Upgrade your laptop or Purchase a replacement?

As the new school term begins one of the decisions you may face when going to school, college or university is whether to upgrade your existing laptop or purchase a replacement. In this blog I will cover both these options

Upgrade

If you have find your existing laptop is not performing as expected, you could consider upgrading components such as the memory or storage. Adding additional RAM or upgrading storage to a faster performing drive such as an SSD can provide several benefits compared to purchasing a new device:

• Generally cheaper
• Easy to do and saves the time and hassle of having to configure a new device including installation of applications, configuring accounts and settings, customising your profile
• Backup and restore of files is quicker
• You are used to the look and feel of your existing device
• Increase the lifespan of your existing device
• Good for the environment as less waste going to landfill

Buying a replacement

Purchasing a replacement laptop makes sense over an upgrade for several reasons:

• Your existing device doesn’t meet the hardware requirements for the latest OS. For example Windows 11 has some stringent hardware requirements like requiring TPM 2.0. Generally speaking anything older than an 8th generation Intel Processor will not support Windows 11.
• It could also be worth a change if you find there is too much to replace and it isn’t cost-effective. For example you need to upgrade the memory, storage and replace the battery which hardly lasts an hour.
• You want something that is lighter to carry or more powerful or has a better display
• You want to change to another OS. For example you find that Windows is no longer for you and you want to move to MacOS or ChromeOS

At the end of the day it is down to personal preference and budget. You may feel like it is time for a change or you could still continue using your existing laptop and just upgrade it to increase it’s lifespan. Remember also when purchasing a replacement device, it doesn’t have to be new. You could get a refurbished one which is just as good as getting a new one. In-fact most of the refurbished laptops tend to be ex-corporate laptops which have better specs and build quality than some of the new ones that you can purchase at retail stores.

If you require advice on getting a replacement laptop or would like to upgrade your existing one, please get in touch – YKComputer will be more than happy to help. Until the end of the year we will provide a free PC health check with any upgrades you wish to perform