I bought my laptop around February of last year. It has an i3 processor and 4 GB of Ram. It cost about $650 when I bought it. The battery is decent but not fantastic. After 21 months, I can still get about 3-3.5 hours out of the battery without putting it on a battery saving setting. I laptop with similar specs costs around $450. When I buy computers, I buy midrange models with a decent processor and a decent amount of RAM, so if I were to buy another laptop it would probably have an i5 processor with 6-8 GB of RAM and one can be had for around $650-700.
This laptop was in its case, I didn't have it strapped in and the case fell out of the back of my SUV when I opened up the rear door. I didn't think much of it but when I turned the computer on I discovered that it cracked the top corner of my screen ruined about 90% of it (I can still see the bottom tool bar at the bottom of the screen).
So I can do one of three things:
1. Get the screen replaced for $200 (parts and labor). I have a guy that can do it for this price. I'm also having him put a solid state drive into a new tower I just bought, so he's giving me a deal.
2. Buy a new laptop -- either a $450 similarly spec'd computer or an i5 machine for $650.
3. Hook the computer up to my TV and turn it into some DVR or something like I've read about some of you guys doing (I have no idea what to do and I don't even know the utility of doing this -- I'd like to hear what some of you guys have done).
Quite honestly, I was leaning towards getting the screen replaced. The way I look at it, I should get 4 years out of a laptop. The average cost per year works out to around $160, if I replace the screen the average cost goes up to $210. If I buy a new laptop, I would probably have to get an i5 machine (the i3 machine will go obsolete around the same time as my current laptop), and basically I give up the last two years of use (around $320 roughly). So the cost of repair is less than the value of the use I would be foregoing.
This laptop was in its case, I didn't have it strapped in and the case fell out of the back of my SUV when I opened up the rear door. I didn't think much of it but when I turned the computer on I discovered that it cracked the top corner of my screen ruined about 90% of it (I can still see the bottom tool bar at the bottom of the screen).
So I can do one of three things:
1. Get the screen replaced for $200 (parts and labor). I have a guy that can do it for this price. I'm also having him put a solid state drive into a new tower I just bought, so he's giving me a deal.
2. Buy a new laptop -- either a $450 similarly spec'd computer or an i5 machine for $650.
3. Hook the computer up to my TV and turn it into some DVR or something like I've read about some of you guys doing (I have no idea what to do and I don't even know the utility of doing this -- I'd like to hear what some of you guys have done).
Quite honestly, I was leaning towards getting the screen replaced. The way I look at it, I should get 4 years out of a laptop. The average cost per year works out to around $160, if I replace the screen the average cost goes up to $210. If I buy a new laptop, I would probably have to get an i5 machine (the i3 machine will go obsolete around the same time as my current laptop), and basically I give up the last two years of use (around $320 roughly). So the cost of repair is less than the value of the use I would be foregoing.
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