laptop cost per month

[forgotten_aria]

So since I've had such crappy luck with laptops, I've started a file that has enough information to calculate laptop price per month. That is I take the date I got the laptop, the date the laptop died and then devide the price by the month. So far my best is $59/month, which is kind of nuts. Do I have really horrible luck? What is your price per month?

Comments

[nacht_musik]

My powerbook is still going, and has cost me about $37/month (and falling). I tend to treat my laptops with kid gloves, though; I'm pretty anal-retentive about handling/protecting it carefully. Even so, I sent it off for two major repairs while it was covered by Applecare, both of which were fairly crucial.

It's funny, if you had at the time offered to rent me a laptop for $30/month, I would have refused, thinking that was too much. Somehow I'd never really considered the amortized cost-of-ownership for my computer.

At 50 months old and lacking USB2.0, though, it's definitely at the end of its useful life cycle as my primary home system. I think if I hadn't been running on a tight budget for the last year I would probably have already bought something with more CPU/RAM/disk and USB2.0 (because I'm tired of hotsyncing my Treo taking 30+ minutes).

[nacht_musik]

FWIW, I note that if my powerbook had exploded in a ball of flame on the day its (extended) applecare expired, it would have still only cost me $51/month. Given that Apple tends to be on the pricey end of things, I'd say $59/month is fairly bad for PC laptops.

[forgotten-aria.livejournal.com]

Well that's why my current laptop is semi-used from ebay so it was cheap enough it doesn't have to last long to be an improvement. Plus, I can doodle on the screen!

[forgotten-aria.livejournal.com]

I don't think I'm rough with my laptops. I feel nervous every time I take them on the road and try to be as gentle as I can be.

[totient]

I commute with mine every day and use it as my primary machine; it has been eight years since I owned a desktop. My Sony VAIO 505TX cost $2400 and lasted 55 months or a little under $44/month. My current machine is a Toshiba Portege 2010 which cost $1800 reconditioned and is currently 44 months old plus however long it was in service before the recondition, for a cost of a hair under $41/month. The key for me is a metal frame (I believe the plastic case macs have metal inside): using circuit boards as structural elements is not good for the longevity of the solder joints.

[nathanjw]

My g3 iBook lasted about 4 years (2001-2005) and with the various repairs and upgrades, cost about $44 per month (no Applecare, which I think has worked out for me). The current laptop would be $74 per month if it died tomorrow (17 months so far), but that's not really a fair metric. My first laptop (a NEC pentium 100) also lasted me four years, 1997-2001 (actually, it still works if you hold the screen up, but it hasn't had regular use since 2001), and I think it would be more like $20/month... it was a cheap and last-year's-model factory refurb when I first got it.

[forgotten-aria.livejournal.com]

Are you adding in the cost of repairs?

I don't actually know what most repairs cost. I got a little scared at the price when I saw ath most replacement parts were as costly as a new laptop, but maybe I'm misinformed.

[diagonti.livejournal.com]

My Dell Latitude D600 is at like 42 months. I think I paid around 1500 for it. The spare battery at this point is down to about a half its original battery life. But otherwise its still going strong.

[totient]

My Sony had a couple of repairs under warranty. I haven't paid cash for repairs; when the Sony got to needing replacement parts I decided it wasn't worth the hassle as by then I could get all kinds of shiny new capabilities by replacing it.

[warlord-mit.livejournal.com]

I think I'm a lot harder on my laptops, in particular the laptops I get from work. I tend to replace them every 18-24 months because I DO beat them up hard, and by 18-24 months I've filled the disk and been limited by the CPU/RAM and need to upgrade to keep up. Note that my laptop is my primary work environment; I use it for everything, including my primary development environment! So, that makes the laptops relatively expensive, upwards of $125-150/month. But this laptop will probably go to someone else when I send it back (once the new laptop finally arrives).

My PERSONAL laptops, ones I buy with my own money, do a little better. I bought a T23 thinkpad back in 2002 (I think -- I bought it before I started recording in GnuCash, and I'm too lazy to go upstairs to find the paperwork and look at the dates). So, it's been 5 years or so and that machine is still running (although it's certainly showing signs of its age). The Mac I bought in April 2003 for about $3k is presumably still running, but you'd have to ask H as she has it now. But that's still only $62/mo.

Maybe I buy expensive laptops?

[pekmez.livejournal.com]

My laptop, which is tentatively declared dead, made it about 43 months, cost
about $1300, for a cost of $30.2/month.

If you add in the cost of the repairs, I bought a ~$100 keyboard and a ~$100 hard drive for it along the way, which would bring it up to $35/month.

Those were no big deal to replace. Then I bought a new desktop machine for doing CAD work (I wasn't using the laptop away from the desk much anyway), ignored the laptop for a month or two, and when I tried using it again discovered the fan died. We spent a few hours taking the whole thing apart
to put a new fan in, and when we put it back together discovered that we'd killed it. It may yet be resurrected, but there was some working-without-a-ground-strap going on and a small zap to a metal housing in there, so maybe not...

[diagonti.livejournal.com]

I guess I should comment that I'm pretty hard on my laptop. I carry it most places in a normal unpadded backpack. I use it both at home and at work. Dell has had to replace several parts on it -- but all done at no cost to me and very little inconvenience. CompleteCare was worth the extra $150 or so to make it so that when ice cream was spilled on the keyboard they just replaced it with no questions.

At this point, I think the keyboard, most of the external plastic parts, and the mouse have been replaced.

I suspect when this one eventually dies, or maybe a little before, I'll order a new laptop. Probably in 3 months or so. At least partially so I'll have a laptop that happily runs WoW and other newer apps.

[nathanjw]

The out-of-warranty repairs were a new backlight cable and a new keyboard (about $30 and $100, respectively), and I did the installation of those myself. The calculation also includes the cost of a replacement battery (I really abused the battery a lot in the first year) and a replacement power supply.

[katybeth]

What counts as abusing the battery?

[nathanjw]

Primarily running an operating system with no power management or battery monitoring, so using up battery power more quickly than if, say, the hard drive could spin down or the CPU could idle; not noticing when the power cable comes slightly unplugged and thus using the battery when I didn't mean to, and repeatedly running the battery down 100%.

[testing4l.livejournal.com]

As yet, I have not bought a laptop because I still regard them as flimsy, easily breakable, and lacking the greatest historical advantage of a PC -- lots of air circulation.

[aerynne.livejournal.com]

My iBook was 32/month, I think--I'm estimating both cost and time. I bought it used from some guy. My MacBook is currently at 450/month, but I've only had it since November, so I expect it to go down quite a bit.