Pro 15" -- these days I use it for personal/freelance work, but there was a three-year period where it was my primary work laptop as well. It's been with me in multiple countries and timezones, taken a couple of falls, shows a few dings here and there. While I think of it as my Millennium Falcon, she's definitely slowing down.

I'm shopping for another one, but am hesitant to drop $3K at the moment (I don't recall the 15" starting at $2K). Also, I could probably get an iMac for audio recording/graphic work, and take this laptop in for some general maintenance and updates, saving about a grand in the process . . .

 

[HellToupee]

MacBook from 2008 that is on its last legs

 

[hagmania]

I'm responding to this on a 2008 Dell Inspiron. It pretty much runs like ####, but my daughter and I have it covered with stickers that I like, it's like nothing anyone else uses, and I don't want to give it up. I've replace the batter twice and keyboard once. Added memory once too. This thing is also at least 3x the weight of current laptops.

Not giving it up.

I have a 2005 Dell! It was my college PC.

Replacing the battery and keeping enough RAM in it to handle what I want to do kept it up and running for 4 or 5 really heavy use years. I retired it after I built my own PC and nowadays, I use it for livechatting sporting events mostly, not really close to daily use.

 

[hagmania]

Oh wow, completely forgot I got it replaced my junior year. It's a 2007, but still.

 

[ILUVBEER99]

wtf are people doing with their computers where they only last 2 years. i've had all kinds of different brands and they have all lasted 5+ years with no issues at all.

 

[dparker713]

wtf are people doing with their computers where they only last 2 years. i've had all kinds of different brands and they have all lasted 5+ years with no issues at all.

I've had a screen crap out after 2 years, a fan fail after 5, and a power port stop working after 2.5. Now, I run these machines pretty heavily, and often on top of a bed spread, so the heat and the wear are pretty brutal. For the cost of a machines, its just not worth it to repair anything major and I can't imagine upgrading anything other than RAM, and even then you're close to justifying a new machine.

 

[NCCommish]

Never had a daily use laptop go more than 3-3.5 years before turning to such #### it needed to be replaced.

I used to buy cheapest Dell I could find (~$500-600ea) and always had issues with cases breaking, power jacks failing, keyboards dying, etc. One or two drops or trips over the power cord while getting up and the thing was done. Used to do a low level format and re-install OS/APPS once every 12 months or so to freshen it up. To be fair I was buying cheap and I'm pretty certain many other manufacturers have stepped up their game with better quality machines these days.

I'm running a Dell that was a refurb when I got it. I always buy refurbs. Its at least 4 yrs old. Got another refurbed Dell that is probably 6 years old with XP that is still fine. Both of these were my everyday everywhere machine. I no longer have a daily need for work purposes though.

 

[PIK95]

I have a refurbed Dell I bought 4-5 years ago and I still use. It was a $2500 model new. The screen is giant. I replaced the battery, that was all.

 

[Christo]

I have an HP laptop at work that's just passed 5 years.

 

[dparker713]

Never had a daily use laptop go more than 3-3.5 years before turning to such #### it needed to be replaced.

I used to buy cheapest Dell I could find (~$500-600ea) and always had issues with cases breaking, power jacks failing, keyboards dying, etc. One or two drops or trips over the power cord while getting up and the thing was done. Used to do a low level format and re-install OS/APPS once every 12 months or so to freshen it up. To be fair I was buying cheap and I'm pretty certain many other manufacturers have stepped up their game with better quality machines these days.

I'm running a Dell that was a refurb when I got it. I always buy refurbs. Its at least 4 yrs old. Got another refurbed Dell that is probably 6 years old with XP that is still fine. Both of these were my everyday everywhere machine. I no longer have a daily need for work purposes though.

Manufacturer refurbs are definitely great value and very low risk.

 

[mr fancypants]

Never had a daily use laptop go more than 3-3.5 years before turning to such #### it needed to be replaced.

I used to buy cheapest Dell I could find (~$500-600ea) and always had issues with cases breaking, power jacks failing, keyboards dying, etc. One or two drops or trips over the power cord while getting up and the thing was done. Used to do a low level format and re-install OS/APPS once every 12 months or so to freshen it up. To be fair I was buying cheap and I'm pretty certain many other manufacturers have stepped up their game with better quality machines these days.

I'm running a Dell that was a refurb when I got it. I always buy refurbs. Its at least 4 yrs old. Got another refurbed Dell that is probably 6 years old with XP that is still fine. Both of these were my everyday everywhere machine. I no longer have a daily need for work purposes though.

I have an HP I bought in 2007 that still runs like a champ and is running on Vista. Vista is going to be discontinued in April 2017. Do I need to really worry about upgrading to windows 7 if all I use this machine is for surfing the web and e-mail.

 

[NCCommish]

Never had a daily use laptop go more than 3-3.5 years before turning to such #### it needed to be replaced.

