Benefits of Upgrading laptop

[spthomas]

I admit it. I'm a late adopter, and I stay with things wayy too long. And I'm sort of a "If it ain't broke don't fix it" person. But my current work laptop is 7 years old! So here I am asking for thougts on buying a new laptop.

My current laptop is:
HP G71 with 17" screen, 1600x900 max res, 60hz scan rate
Video is onboard, Intel Series 4 Express chipset
Intel Core 2 Duo CPU T6600 2.2Ghz 64bit
4GB ram
500 GB HD
I bought it in 2009. The BIOS date is 12/2010

I updated to Windows 10 3 months ago and it's running fine.

So, what would I gain if I went with a new laptop (under about $500)?
And more to the point, when you see I have a 7 year old laptop, what jumps out and says "OMG you are REALLY likely to have (name a bad thing here) happen any time!".

Any ideas?

Steve

 

[vacunita]

The first thing you would get is a faster processor. The Core 2 Duo is quite old now. Any current processor out there would outperform that happily.

You could also likely get a lot more RAM. Depending on your specific needs 4GB may or may not be enough. We have no idea what you do, so no way to tell you if it is.

Beyond that, you get the benefits of any new thing. Newer Parts, faster parts, more up to date parts.


With that said age of a computer does not mean its more or less likely to have issues. All computers whether old or new, and prone to the same issues. Failing drives, bulging caps, battery problems etc... It just means it may be harder and ultimately less worth it to try and fix anything when it does inevitably have any issue if the machine is older.

A well taken care of machine can last many many years in perfect working order.

If you don't feel you need a new computer, then don't buy one. At the end of the day only you can know whether the current one is fulfilling all your needs or not.

----------------------------------
Phil AKA Vacunita
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Ignorance is not necessarily Bliss, case in point:
Unknown has caused an Unknown Error on Unknown and must be shutdown to prevent damage to Unknown.

Web & Tech

 

[edfair]

And more to the point, when you see I have a 7 year old laptop, what jumps out and says "OMG you are REALLY likely to have (name a bad thing here) happen any time!"."

First thought: Why the rush to update. May be time for another battery, possibly power brick.

That said, I'm a recent upgrader. To Vista. As beneficiary of a non-profits upgrade of stuff that was given to them when the corporate world thought the equipment obsolete.

Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.

 

[ClayTaco]

@edfair A recent upgrade to Vista? Are you insane?
Why not downgrade to 7 or upgrade to 10, hell 8.1 is better than Vista. You might as well be running XP! /rant

Bump Vacunita, as long as you're keeping regular backups I wouldn't worry about running a 7 year old laptop.
If you're dead set on getting a replacement. Let us know what kind of things you do with your laptop and we can recommend something.

 

[edfair]

ClayTaco's comment:
"You might as well be running XP"

I am, on 4 of my heavier utilized machines although one is in the process of being switched out for 7 and another will will be swapped out next week.

Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.

 

[cdogg]

The central theme here is to let us know what you primarily use the laptop for (e.g., web surfing, Office, video editing, CAD, etc.), as well as the names of the applications you use the most.

ClayTaco makes an excellent point about backups. If you haven't been doing them regularly, then now's the time. The older a hard drive gets (especially a laptop hard drive that is more likely to encounter movement/drops over time), the more likely it is to fail and fail hard. One of the many benefits in upgrading is getting a fast SSD to complement a faster processor and GPU. Sure, you could throw one now into your older laptop, but its early generation SATA interface is probably liimited to 3Gbps transfer speeds, and newer laptops will likely have 6Gbps. Many SSDs today are capable of exceeding 3Gbps. The hidden benefit for laptops is that they're resistant to shock caused by sudden movement or drops.




-Carl
"The glass is neither half-full nor half-empty: it's twice as big as it needs to be."

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[spthomas]

I have been backing up the hard drive pretty regularly, so that's not an issue really.

I use the laptop for business a lot. Normal Word, Excel, Powerpoint stuff. Plus web things. I also do database design and data modeling here, and this laptop seems to run the tools well. I also run music recording and editing software like Audacity, Sonar, and Band in a Box. I don't do games, or watch movies or post videos from it.

I don't really want to upgrade. But if there was a real advantage, I would. I'm working from home the next year, and so I'm on it all day long. I rarely take it off the mains power, but the battery is still remarkably functional (I have a 2x size battery).

Sounds like I'm ok keeping it as is. There doesn't seem to be anything about the more recent apps or Windows 10 that requires more horsepower than the Windows 7 and 2009 apps it was designed for.

Steve

 

[cdogg]

Based on that, I would tend to agree there's little reason for you to upgrade at this time. If you're happy with your current performance, you can likely get by for a couple more years until basic software requirements become more demanding.

No doubt you'd see better startup times and app launch times whenever you do decide to upgrade, but nothing you're using now will be significantly faster in terms of performance once an app is already open and running. The exception, of course, is that the more apps you run simultaneously, the more an upgrade would help with overall performance. Another small exception concerns multimedia editing apps like Audacity, where saving changes you make to audio files will process much faster with an SSD and newer CPU. Is it worth the $500+ you're willing to spend on an upgrade? Probably not.

 

[kjv1611]

At home, I've got a couple old machines, and a couple semi-newer machines. As long as they are still running, and you're not running mission critical stuff on it, then no need to upgrade. If you're having issues, then you have to decide: is it worth dropping $50, $100, $200 on repairing this one or replacing parts, or do I just go ahead and get the new machine?

And yes, I'm a BIT late. I've been tied up, and still somewhat tied up with several changes in my life of late: Work got busier, started work on another degree, then got laid off, and started new job just this week. So I'm happy to say the least, but if anyone wonders - that's where I've been - busy busy busy.

"But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." 1 Corinthians 15:57

 

[kjv1611]

One other thing to keep in mind: Mechanical hard drives. yeah, sometimes they'll last forever, but just make sure anything important to you is regularly backed. If that's not the case, then yeah, you might seriously want to consider doing something.

"But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." 1 Corinthians 15:57

 

[hairlessupportmonkey]

Its a shame it upgraded to 10. MS are offering free laptops if it wont upgrade from 8 to 10.

ACSS - SME
General Geek

 

[strongm]

Sadly, that free laptop offer does not apply in the UK. It's for the USA and Canada only. And, not surprisingly, it isn't quite as simple as "if it wont upgrade from 8 to 10"

 

[hairlessupportmonkey]

Yeah, indeed. But the thought is nice.

ACSS - SME
General Geek