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Update 5 yr old laptop vs new?

Charlie98

Charlie98

Diamond Member
My daughter's laptop is a 2007 Dell Inspiron 1501... nothing super-duper. AMD Turion 64x2 (TL-64) at 2.2GHz, 1GB (2x 512MB) RAM, 120GB HDD... but it's got a widescreen and is in pretty good shape. I'm debating updating it to W7 or W8.1 standards... I would have to bump the RAM up to 4GB ($70) and I would drop in a spare 256GB SSD I have ($0) and a new OS ($100.) I'm just wondering if I should dump the money into it vs buying a new Dell (basically an i3/4GB/500GB) for $500.

Anyone else update their older Dell to W7/8? Any problems finding drivers and such?

Is the AMD chip worthy enough?

She uses it for basic schoolwork (High School) and media playback. It struggles a little with DVD playback, I'm wondering if W7/8 is streamlined enough to improve that.

Any thoughts?
 
Personally, I would just get something newer. Laptops especially take more physical abuse (just the stresses of being carried, flexed, opened, etc). You can go and do the updates and then the flex video cable will crap out. Then the power port will go flaky...etc.

I think we got our newer Dell for around $500 this summer. Been through two $400 Acer's the last 4-5 years. Seems like not much point going more expensive unless you go waaay more expensive. Though maybe a Thinkpad (business class) would be worth it from the indestructible standpoint.

And as for W8, a new lappy will undoubtedly come with it, if it is something she doesn't like fixes are free/cheap (using Start8/ModernMix on ours).
 
Go new. The new OS will come with it. It will have much better security and also be under a new warfranty. Overall, a more cost effective deal.

Five years in a laptop is at keat two technical generations.
 
My daughter's laptop is a 2007 Dell Inspiron 1501... nothing super-duper. AMD Turion 64x2 (TL-64) at 2.2GHz, 1GB (2x 512MB) RAM, 120GB HDD... but it's got a widescreen and is in pretty good shape.

Anyone else update their older Dell to W7/8? Any problems finding drivers and such?

Is the AMD chip worthy enough?

She uses it for basic schoolwork (High School) and media playback. It struggles a little with DVD playback, I'm wondering if W7/8 is streamlined enough to improve that.

Any thoughts?
Click to expand...

According to this site:

http://www.tomsguide.com/us/the-turion-64-inside-story-part-ii,review-533-8.html

the turion is plenty fast for DVD playback. Perhaps you just need to clean up the existing OS install? In general I don't recommend upgrading laptops, particularly old ones. This means finding old RAM which is often more expensive. Also, is the battery still good? They seem to go bad after a while and are relatively expensive to replace.

If she doesn't need itunes I would put a lightweight linux on it (say debian lxde

http://live.debian.net/cdimage/release/stable+nonfree/i386/iso-hybrid/

) and use it until something breaks. This OS would be snappy on the modest hardware specs you mentioned. It also will receive security updates for the foreseeable future. Save your money until you need to upgrade and then get something appropriate to her use case at the time and you will get windows 8.1 for much less than 100 as a pre-install on the new machine.
 
kommisar said:
...the turion is plenty fast for DVD playback. Perhaps you just need to clean up the existing OS install? In general I don't recommend upgrading laptops, particularly old ones. This means finding old RAM which is often more expensive. Also, is the battery still good? They seem to go bad after a while and are relatively expensive to replace.
Click to expand...

I did a secure erase and clean install of XP two years ago... maybe it's time to do it again. I had a very bad problem running McAfee... it pretty much locked the computer up; I wiped it and reloaded it (without McAfee!) and it helped, but it's still pretty slow.

I had forgotten about the battery... both of our laptop batteries are just about toast, so I would have to add another $100, give or take. That puts an upgrade at about $300 plus the value of the SSD... I guess that pretty much settles it... :\
 
In some cases, it would be worth taking a swing at a 2gen old "higher-end" laptop because they can go for around $300, give or take, used.
 
