Long life laptops? Do they exist?

[Whipsmack]

I am in the market for a new laptop and I want something that will last at the minimum, 7 years. I hold onto my equipment for quite some time so durability is a must.

What laptops offer the longest warranties? Has technology gotten past the problem with micro fractures in solder? Ever since they stopped putting lead in solder the new material is not nearly as durable hence why we have so many failure rates.

I am just tired of disposable goods, so please offer me your suggestions!

Thanks

 

[toast0]

A laptop battery will not last 7 years and hold a reasonable charge... you will need to replace that. I would recommend getting a business laptop, as those are generally made of modular, replaceable parts. If you get in at the start of a new series from a manufacturer, I think you'll have better chances of being able to get a new battery (that's actually new) later in the lifecycle.

 

[beto]

In 7 years it probably won't matter if the hardware is still physically good or not. In 4-5 years a laptop most likely won't be powerful enough to give an enjoyable user experience anymore regardless. That is unless you don't plan on using much future software or what the internet may evolve into.

 

[Loser_guy]

My Asus G50 is 4 years old, still works fine and runs all the latest games but on mid to low settings with an overclock, the battery is definitely on it's way out but that's the nature of a battery not a quality thing. I could see it lasting another 3 years no problem and with plenty of power for anything but gaming.

 

[PTNL]

I am in the market for a new laptop and I want something that will last at the minimum, 7 years. I hold onto my equipment for quite some time so durability is a must.

Part of the question concerns the availability of replacement parts; consumer-level products swap out much more frequently than business/enterprise grade. So start your search by looking at Tier-1 vendors (Dell, HP, IBM) in their business product offerings. Be sure to speak with them about your expectations about part availability.

Another part of the question involves your usage and demands of the product itself, which is currently unknown.

Edit: Where did you come up with the 7 year metric? Is this requirement of a laptop being pulled from another, similar product/concept?

 

[TheArTcher]

Whipsmack:

Did you notice my thread in this forum? What to do with old notebooks

None of my old notebooks are RoHS compliant so they may not indicate how long newer notebooks will live. The good news is that I got absolute reliability from $399 computers. Plus, they are still plenty fast enough to use as communications terminals running email, browser, and security software.

How you treat a notebook computer may count more than most people think. If you throw your notebook into your book bag and carry it to class or work every day, that pounding will shorten the life of any computer. If you treat them gently, the odds of a long life increase significantly.

So how much more computer do you need than this one at Bestbuy?

 

[OrangeWolf]

I'd suggest you take a look at the Thinkpad T-series. I've got one that's lasted nearly 6 years now with the only issues being that I've needed to replace the battery once and the screen went out once (which I could fix for $100 but haven't because I use it as a spare now and have it plugged up to a monitor).

 

[Whipsmack]

Thank you for the replies. I understand battery replacements, but for the most part I run my laptop from it's power cord without the battery installed. I came up with the 7 year number because thats what I want out of a computer. I seem to skip a cycle in terms of computer upgrading, and I get away with it. I really only play old games. So for people to think it's ancient you are mistaken. My wife plays the sims 3 on our old Everex XT5000T that I got in 2007, we still planned on using it until it finally died. I reflowed the GPU once and extended it's life for a year. I have failed to reflow it again. It's sad to see a perfectly operating advanced electronic (for what we use it for) go to waste like this just because they didn't use lead solder. We use laptops as portable desktops, they don't really see much travel. I did see that HP laptop and was tempted but I want to hold out for an A10 Trinity, and I am sceptable of the durability of the AMD processors since they run so hot. Laptops that run hot die early from constant heating and cooling which causes those micro fractures in the non lead solders. However having the GPU in the processor is much more promising considering all the GPU failure rates.

Let's just say I do not trust buying a laptop that doesn't have a warranty of 3 years, because so many are junk. I guess thats to be expected when we pay so little.

 

[OrangeWolf]

Not sure what your budget is, but you might be better served by buying a $600 laptop every 3 years instead of a $1200 one every 6 years. Or similar. There are some pretty good options out there now in the $700ish range (Dell Latitude, Thinkpad T-series, etc.) and if you buy one of the mid-range models for that price, and have a budget of closer to $1200, you could upgrade again when you got tired of it.

But that said, yeah, if you want 7 years out of something I still suggest the Thinkpad. I've heard of some folks also getting that kind of usage out of Macs and Latitudes.

 

[AQ_OC]

I say go with a ThinkPad or a Sony. Pay for a food laptop, don't beat it up, and it will last. I have several old ones that are still going (an hp, a dell, a Samsung). I really need to figure out what to do with them.

