How long should a laptop last?

[BorrowedThyme]

I bought an expensive, high spec laptop to teach in lock down. Now the charging is intermittent, the screen is splitting away from its frame, and the mouse keeps freezing.

AIBU to think something that cost £600 should last longer than 3 and a half years?

I dont think 600 is an expensive laptop. I wouldn’t expect it to last more than a couple of years

My HP Pavilion that I bought just before lockdown for £750 still works perfectly.

My MBP is 8 years old and still going strong……..

My MacBook Air from 2017 is still going strong. It had a new battery a couple of years ago.

I had a Toshiba laptop that lasted about 8 or 9 years. Big bulky thing, but absolutely reliable. Then I replaced it with an HP and it started to go after about 2 years. When I took it for repair, it was referred to as 'old'. It was in perfect condition and didn't get much use, but the keyboard had started to fail. The price of a new keyboard was ridiculous, so I told them just to leave it. I used it for a while with a separate keyboard I already owned, then the battery stopped charging🙄

Depends how heavily you use it. I've had laptops throughout my life, and when I've been using them heavily (like 12hr per day) they rarely make it much past 2yr. I used to budget to buy a new laptop every couple years and then be chuffed if it lasted longer.

Depends what you use it for too. Basic stuff like word processing, YouTube videos? Lasts longer. Very resource-intensive games? It won't last as long.

My Dell xps13 is still perfect after 5 years, but that was top of the range i7 when I bought it.

I wouldn't expect that long for a £5-600 depending on usage.

I think Lenovos vary hugely, depending on the model. I bought a heavy duty Lenovo Thinkpad in 2016 and 7 years later it is still going strong. The Thinkpads are made to last, but they are expensive. But one of their cheaper models might not be so long lasting.

I'd expect a £600 laptop to last 3-4 years before it shows signs of aging. My Dell laptop I got during lockdown is starting to give up the ghost. Compared to my MacBook Pro from nearly 10 years ago still going strong, it really is a different experience.

You get what you pay for at the end of the day.

It should last way more than 3 years. I had a few as I'm ex IBM and I had a work one for 5 years that was dropped countless times and used every day. It was a workhorse.

I have had two 2nd hand ones from CEX last me years as well

My son has just got a Framework laptop, he is just about to start 6th form and it looked like the best option for him. He got the 'build it yourself' option which he loved and installed a Linus OS himself. It looks great, when my Thinkpad finally gives up I will get one myself next time.

Linux not Linus, typo!

Generally you get what you pay for. My experience is the more I spend on a laptop the longer it lasts. £600 isn't very much in the grand scheme of things so I'm not surprised it's wearing out after this amount of time. (I mean for a laptop it's not very much. If you need to find it suddenly for an unexpected bill it might be a huge amount.)

It depends on how well you take care of it of course too. The problems you describe in the OP sound more like misuse or at least normal wear-and-tear more than anything else. Batteries are consumables and after a few years of being charged/discharged over and over they will lose effectiveness and capacity. The problem with the mousepad might be a result of rough handling or it might be a sign your computer is cluttered up with junk and is trying to use more resources than it has the capacity for. The screen splitting from the frame definitey sounds like ill-treatment.

I'm not a fan of mid-range laptops like a £600 one would be. I'd usually tell people to either by a "cheap as shit" one for £300 or so and accept it won't be very powerful or last long, or spend at least a thousand on something more robust and powerful. Mid-range ones tend to be the worst of both worlds, expensive but still a bit shit.

Good on him - although it's totally reasonable to buy the pre-built option as an alternative to HP/Lenovo/etc. Parts availability looks great, the business definitely seems like it's going to last, and the upgrade option is incredibly attractive - not only do you have the ability to just upgrade the motherboard, you can use the old one as a standalone computer (I think you can even buy commercial cases for them now, not just using 3D-printed ones).

We’ve just got rid of an 8yo Acer which did DC1 for 2 years high school and 2 years of university, lockdown and 3 years high school of DC2. So a fair amount of wear and tear.
The battery no longer worked and it had frozen twice in the last year (repair shop).
It didn’t owe us anything.

Agree that the pre built option looks great too, I would probably go for that for simplicity. But he wanted to choose his own OS and have the experience of building it himself, he is very techy!

Until he got this a couple of weeks ago he was using my ancient HP laptop that I bought for about £300 ten years ago. Despite it not being officially upgradable, he'd managed to take it apart and install an SSD, a new screen, a replacement battery and a Linux OS.

I'm seeing a running theme with Acers being very reliable if on a budget.

Laptops generally cost about a fiver a week. MacBooks last about a decade. But they cost £3k so that’s why! A £600 plastic laptop will last 4-5 years maybe.

I think £600 is very expensive,

I've got a Lenovo work laptop that is nearly 3 years old and going fine. I also have a personal 10 year old Sony, loses charge quickly but otherwise fine.

It’s not though. £600 is a cheap laptop unfortunately.

My £380 Lenovo laptop that's about 5 or 6 years old is physically fine, though takes a little while to boot up.

Work laptop was bought in 2020 during lockdown, relatively high end gaming laptop as I needed something that could handle large image files and DTP, closer to £800-900ish than OP's £600, still works as well as the day I got it.

But neither are used as portable - ie they're rarely taken out anywhere, I use a USB mouse etc.

I bought a Lenovo laptop around that time, utter rubbish. Had to bite the bullet and buy an HP laptop in the end.

I'd view £600 as lower end of mid-range for a laptop. I'd be expecting it to still be able to cope with basic office tasks by now - but I'd be upgrading after that long with a Windows laptop - however I use mine for gaming where I'd be expecting to need to upgrade more. In terms of bits physically breaking - if it's been used as a laptop and taken out and about lots - yep I'd be expecting things to be getting a bit battered - but if it's just sat on a desk 90% of the time probably less so. To be honest though with how the supply of things like laptops went crazy during the start of lockdowns - I'd be wondering if you actually got £600 worth of machine or if it was price gouged up a bit.

My MacBook (I have a Windows laptop I use for gaming, but my everyday laptop is a MacBook Pro) though I will be hanging onto until it either stops getting software updates or there's a big enough leap in features and functionality that I can justify it.

And before the eco-warriors start - laptops get passed down to the kids and to my parents and don't just get junked away. Printers however get to sit on the naughty step when they start misbehaving and contemplate their poor life choices and eventually hit the local freecycle. Printers are bastards.

To be fair to Lenovo, we've had a few of their laptops in work, one was faulty and their customer support was excellent.