Definitely get a new one. The new CPU will give a speed boost, plus I can guarantee there's probably big hardware issues with a laptop that old in the near future.
 
Fox5 said:
That's an old laptop. Literally almost anything on the market would be better.
Click to expand...

This is what worries me about buying a laptop, especially a gamer one, to spend so much money and within a couple years it's too old to matter.
 
That laptop is being crippled by the 1GB of ram especially if you are running Vista. A ram upgrade will breathe new life into that laptop so I might opt for that first, it would help the resale value of it anyways, and then see what you think. The AMD TL-64 isn't a horrible processor and there are certainly a LOT faster ones out there.
 
Get a refurbed ASUS Q200/X202/S200E and slam in that spare SSD. Portable, touch screen, light and fast as hell.

I'm surprised more people don't snap them up, especially when they go for $269.
 
Matt1970 said:
That laptop is being crippled by the 1GB of ram especially if you are running Vista. A ram upgrade will breathe new life into that laptop so I might opt for that first, it would help the resale value of it anyways, and then see what you think. The AMD TL-64 isn't a horrible processor and there are certainly a LOT faster ones out there.
Click to expand...

if it would be some decent c2d I would think of upgrade but turions were really crap
 
HeXen said:
This is what worries me about buying a laptop, especially a gamer one, to spend so much money and within a couple years it's too old to matter.
Click to expand...

Why would you buy a gamer one to replace that laptop?

Technology gets old. If a new laptop gets out of date in a few years, then that one is will be even more crippled. Plus like everyone else has said, laptops break.

You're at least lucky that computer hardware isn't improving as fast as it used to, and post vista the software demands of Windows haven't really increased.
 
A Transformer Book T100 might be something rather interesting to have. Although it has small screen, the resolution is a tolerable 1366x768 and should handle HD video just fine. IPS screen, 2.4 lbs with keyboard, 1.2 without.
 
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Fox5 said:
Why would you buy a gamer one to replace that laptop?

Technology gets old. If a new laptop gets out of date in a few years, then that one is will be even more crippled. Plus like everyone else has said, laptops break.

You're at least lucky that computer hardware isn't improving as fast as it used to, and post vista the software demands of Windows haven't really increased.
Click to expand...

Replace what laptop? I don't have one as my post would suggest.
 
HeXen said:
Replace what laptop? I don't have one as my post would suggest.
Click to expand...

Doesn't really change anything. All technology goes out of date eventually.

Want a laptop over a desktop? -50% cpu speed, but almost everything else is the same. (assuming you use a solid state drive)
Want a gaming laptop? The best graphics chips will be 1/3rd the performance of the best desktop, and price/performance is likely to be more skewed than that.
 
Is five years considered a very impressive lifespan for a computer?

I have heard of people's macbook/ibooks lasting up to 7 years+

Don't know if it is Apple computer's build quality or what.


But yea, I would just shell out for a new computer.
 
Seriously if saving money is an issue just get more ram for it. You don't even need an ssd. Also disable automatic updates. A relative of mine has a company with probably over 200 computers now c2d, i5, i7 and you know what cripples all the computers the damn windows automatic updates and since it's enterprise, symantec's antivirus scan also slows it to a crawl. Even if they schedule it for x day at 1am if people turn off their computers it'll run the next morning, making it not useable.

You can disable automatic updates and get a lightweight av. But if you bump the ram, you'll be fine. I know I have old turion laptops they were going to send to ewaste recycling hooked up to TVs at my mom's place, it plays dvd's and netflix fine. I just gave it 2gb+ of ram, no auto updates, and a lightweight non intrusive av or none if you're careful of what you browse.

Now I shouldn't really preach because I buy a new laptop, tablet or tv every 6 months mostly because it's my only expensive hobby. Also good business line computers and laptops last forever. I have some 10 year old thinkpads running pfsense or some other UTM.
 
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