 

[JPF_]

IBM Y or W series.


/thrad

 

[obug]

In 4-5 years a laptop most likely won't be powerful enough to give an enjoyable user experience anymore regardless.

This really depends on what you do. Until recently we had a 6 year old laptop at home for email, document work, web browsing (with flash and ad block), and other typical home stuff. The user experience was fine. I did have to use an iPad for HD video though.

There is the reality that some nice technology (e.g. high PPI screens) will come along in a few years that is incompatible with your laptop. No amount of money you spend today will prevent you from being stuck at that point.

Thank you for the replies. I understand battery replacements, but for the most part I run my laptop from it's power cord without the battery installed.

FYI, some laptops do not like this. If I remember correctly, some newer/current laptops had the issue of CPU throttling if you were running without the battery. The Thinkpad I use at work has a smart power manager that limits battery charging if it is always plugged in. This supposedly extends battery life.

 

[CEpeep]

No matter what your budget, you can do better spending half as much now and then spending the other half in 3 and a half years and upgrading. Unless you are taking this to Antarctica or some other location where purchasing a new machine is not an option, reconsider what goals you are trying to meet by keeping the same system for 7 years.

 

[Pylon]

Lenovo Thinkpad T-series/W-series/X200-series
Dell Latitude E6xxx series (3-year default warranty)
HP Elitebook series

 

[Pitbully]

No matter what your budget, you can do better spending half as much now and then spending the other half in 3 and a half years and upgrading. Unless you are taking this to Antarctica or some other location where purchasing a new machine is not an option, reconsider what goals you are trying to meet by keeping the same system for 7 years.

This.

In 4 years your laptop will be a boat anchor. I wouldn't try and make a desktop last 7 years, more or less a laptop. That's almost laughable.

 

[TheArTcher]

This.

In 4 years your laptop will be a boat anchor. I wouldn't try and make a desktop last 7 years, more or less a laptop. That's almost laughable.

I don't know if it's safe to disagree with someone who calls him/her/it self Pitbully but I have to. Four years may be ancient to a hardcore gamer or high end designer but for the rest of us it isn't a problem. My almost 5yo Core2 desktop still runs all of my graphics application just fine, even simple assemblies in Solidworks render fast enough. I will probably build or buy a new desktop soon but I'm more concerned about the reliability of a 5yo computer than the speed. And I'm retiring my 7-8yo notebooks because they aren't worth upgrading.

 

[Pitbully]

I don't know if it's safe to disagree with someone who calls him/her/it self Pitbully but I have to. Four years may be ancient to a hardcore gamer or high end designer but for the rest of us it isn't a problem. My almost 5yo Core2 desktop still runs all of my graphics application just fine, even simple assemblies in Solidworks render fast enough. I will probably build or buy a new desktop soon but I'm more concerned about the reliability of a 5yo computer than the speed. And I'm retiring my 7-8yo notebooks because they aren't worth upgrading.

Yes, I agree, with a desktop its quite easy to get 4 or 5 years out of it, even though 7 would be pushing it. I still have a C2Q9550 my son uses for gaming that's nearly 5 years old. Fact being the laptop CPU's are gimped already and are much slower then their desktop counterparts, in 4-5 years they will be terrible, especially considering in 4 years the same laptop CPU will probably be running 50-70% faster and use as much less power.

 

[XenIneX]

[...] or a Sony.

No. A world of no. Most incompetent service techs I've ever had to deal with. Three separate on-site support contracts, and they fat-fingered all of them -- multiple times per device. End result, each of the devices had to be shipped to the depot, where they sat on the things for a month, each.

 

[YeuEmMaiMai]

In 7 years it probably won't matter if the hardware is still physically good or not. In 4-5 years a laptop most likely won't be powerful enough to give an enjoyable user experience anymore regardless. That is unless you don't plan on using much future software or what the internet may evolve into.

I got a vostro 1400 from 2008 that still functions fine and the battery still gives about 2.5 hours vs the original 4.5

Also have a Studio 1558 that i have given to my father that is Jan 2010 model and that 9 cell still provides 4.5 hours of use out of the original 5.5 hours.

Both of those machines handle Internet applications just fine and the vostro 1400 has a C2D 1.8Ghz and a Nvidia 8400GS-M. The studio 1558 has an i5 520m and a ATI 4570 and it does just fine as well.

The internet realy has not evolved much at all over the last few years as people are happy playing simple flash based games that even Intel graphics can handle and both machines are stellar at playing back HD content up to and including 1080p content

 

[obug]

Fact being the laptop CPU's are gimped already and are much slower then their desktop counterparts...

