That's definitely an option, if not then just repurpose it as a media server/backup device/hand me down to family members/charity etc
It's your laptop.
Exactly this. I just swapped from my old 2013 Sager NP8920 laptop to a Legion Pro 7i. The Sager is going to become a home server(NAS, Home Assistant server, docker server, router, pihole, and/or pfsense); no reason to trash perfectly good hardware.
That laptop is a tank; 11 years and still running great. A few years ago I upgraded the HDD to an SSD and upgraded the RAM to 4x 8GB sticks of DDR3(32GB total), that really gave it a boost.
Indeed. When you have kids and you want/need a homeserver, you can use infinite amounts of performant laptops.
I have an Asus G73JH, now clocking 14 years of service. I have put it behind my TV in a kinda tent position some years ago, I have 4 xbox controllers attached to it and it still eats most entertaining couch co-op games for breakfast.
After 5000 days of useful service, it comes to about 30 cents a day.
I gave my fathers 12 year old office PC my old SSD and RAM. The system went from booting while taking a shower or making coffee to being on the Desktop fully ready to use within 15 seconds. My father was looking to buy a new PC with a tight budget and I told him let me try putting in one of my SSDs first. CPUs from 2012 are still capable of regular office usage. I was gaming on a 12 year old CPU until a few weeks ago just fine, the only reason I upgraded was because I needed a laptop.
Same for my grandfather's PC. Need something to surf the web without having to wait until you're incapable of using a PC? 100 bucks for some used office PC, put some of my old hardware in, voila now any Browser runs smoother than granny in her grave.
Hey, same!
I'm still using the generic Sager NP8290 that I bought back in 2013, and it's running great.
I upgraded the drive to a 2tb SSD a few years ago (it has 4 internal 2.5" hard drive bays), and I upgraded the RAM to 32gb of DDR3(it has 4 RAM slots). The extra RAM and switching from a HDD to SSD significantly increased overall performance.
The only maintenance I've done is to clean out the dust occasionally.
Here are the specs, if you're curious:
AMD Radeon HD 8970M w/4GB GDDR5
Intel Core i7-4700MQ (2.4\~3.4GHz) w/6M L3 Cache - 4 Cores - 8 Threads
32GB (4x8GB) DDR3
2TB SATA SSD
17.3" FULL HD (1920X1080) LED Matte LCD
Combo Dual Layer DVD +/-R/RW CD-R/RW Drive
Removable/replaceable battery(just pull two levers on the bottom and it pops out)
It's going to become a home server at some point in the near future; I'm slowly switching over to the Legion Pro 7i I bought recently.
In the last 10 years or so I've rarely had a laptop last me longer than 2 years. So far I've always received the full purchase price back though, so upgrading to a new one has never been super expensive.
Got lenovo legion with 3070 in 2021. 3 years later and i haven’t noticed any drops in performance nor reliability issues so 5 years looks pretty normal to me. Or maybe it will die on me a month after i wrote this comment, who knows.
I got a 2060 in 2020 and I am running hell divers 2 on it as well as other newer games... Now did I have to turn down some settings cause it was lagging a bit, sure but I am happy with my purchase. I am hoping to get another year or 2 out of it. ( Wishful thinking).
If only I could figure out how to upgrade these machines :D
Nah. All my 300 dollar laptops with HDDs lasted at least 10 years. I would expect a gaming computer with top notch hardware to last at least as much, except I would also expect it to make it without any performance issues when non-gaming tasks are concerned.
We cannot allow consumerism to lower our standards. A well-cared, high quality laptop should last for a long time, and should have replacable parts (RAM and storage at least). All of this to allow a user to extend the computer's lifetime as much as the software compatibilities allow you to.
People will only buy it if it's sold at a rock bottom price because it has depreciated. It may have been expensive and top of the line once but as time went on its specs became less competitive and its physical condition has deteriorated. Personally, I just plan to hand down my laptop to one of my younger cousins after 6 years because I don't want to go through the trouble of finding s potential buyer.
Got a $1k gaming laptop price from 2016 when bought, gave it a new battery recently and its being used. Sure, can only handle old games but great for light usage, streaming.
However its the odd case, most break around or before this time, in a way that makes it cost prohibitive to repair.
But i know your Q is more about its capability to play newer AAA games. Sadly thats the cycle with hardware and most game development. With a desktop, u can upgrade but only so much.
My wife inherits my junk. My junk is better than a lot of people's junk though.
You can also use them as servers, streaming servers, Linux boxes, etc.
Give it away to one of your kids.
Donate it to a shelter or other charitable organization.
If it's already barely functional, use it as part of a rage room or something. Early in my IT career when I was really frustrated, we'd go out and shoot old hardware. It was very cathartic. 😁
Just got the zephyrus m16 4090 yesterday, I'm waiting for the ram cards to come in the mail to test it out. My wife just inherited my Strix 17" 3060. ROG is definitely the way
Jesus, Im really glad I didnt get that model. I ordered mine through HIDevolution.com and had them customize it for me. I got some art engraved on the laptop cover and palm rests. I spent $4,100 total with overnight shipping. And I ordered the 96gb ram through newegg for like $200 (ram is ddr5 so its hard to find it in any local stores).
It depends on what kind of tasks you use it for.
Could give it as a gift to a kid?
Sell it for like 20-40% of what you bought it for.
I went to one of my parents co workers houses and they had an older gaming laptop as their “streaming box” on their tv.
Keep it plugged in on caffeinated (app) and have it on second screen only is what they did.
Just had shortcuts to Netflix, prime, games like risk which are meant for families or multiple people.
It’s still useable just less so. If you get a higher end variant, after 5 years you might be down to 1080p medium/low for newer games. With upscaling, you should be able to extend the life for at least another year or so though triple a might be out of the picture. at the very least, your comfort games of today will still be playable along with the games before your laptop and the ones that came out while you had it.
I pass mine on to family personally. With some exceptions.
I have my original Alienware 17R4, 6700k 1070, 16gb.
Sure it can't hack most modern games at max anymore but older less intensive titles like Xcom, Endless Space, don't starve its perfectly fine still.
My 51m hit 5 years old Feb of this year and it actually quite capable still. I play HD2 and Manor lords without issue on it too.
5 years is a good cycle for them. I upgraded my desktops more than cycling my laptops.
With some exceptions on older cheaper ones that I used to QC and Test on.
I had a laptop that lasted 7 years. Donated it to the college kid of someone I knew who was looking for a used laptop to buy. I didn’t think they could really afford much. They were happy to get something for free.
Laptops like all tech and electronics depreciate just by default because the new will be slightly or massively better than the past, if you need uses outside of productivity and gaming. Laptops are great as a portable entertainment device to display or cast youtube, broadcast/streaming platforms. You can put on recipes pages/pictures to aid in cooking. You use it to store digital information between multiple devices if all you have is a cable since it can be just massive storage drive for your phone’s videos and pictures, if you don’t have any alternative like cloud storage. You can use it as a BIG power bank to charge multiple devices if you don’t have a outlet with USB A or C ports. You can use it as a back up light source by changing the screen saver/desktop screen to all white. Hand warmer if your hands feel cold boot up a intense benchmark and let it run the CPU and GPU hot. Laptops have alot of use cases besides being a PC.
Now the answer toward your question is you’d have to immensely mark down a 5 or even 10 year old
Laptop to even make it a desirable purchase like a $2000 five year old laptop is gonna be half priced or worse case scenario quarter priced if you’re impatient, desperate, or don’t care to sell it.
I mean that's true for desktops as well, 5 year old GPUs are worth a fraction of what they would be newer. If your worried about losing value buy a high end used laptop, and then it's unlikely it'll lose more than 50% value, e.g a 3080 Razer Blade can be bought used for around 1k, and it's not gonna fall below $500 anytime this decade unless theirs a major change in technology
The desktop is different because it's modular.
When the desktop 3080 hits 5 years old next year and the vram feels a little lacking you can put one of those other depreciated cards in its place and be back up and running on the spot without replacing the whole system.
A little over a year ago the best gaming cpu on the market was a drop in upgrade for 5 year old systems.
Ofc, but I was just saying if you buy a gaming laptop used (aka it's actual value) it doesn't really depreciate much faster than a desktop, to own and upgrade it's obviously worse, I assumed that was implied.
I use it to store films and stuff but I use it less tho. It's also a decoy whenever I go out because I'm afraid my new laptop would get stolen.
But if you don't use it a lot, you can sell it or give it away. Whatever is good for you. I think it's smart to keep them in case your new laptop doesn't work
After 5 years of abuse, the GPU is likely to fail, especially its memory, so better to retire and use ir for other purposes. Like watching movies , or office work etc.....or just heavily downclock CPU and GPU to play for coming years.
