Upgrade Laptop instead of buying new, here’s our steps to think about when before you buy a new laptop or computer
Read this Guide before you buy!
Important questions to ask yourself before you buy – a new laptop most of the time isn’t the answer and its expensive!
Questions:
- What is wrong with your current one? If its slow and takes forever to start up have a look at our guide. If you need it for a specific task, is a new laptop really the answer?
- Not enough storage? – If all you are using it for is storage of photos and just a few small jobs then you really don’t need anything fancy – just get it a health check and MOT it will give it a lease of life. Consider buying an external hard drive to store photos etc.
- Operating system is out of date? – Yes new operating systems are expensive and sometimes not cost effective, older machines with Vista installed normally have performance issues. If you have Windows 7 or 8 make sure you take the free upgrade to 10 it really is worth it.
- Just Surfing the web? If you are just using it to surf the web and maybe Skype, it really isn’t worth it.
- Broken hinges? – Over time metal hinges into plastic case will start to break, but cases/lids are still quite cheap to fix.
- Doesn’t hold charge? – Replacement batteries are inexpensive, around £10-30.
- Missing Keys? – Again easy fix and replacement keyboard are around £10-30
- Broken screen? – I still think this is worth fixing a new screen fitted will usually cost you around £100
- Broken Motherboard? – Ok you got me this is really the only time I would agree to buy a new one as motherboard replacements are expensive and rarely cost effective.
- You want to use Photoshop or play high spec games? Yes OK I agree, you may want to upgrade!
Upgrade Laptop instead of buying new
Upgrade Laptop Recommendations
These upgrades will make a huge difference to your laptop a dual core with these upgrade will run faster than some i3-i5 older chips. Remember your laptop or computer will only ever be as fast as your poorest component. Think of the hard drive as the brain, processor as the heart and memory as memory! You need all these things to be in good working order.
If you buy a new laptop they tend to come with basic parts, you see some amazing deals around, but when you look closely the components are old and slow, if you want to buy a really decent laptop you will be looking at £500+ and that is far more than you would spend on a few upgrades.
Hard Drive – Your laptop will only ever be as good as it’s poorest component, if you hard drive is slow or has errors on it it will be terrible for performance, hard drives aren’t expensive these days you could buy a new one for less than £50.If you are really looking for performance, consider replacing it with a SSD, check this one out from Amazon, I highly recommend this one. Samsung 2.5 inch 250 GB 850 EVO Solid State Drive
this will make a massive difference to you laptop or computer. This is really is the best way to make your seriously fast in performance and start up. The only drawback is the GB cost is higher but if you want to store a lot of files you might want to consider putting them a drive for storage rather than on your operating system drive.
Memory – Memory is an excellent way of improving your laptop speed, especially if want to use it for gaming or design software, i would always recommend installing the most you can afford. It’s cheap and easy to install. Beware though check your laptop is 64bit before spending your money as 32 bit windows will always restrict the memory. To find out right click on computer and choose properties.
Blu ray players – depending on what you use the laptop or computer this is fairly cheap way of improving.
Graphics Cards – Most laptops have a built in graphics card but most desktops allow you to change it and its pretty simple some graphics card are expensive but they improve performance greatly.
Processor – Unfortunately you can’t upgrade processors in laptops but in Computers you can but it is expensive sometimes it cheaper to buy a new unit.
Verdict
I hope you read this guide first for upgrading Laptop instead of buying new, I would highly recommend thinking about upgrading your current laptop before buying a new one, I see some amazing deals everyday for laptops under £200! When you look closely they have older components and are pretty slow, if you was to spend that £200 on your current machine you would be making massive improvement on its performance. Sometimes new cheap models just aren’t built to last!
Let us Fix IT for you!
If you live in St Neots, Bedford, Milton Keynes or Cambridgeshire. We can come and collect your tired old laptop and upgrade it and deliver it back even better than new! Check out our prices and get in touch now!
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.