Posted: 9/17/2026 9:51:11 PM EDT
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i know most of you boomers are still using a pc with win98, and the gen z and a are just using their phones, but for those of you in the middle using laptops, how old is yours and how often do you replace it? curious because iirc, i went from refreshing every 2-3 years back in late 90s early 2000s, to once every 5 years 2010, 2015, and the one i got about 5 years ago basically still feels new. as long as it doesn't die, i'll probably keep using it another 5 years. i've actually not had a personal laptop fail (just a work one). I've only replaced them for newer/faster compute/storage/video. from a work perspective, i know my employer of 20+ years went from depreciating them over 3 years to 4 and 5 years. and after 2010, i never felt like i needed more performance, but they did get banged up a bit with so much travel so i was glad to refresh occasionally. |
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Most businesses do 3-4 year life cycle replacements simply because it's just better in the long run for business efficiency to replace stuff before it starts breaking down. If you buy a decent laptop these days it should easily last you 3-4 years, likely much longer. |
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Depends on the laptop and what you’re doing with it. Not gaming? A high-end machine from 6-8 years ago should still be plenty capable of almost any non-gaming activity if you throw an SSD and maybe a RAM upgrade at it. Gaming…..well…..the inability to upgrade the video card will hamstring it long before it stops being a capable non-gaming machine. Really depends on the machine and specifically the cpu….more cores is better… My older desktop (6-7 years old?) with an i7-8700 still runs circles around a 2 year old midrange i5 (work) laptop when it comes to photo editing and any multi-core/task activity. |
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Back in the Windows XP days, I felt like I had to wipe and reinstall every couple of years. Then I bought a MacBook in 2009 and used it until COVID. Bought the M1 Air to replace that. My daughter has been using it for school the last couple of years. 5 years no problems. I bought my wife a MacBook Air in 2014, and she used it until I replaced it with the new one in 2025. Guess what? I’m using her old machine now since I didn’t have one. 12 years and still good enough for basic office use. |
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| I'm running an 7th gen i7 the conservation club was getting rid of. 2017 era iirc. I replaced Win10 with Ubuntu and it's more than adequate for my needs. Boots a bit slow because it has a mechanical hard drive. Since I don't store much on it I'm thinking of replacing the hdd with a 256gb ssd to speed up boot time. |
I'm at about a 7 year cycle on my laptops. Bought gaming laptops the last two times around just because I often have too much crap running at once and they can handle it better, at least in my imagination.  They generally also have better keyboards and a more robust design. I take it back and forth to work every day and my current ASUS was advertised for its ability to hold up to abuse. The last several I've been through all started getting slow/glitchy at 5-7 years. |
| I replace mine about every five years. The exception would be the cheap one I took to Afghanistan. That one died almost as soon as I got back home after a couple of years |
*post contains personal opinion only and should not be considered information released in an official capacity*
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Originally Posted By jabbanobother: Personally, 5-6 years maybe Enterprise, usually 4 years Win1x -> Linux Mint -> headless "node" after screen gets broken. I used to buy/keep the old ent laptops, but since everyone gets MacBook at work, it doesn't matter. 6yr old macbook doesn't get the longevity it used to or upgrade options. Company went cheap with the 18GB ram option and I want nothing to do with it when it gets retired. |
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Screw it... just pass me another cup of coffee and to hell with Joe
Screw it... just pass me another cup of coffee and to hell with Joe
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Originally Posted By 0100010: Enterprise / corporate laptops get replaced every 3 years, due to warranty. Retail laptops, generally every 5 or 6 years. Most recent one was solely due to win11 HW reqs, CPU was 'too old' to run 25H2. At a place I worked at the older corp laptops would be used as training laptops. Sometimes a user would do something stupid like plaster stickers or write on the laptop with a permanent marker, which makes them harder to re-issue to another user. |
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Originally Posted By 0100010: Enterprise / corporate laptops get replaced every 3 years, due to warranty. Retail laptops, generally every 5 or 6 years. Most recent one was solely due to win11 HW reqs, CPU was 'too old' to run 25H2. Which is why most PC's, Laptop or Desktop, are leased and rarely bought outright. Sure helps us IT guys busy, replacing PC's every week.  |
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Michael Moore: Trump’s election is going to be the biggest Fuck You ever recorded in human history….And it will feel good.
For God and Country: Geronimo! Geronimo! Geronimo!
Michael Moore: Trump’s election is going to be the biggest Fuck You ever recorded in human history….And it will feel good.
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Originally Posted By GiggleSmith: Which is why most PC's, Laptop or Desktop, are leased and rarely bought outright. Sure helps us IT guys busy, replacing PC's every week. It's easier to get rid of older hardware on lease. Send it back in exchange for newer stuff. We used to life cycle 1/3 of our assets every year. |
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When I was working I got used to Lenovo X1 Carbon's every two years from IT. Had one at home (friends at Lenovo shared their employee discount codes...), but the USB-C connectors were poorly designed and broke all of the time. Started buying the same gen that I was using used from the Lenovo refurb store on eBay and they ran like new. Usually a i7/32GB/xxx SSD because I would just drop in my existing 1TB SSD and it would be a 10 minute exact replacement for half the cost of a new machine and then transferring data and such. All of the drivers and custom settings would just work. More USB-C ports broke (they made them a flimsy part of the main board and replacement main boards cost as much as used X1's). I had bought my wife a Yoga 7 in 2021 and she barely used it as she is perfectly happy with her iPad/iPhone. So I have been using it for almost a year now and have no problem running everything I need in 16GB in a 5 year old PC. When it dies, I will be going back to eBay for 3-4 year old one with as much DRAM as makes sense for the price. I also have a 7-8 yer old Lenovo T14 running Linux Mint with no performance problems at all, but haven't pulled the trigger yet on moving entirely to Mint. It might still happen. |
"There are no solutions, only tradeoffs" - Sowell
| Timely thread. My laptop just started acting a fool a couple days ago. 1 of the SSDs is failing intermittently. It is used heavily for programming and a little bit of shitposting. I got the laptop in 3/2020 and added a second samsung SSD and some ram. I'm wearing through some of the keys on the keyboard. The case is splitting. I already replaced the power connector once from it failing. Everything else seems like its in good shape. 6.5 years isn't a bad run. |
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My laptop is 8 years old and showing it. I'd replace it, but I'm having a tough time finding a replacement that has everything I want. Originally Posted By Pallas: You need a MacBook Pro, 16”, 1TB, in black. This is the answer to all your computing needs. 
