Repair it ?

In general minor laptop repairs are a viable option for laptop owners as long as the cost to repair is usually no more than 50% of the cost of a new laptop, and the condition of the laptop is generally good repair.

Hard Drives, Keyboards, LCD Screens, DC Jacks, A/C Adapters, CD/DVD Rom Drives... all of these are viable types of repairs.

Here is a list of typical repair costs associated with Laptop Repairs:

Hard Drive:

$75 + labor at $25 to $215.
Labor depends on how much data you want moved to the new Hard Drive from the old Hard Drive.

Memory Upgrade:

$50 to $100+Labor
Labor is minimal about $25.

Keyboard Replacement:

$40 + Labor
Labor is usually Minimal about $25 to $50.

LCD Screen Replacement:

$75 to $175 + Labor
Labor is about $75 to $150 depending on laptop type.

DC Jack:

$25 +Labor
Labor is about $75 to $125 as it generally requires full Laptop disassembly

A/C Adapter:

$20 to $90 + Diagnostic if required

Battery:

$60 to $199 Depending on size of Battery and laptop Brand
no labor

Miscellaneous Parts, Covers, Bezels :

These parts can vary from $20 for various plastic parts to $80 for other more extensive parts.

Replace it?

Laptops are pretty much available everywhere. If you want something fast, any of the retail chains will have what you need.

If you want something at a better price, ordering online via any of the larger retail outlets there can save you a few dollars.

Whatever your choice... be careful how much you spend.

Typical laptops run anywhere from $300 to to $1500 and up to $3500 or more for more rugged and special use systems.

For general home use, we suggest looking at a typical useful life expectancy of about 3 years for any laptop. Does not matter if you spend $300 or $3000, three years is about all the real useful life you will see from something you purchase today.

The hardware on many of these laptops will live longer than 3 years, up to even 6 or 7 years or more, but there is always maintenance and repair.

Hard Drive failure, upgrades to memory and Hard Drive space, Keyboards, A/C Adapters and jacks, and ports that go bad from use or over use are common maintenance items.

All of these can take their toll on the mounting cost of owning a laptop over time.

The big issue at three years is both the operating system and the CPU or processing power the laptop is built or shipped with.

Typically the CPU and speed of the laptop is locked in place at the time of its manufacture... and the Operating system... well you can upgrade it, but at $100 and the cost of having it installed... well its another maintenance cost that you get hit with over time.

Our world is dynamic, so it the Software that we use. As we continually upgrade our software via patches and updates online, It changes and gets more and more complex. It eventually requires more and more processing or CPU power to do the same amount work it did last month, last year, or 3 years ago when everything seemed to run perfectly and the laptop seemed much faster.

So in actuality the laptop is not getting slower, but the stuff we are asking it to do over time increases, to the point in about 2 or 3 years that it appears to be slowing down.

The only way to get back the spunk that the laptop had when you bought it is to replace it with a faster system that is tuned for the software and hardware you use today.

There is no silver bullet at this time to keep away the "replacementosis" that is built into laptops today, but you can minimize the cost to you by creating a maximum of a 3 year useful life plan, staying within a $125 to $200 budget per year making the maximum purchase price of a laptop around $375 to $600 ($125 x 3 years= $375).

At this price, you don't break the budget, and you stay away from extended warranty plans that cost about $200+ for replacement (if they actually replace it).

What if something happens to the laptop after the initial warranty period of usually 1 year ?

Well you used it for one year at $125.

You have $250 left in lifetime use (2 years), and that you will lose, but you did not buy the extended warranty which would have cost about the same amount but that would have locked you into repairing the old Laptop.

If something dreadful happens in year two, take the $250 you would have spent on the warranty and buy a new Laptop. You are out nothing.

If however the laptop goes bad in the 3rd year, you have used 2/3rd of its life or $250. The balance useful life that you will lose is only $125. If you were to replace the laptop at this point the you would actually save $125 over the cost of the Warranty, but remember, you c an get a NEW Laptop and still be ahead of the game.

The point is unless you require some special feature or option that kicks the price of a laptop over $150 a year (a $450 laptop), then buy it. The best practice for home users is to buy low, stay away from extended warranty plans, and try to minimize repairs to get the most value from your purchase.

Affordable Computer Solutions, LLC
Utica, Rome, New Hartford, New York
Serving the Mohawk Valley and Central New York

We have you covered!