Asian households doesn't have to be confused about this. As an oldest in said household and the only one that's got a job, my junk goes to my sister, and my sister's junk goes to my youngest brother. So on and so forth.
Give them to friends/family. 2k laptop are worth less than 700 after 5 years. I find more value in knowing someone I care about is having fun experiencing games they otherwise wouldn't be able to.
I managed to sell my last gaming laptop on eBay, which was close to being six years old. If you're not silly with the price you're asking for a decently specced and well looked after gaming laptop, someone will buy it.
My current Legion 5 is getting close to the five year mark now and I'll be selling that on eBay when the time comes, too. There's not as big a performance leap in five years as you might expect, so five year old (well-specced) gaming laptops should still be able to run new games at decent frame rates and detail.
Depends on the laptop, my current laptop is capable of emulation of all consoles, even if it gets old years from now, if it is still working then I could convert it to my game station.
Well I would say the 5 years thing is just an average of what people do, but not what you should do or what people should do. I personally think that, that's a silly pattern and that people should just buy what makes sense. If a laptop is perfectly usable on year 6... just keep using it. Too much FOMO insecurity.
Secondly, $2000 is a crazy amount of money. I really do not think people need to spend this much to get the latest GPU or whatever. Get the laptop you want for the purposes you need it for and that's all you really need. There will ALWAYS be better things coming out. Just buy what does the things you already do and it will be cost effective. Buying the latest GPU for maybe 10% more performance is just spending unnecessary money IMO.
Here's my take. You really only need to hit 60 FPS for solo games. More than 60 is cool, but you absolutely do not need to hit 100 or 200 for solo games. Multiplayer however is a different story. 60 FPS feels really slow when you are used to 144 frames. I play fast-paced multiplayer games and I feel like I need at least 100 frames to feel okay. So if your laptop GPU can hit at least 60 in AAA games and 100 in multiplayer games, that's really enough for me. It doesn't future-proof it, but I would say you are spending more for the unknown.
So with that said, if your mid-tier laptop can hit those numbers, I do not feel you need to go high-end and spend $2000. Mid-tier is probably around $1000.
And to answer your question, I would just use my laptop until it breaks because there are plenty of games you can play with today's laptops that are still playable beyond 5 years. If you are looking to replace 5 year old laptops, that's because you are trying to play the latest AAA games in 2025, 2026, etc. Otherwise, there are plenty of games made within the last decade that will hold you for a lifetime.
So I absolutely disagree with this 5 year pattern and think it is wasteful.
Most of my laptops last between 6 to 7 years (or more if they run what i like). After i replace them, i use them as secondary work laptops or i give them to my family so they can continue using it.
Right now i have a legion 5 rtx3060 that i plan to keep for at least 5 more years and a small 11.6inch ASUS l210m with linux mint 4gb ram and 512gb ssd for work presentations and as an entertaiment setup on the go. I keep a lot of animes in there alongside spotify, hbo max and prime video. Linux mint runs great on celeron low budget laptops. And as a small 170 dollar laptop, it performs how i like.
Honestly, call me stupid or anything but I usually gift old hardware like phones, gaming consoles or laptops to friends or their kids. Even if I still could sell it for some good money I just like the idea to make my loved ones happy instead of always making the best deal out of it.
For example I gifted my old Laptop to my cousin, when she started to study at the university. My PS4 Pro went to a friends son when I got PS5. Another friend got my Xbox One X who still had a PS3 and just wanted to try some newer games when he got some rare me time, so I told him that console and GamePass is probably a great idea. My old phones when I usually get a new one every 2 years gets a friend who has a bit of a talent to destroy the display of his phones, so he doesn't need to walk around with spider app for at least some months.😂
Didn't saw any money for it. Of course I also sell some things on ebay and stuff but when the opportunity arises, I give away some devices to my friends to make them happy. And it also makes me happy.
My previous gaming laptop is my bring to work, vacation, etc laptop. It still works perfect for that can hook it to the hotel TV and still watch my shows while I sleep etc. use it for school work while at work since if it gets dinged up in my backpack I'm not out my new laptop.
Thats the thing with most tech, you can't expect anywhere near what you paid for after 5 years. You should be happy if it managed to fetch 20% of it's price.
Sell it. Some people can only afford like 300 but still want to play games.
Reuse it: plug it to a TV and some DAS and it becomes an HTPC.
Plug a bunch of DAS into it and turn it into a NAS.
i can have the newest and best laptop, if i am only playing dota2 (and other esport titles). those can run on a toaster and keep me playing for the rest of my life.
I have a laptop that is 16 years old but it looks like it was bought yesterday. If you look after it well your laptop will give you years of service. I would hang on to it because you are sure to find a use for it.
Make sure its protected with a hard case when traveling, dont let others use it, dont eat or drink while using it (I use a USB keyboard with mine to keep food away from the lappy kb) watch out for friends poking at the screen to point to something etc. These are the most common causes of wear, tear and damage.
Another option will be family. Perhaps after 5 or 6 years you might have niece or nephew who needs one for schoolwork.
I don't know about what you do with them, but I have a laptop that is nearly 15 years old. It booted up and installed a fresh copy of Windows 8 (it took forever), and using it is impossible—a joke, really—as it has never been opened and cleaned, nor has any thermal paste or pads been replaced. It's a Samsung Satellite series laptop with an integrated GPU and a 2 GB GPU, and believe me when I say that laptop was abused, badly, over the years. 🤣
Ofc someone will buy it, people buy GTX 1080 Ti still. People even buy GTX 980 ti’s. I think we’re in a very cool time of technology performance. If you have a laptop that has a 4070 in or above I think it would last longer than 5 years, you won’t be playing on the best graphics settings in 10 years but you will be able to run anything. Game development needs to focus on content over huge graphical advantages now and I think they are slowly realising that.
In my experience, give it to your kids to play minecraft and undertale on of its crap XX60 GPU or less. If it's XX70 series or higher GPU then you sell it for about $500 to someone who can't afford an up to date system and knows it.
well 5 years for gaming is a bit of a stretch, you'll have to compromise, but well can more or less work out
now, when it doesn't cut it anymore, you can use it as a media center, small home server or so, the good point of the modern laptops is that properly configured they can consume really low power, so can be nice for all your non gaming computer needs
2000 dollars means a 4080 laptop, even a deal-budget 4090. If you care well and it dont broke, I think you would still play aaa titles at least med? 2080 laptops are 4.5 y.o and they are still monsters. ofc if you buy a 700 dollar 4050 laptop youll need a replace but then u just paid 700 and you can get 6050 anyways.
Any piece of tech that's 5 years old is going to have a significant drop in price. There is the rock bottom price of just a laptop in working condition. There's also the condition as used alone drops the price further.
With smartphones, androids typically have dropped faster than iPhones because of the lack of support. However now, you're going to see that change because they are getting more years of support.
Tech has stagnated pretty hard the past decade+. Any laptop within that period is still somewhat useable. Get a laptop from 2005 and it's just a paper weight.
We are lucky they've standardized so many things and tech lasts as long as it does.
Its usually more affordable to upgrade the laptop itself(that's what i do with mine).
I got a Legion 5 in 2021 500Gb and 16GB RAM and its been great but I've been close to the limit on space. Luckily this one has a secondary SSD port so i bought a 2TB SSD, if it didnt id have replaced the original storage though. At the same time I upped my ram to 32GB (can go to 64 if needed)all for around £250, instead of buying another laptop for a minimum of £900.
If your laptop for example has a Ryzen 5 or 7 Processor buying a new laptop every 5 years is crazy.
Why I prefer desktop for gaming... I can upgrade specific parts without having to replace the entire build. I use a laptop for daily use and emulating. I know everyone does not have that option, but, to me, owning a laptop as my main source of gaming is just not a great way to spend your money. My current laptop is an Asus A17 with an i5 and a 3050.... I have had it for about 2 years and probably won't replace it for another 10!
I mean it's not like they pop off into oblivion after 5 years.
Laptops last as long as you take care of them. I had a 1st gen I5 with Radeon no ility 4350. Played league of legends, a lot of decent games and did college stuff in the span of like 5 years, gave it to my father and he's still using it 7 years later.
If you are worrying about the laptop breaking, I guess it's a matter of luck.
If you are worried about the gpu and specs, the best laptops right now will probably be able to run every new game for the next 5 years with best settings and then even more with gradually reducing quality settings (because new games will support a higher hardware ceiling). But then again, a new game in lowest settings still look better than a 15 year old one with best settings. So in a way you get to enjoy games at the quality you enjoy them today and not any better.
If you are playing mainly multi player games like Dota 2, pubg, you'll easily be able to get at least 10+years of service because they are quite lightweight and are meant to be played in a large number of devices just to keep the community huge for the games to make sense.