Don't know if "gimped" and "much slower" is an accurate representation of the situation. I think the performance differences are negligible for most people.

Assume the OP buys a Dell Latitude E6530 with a i7-3720QM. That CPU provides a base clock of 2.6Ghz and 3.6Ghz Turbo. I just configured one and it's about $1300 without any coupons.Compare this to the Desktop i5-3570 with a 3.4Ghz base clock and a 3.8GHz turbo.

Don't want to write an essay on exact Turbo frequencies and core usage, but realistically you are talking about a 10-20% gain from the desktop CPU. Is that really going to make a difference in 5+ years? Is that going to be the factor that keeps the computer going for a few years more? Probably not. IMO, nowadays desktops CPUs offer little to no performance benefit to most people.

If anything, Intel has "gimped" desktop CPUs considering they are rated to consume 70% (TDP) more power but don't get anything close to that in performance increase.

The internet realy has not evolved much at all over the last few years as people are happy playing simple flash based games that even Intel graphics can handle and both machines are stellar at playing back HD content up to and including 1080p content

Thanks to mobile devices, it almost seems that internet website are become simpler and less taxing on computers! How much pointless (CPU eating) flash was used on websites a few years ago? Many websites are much better now because they assume a mobile device may be used. I actually like this trend as many websites had become horrible due to the processing power available in laptops/desktops.

 

[Rune75]

Not sure what your budget is, but you might be better served by buying a $600 laptop every 3 years instead of a $1200 one every 6 years. Or similar. SNIP

This. Any mid/lower grade laptop that is out now would spank your current laptop. If you half your investment and double your upgrade time, then you stay in the same boat.

You have some great sales coming up in the couple days after xmas. All those snot-nosed kids that wanted an apple but got a PC... I'd look for the returns or the good 'ole white sales every place has to reduce inventory before the New Year. I picked up a 15" HP four years ago on a white sale that is still working fine for the princely sum of 299.

 

[shaggy77]

I got a couple of old yet working Toshibas in the closet. The oldest one is 1998-9 and was my wife's when she was in college. It sported an Intel 233 Mhz processor and a whopping 32 Megs of RAM! The HDD I think was around 10 Gigs. She paid a $2000 for it on her student credit card so she would type papers and the such. I did fire it up a few years ago. It did in fact, worked when plugged into the wall. Windows 2000 was painfully slow though. I think it took what felt like 10 minutes to boot up. Years ago, I wound up upgrading the RAM to 96 Megs which was its max supported and tossing a copy of Windows 2K. I needed it for a software package that was part of my hobby at the time.

The other Toshiba is a model from 2003. My wife and I paid around $700 at the time on sale at circuit city. It was a Celeron 1Ghz, 512meg, 40Gig HDD. It was a step up for what were using for a computer. I upgraded the ram to 1GB, added a wireless card in the expansion slot, and added Windows XP Pro. I also fired up the laptop and it still worked. Just required to stay plugged into the wall after an over night charge. We used this until mid 2009!

We wound up another sales special at Best Buy on another Toshiba. Paid around $800. Intel Dual 2.0Ghz, 320 HDD 4 GB out of the box, built in wireless, HDMI, etc. Last year I had to replace the screen due to an accident with the screen. This year I wound up giving it an overhaul. I replaced the hinges(one side snapped and wound up cutting the antenna lead), replaced the battery, upgraded the wireless card and antennas, added an Crucial 128 GB SSD. It was alot cheaper than replacing the unit that is perfect for what we use it for. Sitting on the couch and checking E mail, surfing the web, watching videos on the TV via HDMI.

Right around the back to school area of the year, I was looking at laptop replacement. I saw a few that I would have bought in a heartbeat. However, when I sat down and figured out what I needed, I found the current laptop still fit the bill when it came down to it. I figured I will get at least 2 more years out of the laptop and desktop. In the end, I will probably keep chugging along my current equipment since all the newer stuff would just cost more to keep doing the same. That's due to a lack of steady employment and just don't game anymore on the computer or in general. Maybe in a couple of years when things require and upgrade that's when I will pull the trigger.

 

[cp454]

Dell Inspiron XPS Gen 2, shipped 07/07/2005 still running like new, its on Win7 now.

 

[athlon1.2]

I still have an HP compaq nc6220 (Pentium M). Bought it refurbished Oct 2005, so over 7 years and it's cheaper to keep using it than to buy a quality USB to serial adapter. Original battery is in there, not the best but it lasts at least 20 minutes and the gauge is accurate -- long enough to download an alarm panel or diagnose a car and no unexpected shutdowns.

I really like the HP business laptops, they've never let me down.