How long can laptop last if used casually a few hours a month?

[Satearn]

I just bought a new laptop, but I use it maybe once a week, for about 2-3 hours. Once I'm done, it goes back in the bag, not charging. I keep battery half charged at all times.

How long can I laptop last in these conditions? 5-10 years?

Not that it matters, because in 2-5 will buy a new one, but I could give it to someone then, and would it still work perfectly?

It's an Acer Aspire with i3-7100u

 

[asoroka]

It should still work, but will it still be useful in 5 years?

The biggest problem will be the battery. After 3 years it may need replacing.

 

[Phillip Corcoran]

I bought my wife a Packard Bell laptop at least 15 years ago and just traded it in for a new one last week -- it was still in full working order. Oh, and she used it every day for those 15 years, not just occasionally. However, the fact that she never used it on the move (it stayed on table in living-room at all times) no doubt accounts for why it lasted so long with nothing breaking or going wrong.


She only used it for email & web purchases, nothing advanced, so made no difference to her how old it was -- it still did what she wanted it to do --- it was just as useful as when it was new. Only traded it in to make a saving on new one while the offer was there.

 

[hang-the-9]

I just bought a new laptop, but I use it maybe once a week, for about 2-3 hours. Once I'm done, it goes back in the bag, not charging. I keep battery half charged at all times.

How long can I laptop last in these conditions? 5-10 years?

Not that it matters, because in 2-5 will buy a new one, but I could give it to someone then, and would it still work perfectly?

It's an Acer Aspire with i3-7100u

For me this is just worrying about nothing, you will find out when you are ready to get rid of it if it's still working, why wonder about it now. You could spill a soda on it next week and kill it, or a dog will pee on it, or you will lose it, or it will get stolen, or some random thing will cause the motherboard to die, your country could be invaded and all computers confiscated, etc..

I've seen new laptops dead new out of the box, die in a week or a few months, some last 10+ years.

 

[jsmithepa]

Obsolescence and accident will take hold before anything dies.

Be careful donating your used computers to someone snooty who may not appreciate your generosity.

 

[jaguarskx]

The first thing that can go bad is the battery. Even if you do not use the laptop that often.

If properly taken care the laptop can still be functional years later. For example, my ThinkPad T40 from 2003 is still functional at least as of sometime in 2016 when I last turned it on. The original battery died in about 3 years and I think the CMOS battery died in 2007. The laptop will boot up if leave it plugged in for a few hours ('cuz the CMOS battery is dead). But after that there is no real point in using the laptop nowadays.

The single core Pentium M was great back then, but now it is a snail. The Radeon 7500 dedicated GPU is obsolete. It is a DirectX 8.1 GPU and it does not have the circuitry to decode modern video formats. Forget about using it to watch Youtube or Netflix videos. In fact forget about using it to surf the web. Many site have a lot of processes taking place in the background; too much for a single 1.6GHz CPU to handle.

 

[Satearn]

I just bought a new laptop, but I use it maybe once a week, for about 2-3 hours. Once I'm done, it goes back in the bag, not charging. I keep battery half charged at all times.

How long can I laptop last in these conditions? 5-10 years?

Not that it matters, because in 2-5 will buy a new one, but I could give it to someone then, and would it still work perfectly?

It's an Acer Aspire with i3-7100u

For me this is just worrying about nothing, you will find out when you are ready to get rid of it if it's still working, why wonder about it now. You could spill a soda on it next week and kill it, or a dog will pee on it, or you will lose it, or it will get stolen, or some random thing will cause the motherboard to die, your country could be invaded and all computers confiscated, etc..

I've seen new laptops dead new out of the box, die in a week or a few months, some last 10+ years.

"Not that it matters, because in 2-5 will buy a new one"

Not worried about it, just curious 😉