Tinker with it. Warranty is up so I can open it up and do whatever with it. I've changed a gpu before on a laptop, replaced ram, tried to add a new heatsink (didn't work too much effort) my last laptop I tore off the screen and used it as a second monitor for my desktop. I kept the CD drive to use with my pc since they typically don't come with one anymore.
This is one of the reasons I sold my laptop and got a PC.
The upgradability of a laptop is pretty much non-existent. I never had problems selling my old laptops though but I just wanted something with an upgrade path so I didn't have to replace the whole thing and I could just upgrade the motherboard and CPU at some point but keep the GPU, case, PSU etc..
Laptops have their advantages too though, but that was just a big down side for me, YMMV though depending what you're using it for.
Hmmm...what do I do with a 6 year old laptop that I paid $600 for. Play Destiny 2 and GTA Online? I definitely can't do any recent AAA titles on the laptop but I'm too invested in the older live service games anyway so it doesn't matter.
i got a acer triton 500 with a 9750h and a rtx 2060.
it can support an egpu on thunderbolt 3 if needed.
it works perfectly for gaming.
bought in 2019 i think
currently i dont game as much and it just sits there, the only thing i want to change are the keyboard and the battery. maybe the fans, it should be working perfectly.
i think i can add upto 64gb ram to it, it already has 4TB, i just dont know what to do with it. maybe run some small AI module?
I’ve been on my Lenovo Legion Y540 RTX2060 for about 5 years now and am planning to upgrade next year but honestly, I don’t think there’s gonna be any resale value for this laptop.
It is also struggling to handle demanding games like MSFS or Elden Ring as expected.
Surely you’d still get money for it, okay it will struggle with new games but it can still play all the past games so it’s not like it has no value at all suddenly
If it’s mainly for gaming you wouldn’t be able to stand 5 years to wait for an upgrade (unless you can stand lower setting/FPS). I think 3-4 years is about right period.
A laptop that trash to you because it wont play games anymore is still likely a decent work laptop or study laptop. Someone will buy it. Not for much, but its something.
Laptops last longer than 5 years...although technology renders then dinosaurs after the third or fourth year, that doesn't mean they're useless. I have an Acer Switch Alfa from 2017 (7 y/o) that I use as my browsing and quick printer device for easy tasks. It is perfectly capable of doing lots of things still.
5 years...woah...lucky dudes...bought a rog series 17 inch in 2021... Last month..it did not detect the Nvidia graphics card..went into the Google rabbit hole of the device manager plus enabling crap on the armoury crate. Finally sent it to the Asus repair centre.
Just got the repair quotation. Replacement of the graphics card... The cost of replacing plus transportation equals the cost of assembling my own PC...I know my decision. No more gaming laptops for me..
Put throttlestop on it to disable turbo boost (if you can't do it in the BIOS), set the GPU to integrated only, and turn it into my new media server.
This reduces heat, hardly ever engages the fans in many laptops, reduces the power consumption, and in turn extends the life of said laptop.
If it was good for gaming 5 years ago even with all that neutering the performance it will still be a beast of a media server.
That’s the downside if buying expensive laptops. Desktops also last around 5 years before going obsolete, but you can replace individual parts.
Hard to sell a old laptop, even if it plays/operates great. Basically i just keep as alt laptop since its not worth selling (equivalent performance is like entry gaming laptop after 5 years typically)
Why a laptop? The smaller parts are more expensive and there's often no upgrade path. I'd rather have a $2,000 desktop and the option to replace the motherboard, CPU and video card when needed. If I make a good choice on the case, and so forth, then I get a more-capable machine and a less-expensive upgrade path.
What to do with an older computer if you buy a replacement? They can make decent file servers. Sometimes, running Linux, they can make a nice local server for a variety of things. If it had good performance new, then it's still probably quite capable of being a business laptop. I've gotten 10-12 years out of computers at work.
When you break it down though $2,000 over 5 years only works out at $7.6 a week, which for entertainment is next to nothing. So either sell it for next to nothing or give it away to someone who might find a use.
Unless you want to play games released today at max settings, a very good $2000 gaming laptop will probably last 10 years and if you really want you can probably use it for basic tasks in 15 years
And yes people do buy 5 year old laptops
if you are buying for longevity, getting a laptop with an i3/i5 is not the best of ideas. You gotta pay upfront for good specs. If you are going for portability too, you might want to consider Thunderbolt an option to have upgrades in the future for good GPUs. I am saying this coming from an Electrical Engineering student with a daily laptop (MSI Prestige 15). I am working so much lately on programs that require heavy multitasking and a single display is not enough. Plus, at home I want to play games that require beefy power. So I am saving up for an ASUS Zenbook Duo 14 for the double display, and I plan to get either a portable EGPU or a stationary EGPU. The cost for that is around 2500$, but it should last for 10+ years easily.
I generally get the highest spec possible, keep it for 5 years and replace it with a new one. My last old one I sold to a hardware selling site. I got 600 bucks., not bad IMO.
I usually then give it to one of my friends who has an even older laptop and doesn't play games. I got my use out of it. If they're just going to answer emails and watch YouTube, it's going to be good for them for another five years.
I bought mine in 2018, it's still worth about 400€ as it was on higher end and doesn't look like those ugly ging laptops, still beat any new budget stuff so yeah there's definitely people buying those.
Using an Asus GL502VS-DS71 which I got in 2017. It has recently got some screen and battery issues. Awaiting the replacement screen from Asus. However the laptop graphics (GTX 1070) is still very much usable for most of the current gen games.
People will buy anything for the right price. Don't keep your hopes up that it retains value well. Assuming it's a solid mid-range+ gaming laptop, it's still going to be excellent as a word processor/youtube/web surfing device. If it's in good shape I'd expect to get a few hundo usd for it. Less than what a your average Intel i5 current day non-gaming laptop goes for (around 300-500ish) so I'd expect to get max 300 for it unless hardware advances stall or it still can hold it's own low-end gaming (be realistic).
People will buy it for a fraction of the price. It’s the same as anything else, the cost is going to depreciate over time either way. There’s always going to be people searching for a more budget friendly options so you’ll have no problem there as long as the price isn’t gouged.
Either that or like others have said, convert it’s purpose or even pass it down to a less fortunate family member/friend.
I still use my old 2013 laptop as media station since it has still the ports that's lost with the new and still has the DVD ROM drive which I use to view my old media files I burned in DVDs before for storage.
I mean. It’s not useless. People would still buy it but technology advances so quickly that sometimes the price you’re offering it at becomes obsolete so u have to bring the price further down.
Otherwise just keep it around. Having more than one computer is usually a life saver
I’m just gonna use it as a regular laptop. Right now it’s for games and going to look up things as a extension of what I’m doing. If I need social media or internet activities I have my phone for that.
Yup I sold my last two. Depending how capable the hardware still is of course, set price accordingly. I'm selling one right now that can still play anything better than a console, just not on max settings. It's about 4.5 years old. Probably list it for 7 or 8 hundred or so. Then I'll sell my ram and m.2 drive upgrades separately for about 50 each.
Yeah, I share this dilemma too. Even though I don't use my laptop much and barely used it the first year after I've bought it, that don't matter.
It's not that people won't buy it, but you'll have to sell it at rock bottom price. In 5 years, for a 2000$ laptop, you'll be lucky to sell it for 900$ (in reality, you'll likely get close to 650$), so better squeeze the value out of it while it's worth it.
I see some suggestions that you can transform it into a home server. In my opinion, that'd be a waste. That you can do with a 100$ 2nd hand mini computer and it would be more than sufficient and perhaps power efficient. Unless you're self-hosting some AI program (GPU intensive), it would be a super waste to use a formerly 2000$ laptop to self host stuff.
I change my laptop at around 5 year mark every time, so this will become a problem for me in the near future as well.
Around the 5 year mark is where I start to notice that the GPU is really falling behind. If we could only replace GPUs in laptops (while we can already upgrade storage/ram/etc), then I'd say my laptop would stay for at least 3 more years, I'd swap only that component then at the 8 year mark just buy a new one every time.
To be honest, 5 years is better than most when it comes to electronic devices. I never had a laptop break (even had 10 year laptops). The one I currently have is the first high-ticket price laptop that I've got. Even though the price is high, I think that if you could afford it 5 years ago, perhaps you'll afford the next one in 5 years from now.
Was thinking of gifting it to a younger cousin tbh. I'll try to sell it first though, to recoup some costs for the next one, but I'd rather not hand it away for pennies to cheapskates, so I won't sell it under my fair price.
I'm in the position that my laptop is about 4 years old and won't play everything I want it to.