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At work they're on a 5 year replacement cycle. I think I bought my Dell E1505 in 2008, and replaced that with a Dell 7559 in 2016. Upgraded that to 16GB of memory and a 1TB SSD, and it now dual boots Linux Mint Debian Edition and Windows 11. Still plenty of life left in it for the things that I use it for, so I don't see myself buying a new one any time soon. |
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Originally Posted By Mall-Ninja: Back in the Windows XP days, I felt like I had to wipe and reinstall every couple of years. Then I bought a MacBook in 2009 and used it until COVID. Bought the M1 Air to replace that. My daughter has been using it for school the last couple of years. 5 years no problems. I bought my wife a MacBook Air in 2014, and she used it until I replaced it with the new one in 2025. Guess what? I’m using her old machine now since I didn’t have one. 12 years and still good enough for basic office use. This ^^ Some folks buy Rainbow flip flops and replace them every 1-2 years. Some folks buy Olukais and wear them for 7-10 years. Olukais are certainly more expensive at the purchase, but much lower TCO Same as MacBooks |
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Wife usually gets ~5 years out of them before something fails. Her current Lenovo is 2 years old. Recently it stayed running with the lid closed while we were away. Thing about burned her when she picked it up, glad it didn't start a fire. Fried the hard drive in the process, popped in a new SSD and it was fine. Changed power settings to hibernate with lid closed. No clue why it did that, it should have been sleeping at least. |
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For basic stuff, I can get by with 10+ years til the battery dies or mobo quits. For design stuff where I have to keep up a bit, it tends to be when the machine drops off the Apple supported list, and not long after it drops off the Adobe supported list so I'm frozen in place. That's around 7 years for now. |
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Soli Deo Gloria
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I got my first laptop in 07,a gateway. I think I've had 4 new ones since then. Do maybe every 5 yearsish. My last one just died maybe a month ago. This time i grabbed a used Dell off ebay. Basicly the same specs as the one that died. $120 shipped. So far it's fine. |
| After some internetting around, I decided to put in my order for the Dell Pro laptop. Its got user serviceable battery, ram, SSD, fans, thunderbolt, etc and its on the official ubuntu "this mofo works good" list. I ordered the low tier and an extra stick of ram and a bigger SSD. The internet CPU tests list this CPU between the apple M1 and M2, which is good enough for me. I'll be sitting on that with 48GB DDR5 ram and 2TB M.2. I think the rest of the computer like the case/keyboard/touchpad/ports will die before the hardware specs are obsoleted. |
Work went from 3 years to 4 years. The Dell laptops are well worn at 3 years and most have a repair between 3 and 4. The cost savings gained by replacing every four years is eaten up in lost time dealing with the issue, "troubleshooting" by enterprise IT, repeat visits by the warranty tech to parts shotgun a repair, and lost productivity as a result, because there is no budget for spare laptops. Home, we have several, and get a new cheap windows machine every two or three years when one that is 6 to 8 years old starts acting up. |
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I used to own a tower. Now I use my phone. I use a company provided laptop for work. I will never own a laptop for personal use. I will never again use Microsoft for anything if I can choose. Absolutely garbage. HP, Dell, etc. I have nine people under me and there's laptop issues every week. Including at least two who received non working equipment out of the box |
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I have a midsize Asus Zephrus with Ryzen 7 6800H and 6700S GPU bought four years ago. It was a mid to high end gaming laptop back then, now it's still a mid-range laptop now. I'm going to be using it for a while longer. I bought a Samsung Tab 10+ tablet with a keyboard. I use it for short trips and it works wonderfully for simple internet, office apps, and videos. Much lighter and compact and easier to travel with. |
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I don't have a refresh cycle since I still have my oldest laptop, a Compaq CQ50 that runs Windows 7 so I can use an old Epson flatbed film scanner. My newest laptop is from the Windows 8 era. Runs Windows 11 and works fine for web surfing while on travel because it's small and light. |
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For a while, I had a good thing going where my work laptop got refreshed every 3 years, and I could buy out my old laptop for cheap after the refresh. I did a few cycles of that, and my current laptops are still holdovers from that, a Dell Precision 5510 and 5540. Both still work, and both are on W11. I occasionally power up the 5510 for updates, and use it for secondary or rougher stuff like watching tutorials while turning wrenches. I use the 5540 every day, but I had to replace the DC jack, and the battery life is getting short. I was about to buy one of the Macbook Neos but the price increase convinced me otherwise. I am in no hurry to replace either of these old Dells. |
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Originally Posted By GenYRevolverGuy: For a while, I had a good thing going where my work laptop got refreshed every 3 years, and I could buy out my old laptop for cheap after the refresh. I scored a couple good cheap laptops over the years like that. Some from other employees. I'd usually have to open them up and clean the cat hair from between the fan and heat sync. Once I got a free macbook that wouldn't hold a charge and just had to stick a new battery in it. |