Have a laptop from 5ish years ago? Probably not worth getting a new one

Hey guys,

My laptop is about 5 years old now. It's packed with a first gen i5, 4GB of DDR3, a 500GB harddrive and a 13 inch screen. I've been in the market for a new laptop, but I've come to determine that it's simply not worth it anymore to upgrade these days, at least not as much as it was before 2010 where tech improvements were vast from generation to generation.

Most new laptops these days sport new gimmicks as opposed to improved hardware. In fact, in most laptops you'll find that processor speeds have gotten worse. Dual core 1.6GHz processors seem to be the norm. To give some perspective, my laptop from 2006-2007 had a dual core 1.6. Sure, the architecture is much different, but my first gen i5 definitely has better performance than a 4th gen i5 running at half the clock speed.

These new "gimmicks" include touch screens, improved battery life, and SSDs. All new laptops in the average price range all still have between 4 and 8 GB of ram, as they have for around 6 years now.

So if you're in the market to upgrade your laptop and you've got one similar to mine, you probably shouldn't. Pack some more RAM in maybe, and buy a better battery. My stock 3.5 hrs of battery life can be doubled with a higher-cell lithium battery for $60. Why would I buy a new laptop with shitter hardware and better battery life when I can upgrade for $60?

The reason for this wall is because of the silicon limitations and the appeal of smaller tech. Things are getting more compact, thinner. As a result hardware companies are putting more of an emphasis on keeping performance, or in most cases reducing it, for the sake of having something smaller. Intel's biggest innovation at the moment is polishing up their Skylake successor tech which puts a CPU on a 10nm process. However, things won't get much better than that and those CPUs are slated for a 2016 release. What happens after? We're either going to have to start offloading a bunch of work to the GPU which still has room for improvement, or to upgrade from silicon-based manufacturing to something more sci-fi, like carbon nanotubes.

tl;dr you're probably better off upgrading your old laptop than buying a new one until at least ~2018 when some new tech emerges

 

I'm running my i7 950 I bought four.... five? years ago and it's never let me down. I upgraded to 12GB ram like 3/4 years ago and bought a couple SSDs and thats about it. Oh and I got a 770 after running two 450s for years.

 

Yeah innovation is seriously slowing down, so much for Moore's Law

 

Yeah, its an interesting and valid point. However my laptop (5 years old) is starting to shit out on me. Besides the battery being non-existent I'm starting to have more crashes and errors the older it gets. Scan the hdd for errors and the ram and both seem fine. One day the OS won't boot and the recovery tools are corrupted. I re-install onto its second hard drive and already I'm experiencing crashes again.

Also having a host of other issues, the audio jack no longer functions. Couple dead usb ports. Couple keys that just came off (luckily on the number pad and fkeys) that I could replace but don't care to. Fans are pretty clogged, compressed air would just push it in and removing all the dust would take completely tearing the thing apart. Thankfully still having acceptable temps. CD reader/writer no longer works. Track pad has become buggy and pretty much unusable.

I don't even think I can blame these on the brand or quality of the laptop, just being used for long periods every day for 5 years straight beats the poor thing up.

Probably more issues I'm not aware of or am forgetting. I think after 5 years or so putting some money into a new laptop with some upgraded features and specs doesn't hurt/is worth the money.

 

The average rough user doesn't take care if their machines. Yes, a lot of people buy for the latest version or aesthetics, but a lot of people run into simple problems and go for a new one on sale somewhere.
Hardware and software wise, no surprises you still run old laptops fine if you take care of it.

 

My dell laptop (latitude series) about 9 years old still running strong. I just need to buy a new battery and more RAM. Other than that, it can web browse, watch movies, and do light gaming. I still however will still be upgrading to a "better" laptop than the one I'm using today.

 

Yeah 9 years ago the Core 2 Duo stuff was just coming out, and even those CPUs aren't that bad. I'm sort of mad because I want to get a new laptop but I don't feel I have enough of a need to. The one I use is pretty much still working mint like it did when I got it 5 years ago. I'd only get a new one for bluetooth capabilities, USB3, and a bigger screen. I need me some HD. 1366x768 gettin me down son D:

 

Considering switching completely to desktops. Better price, better processing power, all you lose is a little bit of convenience in portability.

 

Yeah I only use my laptop for school/Linux stuff. I've got a desktop that's powerful as fuck that I use 99% of the time.

 

If all you do is web browse, youtube, skype, then there is no need for you to upgrade. Only upgrade when your laptop breaks or is too slow.

 

Mostly I'd like a new one for the larger screen - 13" sucks some hard cock with a 1366x768 resolution for coding.

 

i had an old sony vaio, it had 512mb of graphics, a shitttttyyyyy amd dual core and 3gb of ram, but the funny thing is it was clocked at 2.3ghz which is faster than some of the i7's today. It has died, due to hardware failure, but it was a tank, i dropped it 5 feet onto solid stone and it survived, the temps in bed must have been 70-80 celcius and it went through a lot. A shame really, I loved that thing. tbh i would only pay £250 max on a laptop now, I don't see the point in getting flashy because a desktop will do the same for 1/3 of the price. just use a laptop the way they are meant to be used.... thats my take

oh yeah, by the way the laptop was about 5 years, but if it didn't get so much abuse it would be running now... mistakes were made

 

I bought a $100 laptop this black friday on staples called "ASUS" I able to smoothly play RS07 on it which is why I like it because I am able to do my services! I made much profit from the the services done on the laptop rather than the price itself.

 

clean it and just use it to watch movies or trade it in I believe some stores give u credit

 

Realistically the only reason to upgrade would be if you game on the laptop, in order to get a better gpu. Aside from that, there's not too much need as long as the system still runs fine.

 

theres an asus i7 12gb for 700$ i can give you a link

http://deals.ebay.com/5001892711_As...campid=5335869999&afepn=5335869999&rmvSB=true

 

It really depends on the make of the laptop; my Lenovo laptop has basically keeled over after a couple of years so now it's just running as a headless server.

Also, processor speed isn't everything - especially on laptops. The processors are often underclocked versions nowadays in order to focus on conserving battery life, which is particularly the case in Ultrabooks made for university and business.

 

Ended up getting the Lenovo Y40-80, it was on one hell of a sale. It'll give me 1080p at 1920x1080 gaming on the go for under $1k, can't complain.

 

Too bad mine's almost 10 years old...

 

I have an HP Mini with an atom and even running Debian with XFCE that thing hardly is able to run Facebook. If it was shit, it will be really shit. If it was fairly good it will still be good.