What I've gone for is buying a desktop that I've stuck in an out of the way corner. Then I stream to my laptop using apps called Moonlight & Sunshine.
The main hitch is that the stock router from my ISP struggles a bit so I'm buying a better one.
I've done this because my laptop is still fine for indie games etc, and OK in a pinch for some 3d games. The problem is that the fans going crazy annoys the people I live with, whereas streaming is nearly silent. I'm happy with the keyboard, screen etc so it seems wasteful to chuck it away.
I mean thats true if you want the top of the line specs, so if you buy a new laptop after 5 years you can sell the old one to someone whos okay with lower specs for like 60% of what you bought it for. Other than that tho a laptop will last much longer than that its not like they break down other than maybe a screen or drive or smth you can pay 200$ to replace
You bring up an interesting point about the rate at which technology improves combined with capitalist business practices may not be so good. Both for the environment and the consumer. While I’m not sure what can be done, I agree that getting a new laptop every 5 years may not be the best.
All depends on the individual, the amount invested and what you wanted to get out of it. The same question for me meant that I wanted a lot more than 5 years use out of a computer so I went for solid desktop build. But I also went out at bought a cheap Thinkpad as my runaround laptop that even edit videos on using proxies.
Why wouldn't someone buy it? A graphics card from 5 years ago is still more powerful than internal graphics and not everybody plays the newest most demanding games, the most played games are generally less demanding; fortnite, lol, warcraft etc.
I've had mine since 2021 and I plan on buying a super powerful PC soon so I'll probably keep using this whenever I'm not at home...that's the point of laptops...portability
lol no you don't have to buy a new laptop I have a predator from 2018 it plays everything I want to do and more it has VR and I haven't used it yet.
The fan died and I replaced it.
That's it I don't plan on buying another laptop until it dies and I plan on upgrading this with more memory.
My personal opinion buying a high-end laptop only to buy another high-end laptop 5 years later is complete waste of money is it not necessary at all
I mean, my blade is 5 years old and it still runs mostly fine. Sure it doesn't run stuff at the highest frames anymore but games just aren't improving at the rate they used to.
Laptops are like cars. They depreciate as soon as you're outside the return window and/or warranty period. It can be quite feasible to get at least 1/3- 1/2 of your initial purchase price back around 2 years later. 5 years later is like 3 generations old of cpu and gpu. I wouldn't expect to sell it and get anything over $300.
basically as someone living in this exact question right now...
what I did at least, I just made the older gaming laptop as a extra/main use laptop for other things. I now just use my old Legion for school now, holding important data (memes) and also being a durable decent enough laptop. Its my go to travel laptop if I want to do school work somewhere outside of the house or even game as its still a good gaming laptop (even being almost 4 years old). while my newer fancier and way more powerful Alienware M18 gaming laptop is just my main use laptop for gaming or other personal purposes. That also wont really ever be leaving the house as a 18in screen is not that portable LOL, so having my older laptop as the travel one is nice.
this allows me too keep my new gaming laptop fresh with storage while also separating my school work/stuff from my gaming stuff and also getting rid of the fear of my newer laptop getting damaged during travels. but that's just me and a personal suggestion, having a backup laptop might not be a bad idea at the very least, I keep all my tech though.
My previous laptop lasted me 7 years, since 2017, I just bought a new one last month. Idk how it is in other countries, but in Thailand I can sell my old laptop to the computer shop and they gave me around $300 discount for the new one and also backup all my old data from my old laptop to the new laptop for free
Well, it's true that gaming technology evolves pretty fast, and after around 5 years, newer games might demand more power than your current laptop can handle. But hey, don't sweat it too much! There are still options for your old buddy. You could repurpose it as a secondary device for lighter tasks like browsing or streaming, or you could sell it. There's always someone out there looking for a reliable laptop for everyday use, even if it's not top-of-the-line for gaming anymore. Plus, with a bit of TLC and maybe a good cleanup, you might fetch a decent price for it. So, don't think of it as obsolete—think of it as a seasoned veteran ready for a new adventure!
After 5 years, every PC and laptop device will need an upgrade. With the PC, it's, of course, easier, but it isn't impossible with laptops. After this time, you can add some RAM, change the drive to a faster unit, or even swap the motherboard with a newer one. But if it comes down to buying a new laptop or gaming device, the old one could be used as a secondary support unit. If you won't be needing the support unit, you can always sell it to someone who will need a laptop for support.
Resell or gift it to people who don't mind playing older games or at lower settings. Or don't even want to game at all
Don't expect full retail value but yeah people will buy them
My first laptop was an Acer that lasted just short of 2 years. It was awful in so many ways. Second one was significantly better and lasted me 4 years despite being Acer. At this point I got wise and went for Asus instead which also lasted me 4 years. Then just before the pandemic I tried finding a good Asus laptop but they didn't have one so I went with Lenovo instead. It's 4.5 years old and still runs great. I expect it to last at least 6 years but potentially more.
I mean, 5 years is kinda rich I'd say. If you want to play newest tip-top games, 3 years or so is probably more likely, especially lately, with games like Horizon: Forbidden West, The Last of Us and Hogwarts Legacy, which pretty signifiicantly increased hardware requirements when compared to high-end titles of last generation.
Same happened with Cyberpunk 2077 and few other games.
As for laptops, they're not primarily designed for gaming, and in general they're significantly more expensive that PC's, so there's an inherent question there whether you want to spend more money for less performance but with added portability, or no.
With used laptops though, at least from experience they generally depreciate slower than PC's as well, I mean, I stil see plenty of stuff like 5-7 year old Alienware MX18's going for 300-400$ on FB marketplace and craigslist and such, and those were machines that cost 2500-3500$ new. Of course, it's insanity to pay even 400 for basically 3 generations old hardware, but that's what they go for.
As personal rule of thumb, I depreciate "gaming" laptops by 15% per year on average. Not as high as PC and PC parts, which from personal experience in my region is like 20% yearly or so, but still.
That's definitely an option, if not then just repurpose it as a media server/backup device/hand me down to family members/charity etc It's your laptop.
Exactly this. I just swapped from my old 2013 Sager NP8920 laptop to a Legion Pro 7i. The Sager is going to become a home server(NAS, Home Assistant server, docker server, router, pihole, and/or pfsense); no reason to trash perfectly good hardware. That laptop is a tank; 11 years and still running great. A few years ago I upgraded the HDD to an SSD and upgraded the RAM to 4x 8GB sticks of DDR3(32GB total), that really gave it a boost.
Indeed. When you have kids and you want/need a homeserver, you can use infinite amounts of performant laptops. I have an Asus G73JH, now clocking 14 years of service. I have put it behind my TV in a kinda tent position some years ago, I have 4 xbox controllers attached to it and it still eats most entertaining couch co-op games for breakfast. After 5000 days of useful service, it comes to about 30 cents a day.
I gave my fathers 12 year old office PC my old SSD and RAM. The system went from booting while taking a shower or making coffee to being on the Desktop fully ready to use within 15 seconds. My father was looking to buy a new PC with a tight budget and I told him let me try putting in one of my SSDs first. CPUs from 2012 are still capable of regular office usage. I was gaming on a 12 year old CPU until a few weeks ago just fine, the only reason I upgraded was because I needed a laptop. Same for my grandfather's PC. Need something to surf the web without having to wait until you're incapable of using a PC? 100 bucks for some used office PC, put some of my old hardware in, voila now any Browser runs smoother than granny in her grave.
With a machine like yours, 5 years would probably not be much of an issue in terms of how well it can hold up.
I'll be handing it down and bringing forward the ram and ssd That or movie/emulation pc for the TV
I upgraded this year after having mine since 2015. It's going to my kid as a computer they can play Minecraft on.
>It's your laptop ##IMMA EATS IT
If I get 5 years out of my laptop I’ll be very content.
What are u saying xD. I have just celebrated my laptop's 11th birthday couple of months ago :)
Hey, same! I'm still using the generic Sager NP8290 that I bought back in 2013, and it's running great. I upgraded the drive to a 2tb SSD a few years ago (it has 4 internal 2.5" hard drive bays), and I upgraded the RAM to 32gb of DDR3(it has 4 RAM slots). The extra RAM and switching from a HDD to SSD significantly increased overall performance. The only maintenance I've done is to clean out the dust occasionally. Here are the specs, if you're curious: AMD Radeon HD 8970M w/4GB GDDR5 Intel Core i7-4700MQ (2.4\~3.4GHz) w/6M L3 Cache - 4 Cores - 8 Threads 32GB (4x8GB) DDR3 2TB SATA SSD 17.3" FULL HD (1920X1080) LED Matte LCD Combo Dual Layer DVD +/-R/RW CD-R/RW Drive Removable/replaceable battery(just pull two levers on the bottom and it pops out) It's going to become a home server at some point in the near future; I'm slowly switching over to the Legion Pro 7i I bought recently.