I used to buy cheapest Dell I could find (~$500-600ea) and always had issues with cases breaking, power jacks failing, keyboards dying, etc. One or two drops or trips over the power cord while getting up and the thing was done. Used to do a low level format and re-install OS/APPS once every 12 months or so to freshen it up. To be fair I was buying cheap and I'm pretty certain many other manufacturers have stepped up their game with better quality machines these days.

I'm running a Dell that was a refurb when I got it. I always buy refurbs. Its at least 4 yrs old. Got another refurbed Dell that is probably 6 years old with XP that is still fine. Both of these were my everyday everywhere machine. I no longer have a daily need for work purposes though.

I have an HP I bought in 2007 that still runs like a champ and is running on Vista. Vista is going to be discontinued in April 2017. Do I need to really worry about upgrading to windows 7 if all I use this machine is for surfing the web and e-mail.

Yes mostly for security reasons. Once they stop updates the machines are very vulnerable to viruses and such.

 

[Dentist]

wtf are people doing with their computers where they only last 2 years. i've had all kinds of different brands and they have all lasted 5+ years with no issues at all.

you must not have parents that use computers. If i wasn't remoting in and fixing something they screwed up, or running their updates, or doing a disk cleanup/defrag... they would destroy a computer within months.

I setup a new computer for my uncle and in 3 months by misclicking and jacking around he'd completely deleted almost all the settings I'd put together... it's mind-blowing.

I'm practically a micro IT guy for a few family members and friends... I have a buddy who mucks up his computer with pr0n from the torrents... things can just go downhill so fast when you don't discriminate on your downloads.

 

[Fat Nick]

I had an old Dell...can't even remember the model. Just a basic Dell Laptop. Got it for Grad School in 2007, and it was my daily-use laptop from then until fall of 2014 when I got an iMac desktop. I use my work laptop for most of my portable stuff now.

Over those 7+ years, it had some issues early on and the motherboard was replaced 2x under warranty. I upgraded the WiFi card, hard drive, RAM, and bought 2 power converters. The battery is still the original though, and when I stopped using it would still run ~1-2 hours unplugged. I almost retired it in 2010 or so, but upgraded the hard drive, and installed Windows 7 on it, which really brought it back to life.

 

[Slapdash]

wtf are people doing with their computers where they only last 2 years. i've had all kinds of different brands and they have all lasted 5+ years with no issues at all.

I have had 3 different laptops (different brands) last about 2 years because of a ####ty connector between the power cord and the motherboard.

 

[NCCommish]

wtf are people doing with their computers where they only last 2 years. i've had all kinds of different brands and they have all lasted 5+ years with no issues at all.

My last boss I had to order a new laptop every year. He just abused the hell out of them and he wanted the cheapest thing he could get by with. That is a deadly combination.

 

[matttyl]

My first laptop I purchased right out of college when I got my first job. This was in 2002 when laptops were still very expensive compared to desktops, and I was already broke from 4 years of college. I got a Dell, and having a cd burner was considered a pretty big upgrade, and a "pentium 4" was cutting edge. I spent $2k on that 15 pound behemoth, took it to work every day and then home as my personal computer as well. I babied that thing for about 5 years and finally got a new laptop in 2007.

I think I had 2 or 3 between then and the one I have now that I got maybe 4 or 5 years ago, and I don't foresee having to get a new one any time soon. I have upgraded (max out) the RAM and installed a SSD, and probably wiped and reinstalled the OS 2-3 times, though. It's got an i5 and a blu-ray drive, so I'm not sure they would be a point in getting a new one.

 

[Freaky Styley]

I've been rocking the original Surface Pro as my daily driver since 2011-ish and it's worked like a champ.

In that time, I've used an iPad 3, MacBook Pro 2012 and Lenovo X1 and they've all given up the ghost except for my Surface Pro. I'm very demanding of my technology and like a PC I can beat on and that travels well.

 

[ghostguy123]

Maybe a little off topic but speaking of laptops, what is the absolute cheapest laptop I can get new (or refurbished I suppose)?

My only requirements are at least a 13-14 inch screen or bigger and enough RAM/Memory to pretty much just be able to download/stream the most basic stuff like Netflix and youtube.

I don't really care about battery life, how heavy it is, or really anything other than being able to use it for basic things. No gaming, no downloading of anything large at all, not saving anything to it like photos or work related things. None of that.

Just basic basic basic and cheap cheap cheap.

A link to something would be appreciated.

 

[dparker713]

Maybe a little off topic but speaking of laptops, what is the absolute cheapest laptop I can get new (or refurbished I suppose)?

My only requirements are at least a 13-14 inch screen or bigger and enough RAM/Memory to pretty much just be able to download/stream the most basic stuff like Netflix and youtube.

I don't really care about battery life, how heavy it is, or really anything other than being able to use it for basic things. No gaming, no downloading of anything large at all, not saving anything to it like photos or work related things. None of that.

Just basic basic basic and cheap cheap cheap.

A link to something would be appreciated.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA5TC1YR8489

That should work for 99 + shipping

 

[matttyl]

Maybe a little off topic but speaking of laptops, what is the absolute cheapest laptop I can get new (or refurbished I suppose)?