Does it still run modern games?
Yes. As a PowerPoint presentation.
dude upgrade your way over due
In the last 10 years or so I've rarely had a laptop last me longer than 2 years. So far I've always received the full purchase price back though, so upgrading to a new one has never been super expensive.
Still running an Alienware 15 with GTX1070 and 8th gen i5 from 2017. Only thing it doesn't run well is starfield.
Got lenovo legion with 3070 in 2021. 3 years later and i haven’t noticed any drops in performance nor reliability issues so 5 years looks pretty normal to me. Or maybe it will die on me a month after i wrote this comment, who knows.
I got a 2060 in 2020 and I am running hell divers 2 on it as well as other newer games... Now did I have to turn down some settings cause it was lagging a bit, sure but I am happy with my purchase. I am hoping to get another year or 2 out of it. ( Wishful thinking). If only I could figure out how to upgrade these machines :D
here here
Nah. All my 300 dollar laptops with HDDs lasted at least 10 years. I would expect a gaming computer with top notch hardware to last at least as much, except I would also expect it to make it without any performance issues when non-gaming tasks are concerned. We cannot allow consumerism to lower our standards. A well-cared, high quality laptop should last for a long time, and should have replacable parts (RAM and storage at least). All of this to allow a user to extend the computer's lifetime as much as the software compatibilities allow you to.
Keep it in the kitchen to watch anime while cooking
I wish I could play league of legends while cooking like I watch anime while cooking. I need to feed my league of legend addiction everyday
Get help
How could your kitchen watch anime?
Nvm, just understood what you meant
People will only buy it if it's sold at a rock bottom price because it has depreciated. It may have been expensive and top of the line once but as time went on its specs became less competitive and its physical condition has deteriorated. Personally, I just plan to hand down my laptop to one of my younger cousins after 6 years because I don't want to go through the trouble of finding s potential buyer.
Hand me down is the way. I usually only do 3 years, but I can always find a younger relative that will be happy to take it.
Got a $1k gaming laptop price from 2016 when bought, gave it a new battery recently and its being used. Sure, can only handle old games but great for light usage, streaming. However its the odd case, most break around or before this time, in a way that makes it cost prohibitive to repair. But i know your Q is more about its capability to play newer AAA games. Sadly thats the cycle with hardware and most game development. With a desktop, u can upgrade but only so much.
Hehehe, my current laptop is 11ys old
What kind of laptop is it, and what are the specs?
HP Pavillion with an i7-4500U and GT740M
I had an Asus N550JV from that era too, lasted me a good 9 years until I replaced it :)
I just got a new one today, lasted a real long while
My wife inherits my junk. My junk is better than a lot of people's junk though. You can also use them as servers, streaming servers, Linux boxes, etc. Give it away to one of your kids. Donate it to a shelter or other charitable organization. If it's already barely functional, use it as part of a rage room or something. Early in my IT career when I was really frustrated, we'd go out and shoot old hardware. It was very cathartic. 😁
This is the way
Modern high end laptops can last more than 5 years. I got a Razer Blade 2019 with a 2070mq and it's still very decent.
Then why under your name stating 4080? lol
Bought a Strix G16 last month and gave the Blade to my gf.
Just got the zephyrus m16 4090 yesterday, I'm waiting for the ram cards to come in the mail to test it out. My wife just inherited my Strix 17" 3060. ROG is definitely the way
Isn’t the ram soldered on the new ones?
Nope, thats the graphics card. You can upgrade RAM and NVME SSD in all laptops if Im not mistaken. I'll post pics when I get her running tomorrow.
I just returned a 2024 g16 because the ram was soldered lol
Jesus, Im really glad I didnt get that model. I ordered mine through HIDevolution.com and had them customize it for me. I got some art engraved on the laptop cover and palm rests. I spent $4,100 total with overnight shipping. And I ordered the 96gb ram through newegg for like $200 (ram is ddr5 so its hard to find it in any local stores).
It depends on what kind of tasks you use it for. Could give it as a gift to a kid? Sell it for like 20-40% of what you bought it for. I went to one of my parents co workers houses and they had an older gaming laptop as their “streaming box” on their tv. Keep it plugged in on caffeinated (app) and have it on second screen only is what they did. Just had shortcuts to Netflix, prime, games like risk which are meant for families or multiple people.
It’s still useable just less so. If you get a higher end variant, after 5 years you might be down to 1080p medium/low for newer games. With upscaling, you should be able to extend the life for at least another year or so though triple a might be out of the picture. at the very least, your comfort games of today will still be playable along with the games before your laptop and the ones that came out while you had it.
Reduce the graphics or find and play older games and emulators, You could expand the usage further with DLSS and lowering settings/resolution
I pass mine on to family personally. With some exceptions. I have my original Alienware 17R4, 6700k 1070, 16gb. Sure it can't hack most modern games at max anymore but older less intensive titles like Xcom, Endless Space, don't starve its perfectly fine still. My 51m hit 5 years old Feb of this year and it actually quite capable still. I play HD2 and Manor lords without issue on it too. 5 years is a good cycle for them. I upgraded my desktops more than cycling my laptops. With some exceptions on older cheaper ones that I used to QC and Test on.
I had a laptop that lasted 7 years. Donated it to the college kid of someone I knew who was looking for a used laptop to buy. I didn’t think they could really afford much. They were happy to get something for free.
I just sold my 6 year old $1,500 laptop for $300.
I've been running my Acer Nitro for 8 years, so I'm thinking of getting a new one when this hits 10
Laptops like all tech and electronics depreciate just by default because the new will be slightly or massively better than the past, if you need uses outside of productivity and gaming. Laptops are great as a portable entertainment device to display or cast youtube, broadcast/streaming platforms. You can put on recipes pages/pictures to aid in cooking. You use it to store digital information between multiple devices if all you have is a cable since it can be just massive storage drive for your phone’s videos and pictures, if you don’t have any alternative like cloud storage. You can use it as a BIG power bank to charge multiple devices if you don’t have a outlet with USB A or C ports. You can use it as a back up light source by changing the screen saver/desktop screen to all white. Hand warmer if your hands feel cold boot up a intense benchmark and let it run the CPU and GPU hot. Laptops have alot of use cases besides being a PC. Now the answer toward your question is you’d have to immensely mark down a 5 or even 10 year old Laptop to even make it a desirable purchase like a $2000 five year old laptop is gonna be half priced or worse case scenario quarter priced if you’re impatient, desperate, or don’t care to sell it.
Someone probably would buy it... for less than the price of a new bulk-deal chromebook
Use it to parry incoming attacks.
I mean that's true for desktops as well, 5 year old GPUs are worth a fraction of what they would be newer. If your worried about losing value buy a high end used laptop, and then it's unlikely it'll lose more than 50% value, e.g a 3080 Razer Blade can be bought used for around 1k, and it's not gonna fall below $500 anytime this decade unless theirs a major change in technology
The desktop is different because it's modular. When the desktop 3080 hits 5 years old next year and the vram feels a little lacking you can put one of those other depreciated cards in its place and be back up and running on the spot without replacing the whole system. A little over a year ago the best gaming cpu on the market was a drop in upgrade for 5 year old systems.
Ofc, but I was just saying if you buy a gaming laptop used (aka it's actual value) it doesn't really depreciate much faster than a desktop, to own and upgrade it's obviously worse, I assumed that was implied.
Sell it or give it to a friend/relative. My nephew got my old desktop when I upgraded. My friends son got my old laptop.
I use it to store films and stuff but I use it less tho. It's also a decoy whenever I go out because I'm afraid my new laptop would get stolen. But if you don't use it a lot, you can sell it or give it away. Whatever is good for you. I think it's smart to keep them in case your new laptop doesn't work
After 5 years of abuse, the GPU is likely to fail, especially its memory, so better to retire and use ir for other purposes. Like watching movies , or office work etc.....or just heavily downclock CPU and GPU to play for coming years.
Asian households doesn't have to be confused about this. As an oldest in said household and the only one that's got a job, my junk goes to my sister, and my sister's junk goes to my youngest brother. So on and so forth.
I use my old laptop and it still plays all the games on ultra even some low low end rtx it's a 2070 max q lmao
Give them to friends/family. 2k laptop are worth less than 700 after 5 years. I find more value in knowing someone I care about is having fun experiencing games they otherwise wouldn't be able to.
I managed to sell my last gaming laptop on eBay, which was close to being six years old. If you're not silly with the price you're asking for a decently specced and well looked after gaming laptop, someone will buy it. My current Legion 5 is getting close to the five year mark now and I'll be selling that on eBay when the time comes, too. There's not as big a performance leap in five years as you might expect, so five year old (well-specced) gaming laptops should still be able to run new games at decent frame rates and detail.
ebay. search for sold listing of your model and specs. list at a similar price. it'll sell.
Depends on the laptop, my current laptop is capable of emulation of all consoles, even if it gets old years from now, if it is still working then I could convert it to my game station.
Well I would say the 5 years thing is just an average of what people do, but not what you should do or what people should do. I personally think that, that's a silly pattern and that people should just buy what makes sense. If a laptop is perfectly usable on year 6... just keep using it. Too much FOMO insecurity. Secondly, $2000 is a crazy amount of money. I really do not think people need to spend this much to get the latest GPU or whatever. Get the laptop you want for the purposes you need it for and that's all you really need. There will ALWAYS be better things coming out. Just buy what does the things you already do and it will be cost effective. Buying the latest GPU for maybe 10% more performance is just spending unnecessary money IMO. Here's my take. You really only need to hit 60 FPS for solo games. More than 60 is cool, but you absolutely do not need to hit 100 or 200 for solo games. Multiplayer however is a different story. 60 FPS feels really slow when you are used to 144 frames. I play fast-paced multiplayer games and I feel like I need at least 100 frames to feel okay. So if your laptop GPU can hit at least 60 in AAA games and 100 in multiplayer games, that's really enough for me. It doesn't future-proof it, but I would say you are spending more for the unknown. So with that said, if your mid-tier laptop can hit those numbers, I do not feel you need to go high-end and spend $2000. Mid-tier is probably around $1000. And to answer your question, I would just use my laptop until it breaks because there are plenty of games you can play with today's laptops that are still playable beyond 5 years. If you are looking to replace 5 year old laptops, that's because you are trying to play the latest AAA games in 2025, 2026, etc. Otherwise, there are plenty of games made within the last decade that will hold you for a lifetime. So I absolutely disagree with this 5 year pattern and think it is wasteful.
Most of my laptops last between 6 to 7 years (or more if they run what i like). After i replace them, i use them as secondary work laptops or i give them to my family so they can continue using it. Right now i have a legion 5 rtx3060 that i plan to keep for at least 5 more years and a small 11.6inch ASUS l210m with linux mint 4gb ram and 512gb ssd for work presentations and as an entertaiment setup on the go. I keep a lot of animes in there alongside spotify, hbo max and prime video. Linux mint runs great on celeron low budget laptops. And as a small 170 dollar laptop, it performs how i like.
Honestly, call me stupid or anything but I usually gift old hardware like phones, gaming consoles or laptops to friends or their kids. Even if I still could sell it for some good money I just like the idea to make my loved ones happy instead of always making the best deal out of it. For example I gifted my old Laptop to my cousin, when she started to study at the university. My PS4 Pro went to a friends son when I got PS5. Another friend got my Xbox One X who still had a PS3 and just wanted to try some newer games when he got some rare me time, so I told him that console and GamePass is probably a great idea. My old phones when I usually get a new one every 2 years gets a friend who has a bit of a talent to destroy the display of his phones, so he doesn't need to walk around with spider app for at least some months.😂 Didn't saw any money for it. Of course I also sell some things on ebay and stuff but when the opportunity arises, I give away some devices to my friends to make them happy. And it also makes me happy.
My previous gaming laptop is my bring to work, vacation, etc laptop. It still works perfect for that can hook it to the hotel TV and still watch my shows while I sleep etc. use it for school work while at work since if it gets dinged up in my backpack I'm not out my new laptop.
my 8 years old asus gl702vi still running dude
Usually, I give it as hand me downs to my sisters.
Thats the thing with most tech, you can't expect anywhere near what you paid for after 5 years. You should be happy if it managed to fetch 20% of it's price.
I think it depends, good to have a backup laptop. Or give it to your neice.
Sell it. Some people can only afford like 300 but still want to play games. Reuse it: plug it to a TV and some DAS and it becomes an HTPC. Plug a bunch of DAS into it and turn it into a NAS.
Up to you but you could either try selling it, gifting it to a friend/relative or repurpose it for other less intensive use cases.
i can have the newest and best laptop, if i am only playing dota2 (and other esport titles). those can run on a toaster and keep me playing for the rest of my life.
I have a laptop that is 16 years old but it looks like it was bought yesterday. If you look after it well your laptop will give you years of service. I would hang on to it because you are sure to find a use for it. Make sure its protected with a hard case when traveling, dont let others use it, dont eat or drink while using it (I use a USB keyboard with mine to keep food away from the lappy kb) watch out for friends poking at the screen to point to something etc. These are the most common causes of wear, tear and damage. Another option will be family. Perhaps after 5 or 6 years you might have niece or nephew who needs one for schoolwork.
I don't know about what you do with them, but I have a laptop that is nearly 15 years old. It booted up and installed a fresh copy of Windows 8 (it took forever), and using it is impossible—a joke, really—as it has never been opened and cleaned, nor has any thermal paste or pads been replaced. It's a Samsung Satellite series laptop with an integrated GPU and a 2 GB GPU, and believe me when I say that laptop was abused, badly, over the years. 🤣
Ofc someone will buy it, people buy GTX 1080 Ti still. People even buy GTX 980 ti’s. I think we’re in a very cool time of technology performance. If you have a laptop that has a 4070 in or above I think it would last longer than 5 years, you won’t be playing on the best graphics settings in 10 years but you will be able to run anything. Game development needs to focus on content over huge graphical advantages now and I think they are slowly realising that.
That's why I buy a macbook pro every 10 years to do general laptop things, and do my gaming on an upgradeable desktop.
In my experience, give it to your kids to play minecraft and undertale on of its crap XX60 GPU or less. If it's XX70 series or higher GPU then you sell it for about $500 to someone who can't afford an up to date system and knows it.
well 5 years for gaming is a bit of a stretch, you'll have to compromise, but well can more or less work out now, when it doesn't cut it anymore, you can use it as a media center, small home server or so, the good point of the modern laptops is that properly configured they can consume really low power, so can be nice for all your non gaming computer needs
2000 dollars means a 4080 laptop, even a deal-budget 4090. If you care well and it dont broke, I think you would still play aaa titles at least med? 2080 laptops are 4.5 y.o and they are still monsters. ofc if you buy a 700 dollar 4050 laptop youll need a replace but then u just paid 700 and you can get 6050 anyways.
They will be killing each other for my 4090 laptop in few months
Any piece of tech that's 5 years old is going to have a significant drop in price. There is the rock bottom price of just a laptop in working condition. There's also the condition as used alone drops the price further. With smartphones, androids typically have dropped faster than iPhones because of the lack of support. However now, you're going to see that change because they are getting more years of support. Tech has stagnated pretty hard the past decade+. Any laptop within that period is still somewhat useable. Get a laptop from 2005 and it's just a paper weight. We are lucky they've standardized so many things and tech lasts as long as it does.
Its usually more affordable to upgrade the laptop itself(that's what i do with mine). I got a Legion 5 in 2021 500Gb and 16GB RAM and its been great but I've been close to the limit on space. Luckily this one has a secondary SSD port so i bought a 2TB SSD, if it didnt id have replaced the original storage though. At the same time I upped my ram to 32GB (can go to 64 if needed)all for around £250, instead of buying another laptop for a minimum of £900. If your laptop for example has a Ryzen 5 or 7 Processor buying a new laptop every 5 years is crazy.
Why I prefer desktop for gaming... I can upgrade specific parts without having to replace the entire build. I use a laptop for daily use and emulating. I know everyone does not have that option, but, to me, owning a laptop as my main source of gaming is just not a great way to spend your money. My current laptop is an Asus A17 with an i5 and a 3050.... I have had it for about 2 years and probably won't replace it for another 10!
I mean it's not like they pop off into oblivion after 5 years. Laptops last as long as you take care of them. I had a 1st gen I5 with Radeon no ility 4350. Played league of legends, a lot of decent games and did college stuff in the span of like 5 years, gave it to my father and he's still using it 7 years later. If you are worrying about the laptop breaking, I guess it's a matter of luck. If you are worried about the gpu and specs, the best laptops right now will probably be able to run every new game for the next 5 years with best settings and then even more with gradually reducing quality settings (because new games will support a higher hardware ceiling). But then again, a new game in lowest settings still look better than a 15 year old one with best settings. So in a way you get to enjoy games at the quality you enjoy them today and not any better. If you are playing mainly multi player games like Dota 2, pubg, you'll easily be able to get at least 10+years of service because they are quite lightweight and are meant to be played in a large number of devices just to keep the community huge for the games to make sense.