My only requirements are at least a 13-14 inch screen or bigger and enough RAM/Memory to pretty much just be able to download/stream the most basic stuff like Netflix and youtube.

I don't really care about battery life, how heavy it is, or really anything other than being able to use it for basic things. No gaming, no downloading of anything large at all, not saving anything to it like photos or work related things. None of that.

Just basic basic basic and cheap cheap cheap.

A link to something would be appreciated.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA5TC1YR8489

That should work for 99 + shipping

I'd be wary of anything that comes with "Wondows" as the operating system.

For a bit more than that, you can get much lighter, and new - next week (yeah yeah, black Friday or whatever).

 

[BobbyLayne]

I've been through 3 laptops in the past 5 years. Got my MacBook Air less than a year ago.

Desktop? Had a 486 I bought summer 2000 for 9 years. That was a plow horse, never had issue until the HD finally crashed.

 

[dparker713]

Maybe a little off topic but speaking of laptops, what is the absolute cheapest laptop I can get new (or refurbished I suppose)?

My only requirements are at least a 13-14 inch screen or bigger and enough RAM/Memory to pretty much just be able to download/stream the most basic stuff like Netflix and youtube.

I don't really care about battery life, how heavy it is, or really anything other than being able to use it for basic things. No gaming, no downloading of anything large at all, not saving anything to it like photos or work related things. None of that.

Just basic basic basic and cheap cheap cheap.

A link to something would be appreciated.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA5TC1YR8489

That should work for 99 + shipping

I'd be wary of anything that comes with "Wondows" as the operating system.

For a bit more than that, you can get much lighter, and new - next week (yeah yeah, black Friday or whatever).

They're obviously not able to afford a proofreader at that price point

 

[cstu]

I am not a computer guy. What can I do to help speed up this old workhorse computer?

I have an old 2006 Dell Inspiron 6400 that I didn't know what to do with - not worth much the way it was with 2GB RAM and a 100GB 5400 rpm HD, although it did have a relatively decent 2.0 GHz Core 2 Duo processor.  Still worked fine but took too long to load up and it was always getting low on memory.  So I bought a $39 120GB SSD (Kingston) and $34 on 4 GB RAM then install a clean copy of Windows 7.  Tremendous difference, wouldn't call it fast but no longer feels like an ancient machine.  Not going to play any graphic intensive games on it but works fine for everyday tasks (Office, browsing, Youtube).  For $73 and my time I think it was worth it, could actually give it to someone and not feel like I'm giving a POS.

 

[belljr]

Think I'm on 8

 

[ShamrockPride]

4 years for me. Then it got unusably slow. I even did a factory reset on it and minimally helped. I just use it for music now.

 

[cstu]

4 years for me. Then it got unusably slow. I even did a factory reset on it and minimally helped. I just use it for music now.

SSD and more RAM works wonders.

 

[DaVinci]

I've had an HP G72 for over 5 years. I tried installing Windows 10 on it and it ran hot enough to cook bacon. I reverted back to Windows 7, but it's still running a little hot and it has slowed down noticeably.  I'll be looking for a good Black Friday deal. Not sure if I want another 17" laptop since I don't use it for AutoCAD any more and it's a beast to lug around.

 

[renesauz]

Been using the same cheap Lenovo for....SEVEN years now. The power cord cut cut at one point and reconnected, and it's missing one key (the cover...there's a tiny button underneath still working). Some of the keys stick a little so that they don't always appear on screen, but the darn thing won't die. (I don't do any real work on it anymore though...tons of surfing and some games...likely average over 4 hours daily since purchased)

 

[FreeBaGeL]

I'm far from an apple guy but it's hard to argue with the longevity of their laptops.  I'm still rocking my mid-2011 Macbook Air every day.  It sounds a lot like Icon's in terms of condition.  Dented and dinged to hell, half the screws in the bottom are either gone or stripped.

Only thing I've replaced is the battery.  And of course the POS charger about 5 times.

 

[pollardsvision]

Never used a laptop more than a couple of years, but I got a used Thinkpad T420 back in February. It's now 5 years old, and it's the best laptop I've ever owned. It was decent refurbished out of the box, but $70 spent on a 240GB SSD and a 4 more GB made it lightning fast. Got just over $300 in it.

Unless something changes in the market, it's going to be all used, refurbished business-grade PC's and Chromebooks for me from now on.

 

[dal_boys_phan]

Not a laptop, but I have a 2014 HP i3 desktop (Staples BF special bought using mainly ink cart certs, so like $100 out the door) on Win10 that was running SUPER slow.  Just did a complete reinstall, dropped the OS on an SSD and bumped up the RAM from 4GB to 16GB - thing is flying now.

My Dell outlet Studio laptop from 2007 still works pretty effectively, once it finishes booting up.  But that thing barely travels out of the house, so we have taken good care of it.  Went SSD and bumped up the RAM on that one when I jumped it to Win10 as well.

 

[Charlie Harper]

My Dell XPS still running after 5 years. However all I do is surf the net. 

I see no need to get another laptop until this one breaks unless I get into before video editing or crap like that.