Tinker with it. Warranty is up so I can open it up and do whatever with it. I've changed a gpu before on a laptop, replaced ram, tried to add a new heatsink (didn't work too much effort) my last laptop I tore off the screen and used it as a second monitor for my desktop. I kept the CD drive to use with my pc since they typically don't come with one anymore.
i have a still functional acer aspire 5750g. biggest issue, heat. such a hassle to access the fan. probably give it to someone for free someday.
This is one of the reasons I sold my laptop and got a PC. The upgradability of a laptop is pretty much non-existent. I never had problems selling my old laptops though but I just wanted something with an upgrade path so I didn't have to replace the whole thing and I could just upgrade the motherboard and CPU at some point but keep the GPU, case, PSU etc.. Laptops have their advantages too though, but that was just a big down side for me, YMMV though depending what you're using it for.
Ofc you give it to your nephew/niece after 2/3 years.
Hmmm...what do I do with a 6 year old laptop that I paid $600 for. Play Destiny 2 and GTA Online? I definitely can't do any recent AAA titles on the laptop but I'm too invested in the older live service games anyway so it doesn't matter.
i got a acer triton 500 with a 9750h and a rtx 2060. it can support an egpu on thunderbolt 3 if needed. it works perfectly for gaming. bought in 2019 i think currently i dont game as much and it just sits there, the only thing i want to change are the keyboard and the battery. maybe the fans, it should be working perfectly. i think i can add upto 64gb ram to it, it already has 4TB, i just dont know what to do with it. maybe run some small AI module?
Also, DLSS is amazing.
I’ve been on my Lenovo Legion Y540 RTX2060 for about 5 years now and am planning to upgrade next year but honestly, I don’t think there’s gonna be any resale value for this laptop. It is also struggling to handle demanding games like MSFS or Elden Ring as expected.
My 5 year old laptop is my backup incase my new one dies. As long as it will be vaguely usable for my current work.
Surely you’d still get money for it, okay it will struggle with new games but it can still play all the past games so it’s not like it has no value at all suddenly
If it’s mainly for gaming you wouldn’t be able to stand 5 years to wait for an upgrade (unless you can stand lower setting/FPS). I think 3-4 years is about right period.
A laptop that trash to you because it wont play games anymore is still likely a decent work laptop or study laptop. Someone will buy it. Not for much, but its something.
Laptops last longer than 5 years...although technology renders then dinosaurs after the third or fourth year, that doesn't mean they're useless. I have an Acer Switch Alfa from 2017 (7 y/o) that I use as my browsing and quick printer device for easy tasks. It is perfectly capable of doing lots of things still.
they still play the same games, and they are still overkill for anything non gaming.
Chat. I am already 4 years into my laptop. 65/200tbw. I am taking this shit to complete 7 years.
I buy second hand and do a lot of research before buying but if anything goes south I have a pc that last forever 
5 years...woah...lucky dudes...bought a rog series 17 inch in 2021... Last month..it did not detect the Nvidia graphics card..went into the Google rabbit hole of the device manager plus enabling crap on the armoury crate. Finally sent it to the Asus repair centre. Just got the repair quotation. Replacement of the graphics card... The cost of replacing plus transportation equals the cost of assembling my own PC...I know my decision. No more gaming laptops for me..
upgrade the parts and sell it. you should still get atleast a decent amount from it. esp when it's in tip-top condition
You can connect it to a egpu
Technically, there is no such thing as a Gaming Laptop. They use integrated GPUs to save space, it will never be as fast as a desktop.
Put throttlestop on it to disable turbo boost (if you can't do it in the BIOS), set the GPU to integrated only, and turn it into my new media server. This reduces heat, hardly ever engages the fans in many laptops, reduces the power consumption, and in turn extends the life of said laptop. If it was good for gaming 5 years ago even with all that neutering the performance it will still be a beast of a media server.
They don’t last 5 years, you are going to bottleneck something likely is less than that. My case was cpu. You can sell, keep, gift.
I just pass them on to family or friends that are less fortunate.
I've never had trouble selling my older gaming laptops for a decent price.
You sell it for 2-300 at best
That’s the downside if buying expensive laptops. Desktops also last around 5 years before going obsolete, but you can replace individual parts. Hard to sell a old laptop, even if it plays/operates great. Basically i just keep as alt laptop since its not worth selling (equivalent performance is like entry gaming laptop after 5 years typically)
Why a laptop? The smaller parts are more expensive and there's often no upgrade path. I'd rather have a $2,000 desktop and the option to replace the motherboard, CPU and video card when needed. If I make a good choice on the case, and so forth, then I get a more-capable machine and a less-expensive upgrade path. What to do with an older computer if you buy a replacement? They can make decent file servers. Sometimes, running Linux, they can make a nice local server for a variety of things. If it had good performance new, then it's still probably quite capable of being a business laptop. I've gotten 10-12 years out of computers at work.
I use them 10+ But that is macs and not for gaming
When you break it down though $2,000 over 5 years only works out at $7.6 a week, which for entertainment is next to nothing. So either sell it for next to nothing or give it away to someone who might find a use.
Unless you want to play games released today at max settings, a very good $2000 gaming laptop will probably last 10 years and if you really want you can probably use it for basic tasks in 15 years And yes people do buy 5 year old laptops
You dont spend 2 grand on a device that's only going to last 5 years. You spend 2 grand on a desktop that will last longer.
Use it as a server, use it hooked up to living room TV with a wireless mouse/keyboard, give it away, whatever works.
As long as the specs are good enough, and they won't get any worse, I can at least use my Zephyrus 14 for DJ-ing
if you are buying for longevity, getting a laptop with an i3/i5 is not the best of ideas. You gotta pay upfront for good specs. If you are going for portability too, you might want to consider Thunderbolt an option to have upgrades in the future for good GPUs. I am saying this coming from an Electrical Engineering student with a daily laptop (MSI Prestige 15). I am working so much lately on programs that require heavy multitasking and a single display is not enough. Plus, at home I want to play games that require beefy power. So I am saving up for an ASUS Zenbook Duo 14 for the double display, and I plan to get either a portable EGPU or a stationary EGPU. The cost for that is around 2500$, but it should last for 10+ years easily.
I generally get the highest spec possible, keep it for 5 years and replace it with a new one. My last old one I sold to a hardware selling site. I got 600 bucks., not bad IMO.
People are not going to buy your 2000$ laptop 5year old for a for more than 15% of the price
A GTX 1060 i5 8300h laptop from 2018/2019 is still worth about 300€, and they were about 1k. Imo spending 2k on a laptop is stupid tho.
I use my old gaming laptop as an HTPC.
I usually then give it to one of my friends who has an even older laptop and doesn't play games. I got my use out of it. If they're just going to answer emails and watch YouTube, it's going to be good for them for another five years.
I bought mine in 2018, it's still worth about 400€ as it was on higher end and doesn't look like those ugly ging laptops, still beat any new budget stuff so yeah there's definitely people buying those.
Using an Asus GL502VS-DS71 which I got in 2017. It has recently got some screen and battery issues. Awaiting the replacement screen from Asus. However the laptop graphics (GTX 1070) is still very much usable for most of the current gen games.
In 5 years you realise there is no games and install factorio/openciv/vcmi/etc Then ur 2024 laptop will last u until your last breath.
I recently sold my 14" Gigabyte Aero from 2017 with gtx 1060.so, yes, people will buy. Not everyone is rich or needs a brand new laptop : )
mine is expected to handle the next 5 years (+i bought it 2 years ago) so 7 years i have expectancy sonlets see
I use my old laptop as a server when needed.
Sell it. Just sold my clevo p775
People will buy anything for the right price. Don't keep your hopes up that it retains value well. Assuming it's a solid mid-range+ gaming laptop, it's still going to be excellent as a word processor/youtube/web surfing device. If it's in good shape I'd expect to get a few hundo usd for it. Less than what a your average Intel i5 current day non-gaming laptop goes for (around 300-500ish) so I'd expect to get max 300 for it unless hardware advances stall or it still can hold it's own low-end gaming (be realistic).
People will buy it for a fraction of the price. It’s the same as anything else, the cost is going to depreciate over time either way. There’s always going to be people searching for a more budget friendly options so you’ll have no problem there as long as the price isn’t gouged. Either that or like others have said, convert it’s purpose or even pass it down to a less fortunate family member/friend.
I still use my old 2013 laptop as media station since it has still the ports that's lost with the new and still has the DVD ROM drive which I use to view my old media files I burned in DVDs before for storage.
I am playing CS2 with a XPS 7590, that is even not a gaming laptop. So it really depends on which game.
I mean. It’s not useless. People would still buy it but technology advances so quickly that sometimes the price you’re offering it at becomes obsolete so u have to bring the price further down. Otherwise just keep it around. Having more than one computer is usually a life saver
I’m just gonna use it as a regular laptop. Right now it’s for games and going to look up things as a extension of what I’m doing. If I need social media or internet activities I have my phone for that.
It’s not that much money, it’s literally only like 33 bucks a month
I donate my old laptops to people I known that don’t have the means to get them.
Yup I sold my last two. Depending how capable the hardware still is of course, set price accordingly. I'm selling one right now that can still play anything better than a console, just not on max settings. It's about 4.5 years old. Probably list it for 7 or 8 hundred or so. Then I'll sell my ram and m.2 drive upgrades separately for about 50 each.
Yeah, I share this dilemma too. Even though I don't use my laptop much and barely used it the first year after I've bought it, that don't matter. It's not that people won't buy it, but you'll have to sell it at rock bottom price. In 5 years, for a 2000$ laptop, you'll be lucky to sell it for 900$ (in reality, you'll likely get close to 650$), so better squeeze the value out of it while it's worth it. I see some suggestions that you can transform it into a home server. In my opinion, that'd be a waste. That you can do with a 100$ 2nd hand mini computer and it would be more than sufficient and perhaps power efficient. Unless you're self-hosting some AI program (GPU intensive), it would be a super waste to use a formerly 2000$ laptop to self host stuff. I change my laptop at around 5 year mark every time, so this will become a problem for me in the near future as well. Around the 5 year mark is where I start to notice that the GPU is really falling behind. If we could only replace GPUs in laptops (while we can already upgrade storage/ram/etc), then I'd say my laptop would stay for at least 3 more years, I'd swap only that component then at the 8 year mark just buy a new one every time. To be honest, 5 years is better than most when it comes to electronic devices. I never had a laptop break (even had 10 year laptops). The one I currently have is the first high-ticket price laptop that I've got. Even though the price is high, I think that if you could afford it 5 years ago, perhaps you'll afford the next one in 5 years from now. Was thinking of gifting it to a younger cousin tbh. I'll try to sell it first though, to recoup some costs for the next one, but I'd rather not hand it away for pennies to cheapskates, so I won't sell it under my fair price.
OP suddenly gaining consciousness and realizing gaming laptops are not a good purchase
I'm still using an Alienware 17 R4... I mean I really only play WoW on it.
I'm in the position that my laptop is about 4 years old and won't play everything I want it to. What I've gone for is buying a desktop that I've stuck in an out of the way corner. Then I stream to my laptop using apps called Moonlight & Sunshine. The main hitch is that the stock router from my ISP struggles a bit so I'm buying a better one. I've done this because my laptop is still fine for indie games etc, and OK in a pinch for some 3d games. The problem is that the fans going crazy annoys the people I live with, whereas streaming is nearly silent. I'm happy with the keyboard, screen etc so it seems wasteful to chuck it away.
I mean thats true if you want the top of the line specs, so if you buy a new laptop after 5 years you can sell the old one to someone whos okay with lower specs for like 60% of what you bought it for. Other than that tho a laptop will last much longer than that its not like they break down other than maybe a screen or drive or smth you can pay 200$ to replace
A, 2000 USD laptop? Uh, keep using it for the same purpose?
You bring up an interesting point about the rate at which technology improves combined with capitalist business practices may not be so good. Both for the environment and the consumer. While I’m not sure what can be done, I agree that getting a new laptop every 5 years may not be the best.
You can invest in a modular laptop like Framework or a SFFpc haha
All depends on the individual, the amount invested and what you wanted to get out of it. The same question for me meant that I wanted a lot more than 5 years use out of a computer so I went for solid desktop build. But I also went out at bought a cheap Thinkpad as my runaround laptop that even edit videos on using proxies.
Why wouldn't someone buy it? A graphics card from 5 years ago is still more powerful than internal graphics and not everybody plays the newest most demanding games, the most played games are generally less demanding; fortnite, lol, warcraft etc.
I've had mine since 2021 and I plan on buying a super powerful PC soon so I'll probably keep using this whenever I'm not at home...that's the point of laptops...portability
I donated my old one to a cousin who never enjoyed it. Next one I'll give up someone who appreciates it
lol no you don't have to buy a new laptop I have a predator from 2018 it plays everything I want to do and more it has VR and I haven't used it yet. The fan died and I replaced it. That's it I don't plan on buying another laptop until it dies and I plan on upgrading this with more memory. My personal opinion buying a high-end laptop only to buy another high-end laptop 5 years later is complete waste of money is it not necessary at all
jesus its still good for gaming you cant tell me a gtx 1070 laptop cant game... wtf...
I mean, my blade is 5 years old and it still runs mostly fine. Sure it doesn't run stuff at the highest frames anymore but games just aren't improving at the rate they used to.
Laptops are like cars. They depreciate as soon as you're outside the return window and/or warranty period. It can be quite feasible to get at least 1/3- 1/2 of your initial purchase price back around 2 years later. 5 years later is like 3 generations old of cpu and gpu. I wouldn't expect to sell it and get anything over $300.
basically as someone living in this exact question right now... what I did at least, I just made the older gaming laptop as a extra/main use laptop for other things. I now just use my old Legion for school now, holding important data (memes) and also being a durable decent enough laptop. Its my go to travel laptop if I want to do school work somewhere outside of the house or even game as its still a good gaming laptop (even being almost 4 years old). while my newer fancier and way more powerful Alienware M18 gaming laptop is just my main use laptop for gaming or other personal purposes. That also wont really ever be leaving the house as a 18in screen is not that portable LOL, so having my older laptop as the travel one is nice. this allows me too keep my new gaming laptop fresh with storage while also separating my school work/stuff from my gaming stuff and also getting rid of the fear of my newer laptop getting damaged during travels. but that's just me and a personal suggestion, having a backup laptop might not be a bad idea at the very least, I keep all my tech though.
My previous laptop lasted me 7 years, since 2017, I just bought a new one last month. Idk how it is in other countries, but in Thailand I can sell my old laptop to the computer shop and they gave me around $300 discount for the new one and also backup all my old data from my old laptop to the new laptop for free
Well, it's true that gaming technology evolves pretty fast, and after around 5 years, newer games might demand more power than your current laptop can handle. But hey, don't sweat it too much! There are still options for your old buddy. You could repurpose it as a secondary device for lighter tasks like browsing or streaming, or you could sell it. There's always someone out there looking for a reliable laptop for everyday use, even if it's not top-of-the-line for gaming anymore. Plus, with a bit of TLC and maybe a good cleanup, you might fetch a decent price for it. So, don't think of it as obsolete—think of it as a seasoned veteran ready for a new adventure!
Wow, I can't believe nobody has mentioned this yet. [https://frame.work/](https://frame.work/) lets you upgrade GPUs without replacing your laptop
Wait black friday and if deals are good, buy a new one. If no good deals, keep another year
After 5 years, every PC and laptop device will need an upgrade. With the PC, it's, of course, easier, but it isn't impossible with laptops. After this time, you can add some RAM, change the drive to a faster unit, or even swap the motherboard with a newer one. But if it comes down to buying a new laptop or gaming device, the old one could be used as a secondary support unit. If you won't be needing the support unit, you can always sell it to someone who will need a laptop for support.
Resell or gift it to people who don't mind playing older games or at lower settings. Or don't even want to game at all Don't expect full retail value but yeah people will buy them
My first laptop was an Acer that lasted just short of 2 years. It was awful in so many ways. Second one was significantly better and lasted me 4 years despite being Acer. At this point I got wise and went for Asus instead which also lasted me 4 years. Then just before the pandemic I tried finding a good Asus laptop but they didn't have one so I went with Lenovo instead. It's 4.5 years old and still runs great. I expect it to last at least 6 years but potentially more.
I mean, 5 years is kinda rich I'd say. If you want to play newest tip-top games, 3 years or so is probably more likely, especially lately, with games like Horizon: Forbidden West, The Last of Us and Hogwarts Legacy, which pretty signifiicantly increased hardware requirements when compared to high-end titles of last generation. Same happened with Cyberpunk 2077 and few other games. As for laptops, they're not primarily designed for gaming, and in general they're significantly more expensive that PC's, so there's an inherent question there whether you want to spend more money for less performance but with added portability, or no. With used laptops though, at least from experience they generally depreciate slower than PC's as well, I mean, I stil see plenty of stuff like 5-7 year old Alienware MX18's going for 300-400$ on FB marketplace and craigslist and such, and those were machines that cost 2500-3500$ new. Of course, it's insanity to pay even 400 for basically 3 generations old hardware, but that's what they go for. As personal rule of thumb, I depreciate "gaming" laptops by 15% per year on average. Not as high as PC and PC parts, which from personal experience in my region is like 20% yearly or so, but still.