Notebook Component Life Expectancy

I read that components in notebooks are only built to last about 2 years. Is this true? My friend's old IBM has been running for 5 years now. It makes me feel uneasy that my notebook is expected to die in 2 years. How true is this?

 

Computer manufacturers might want you to replace your laptop every two years, but with proper care, most laptops should still be working well outside their useful lifetimes. Furthermore, if your laptop does fail, it's usually due to something replaceable like a hard drive. Most of the components in a laptop, save for things like fans and hard drives, are solid-state devices that generally don't just go kaput under normal operating condition (normal operating conditions being key words here).

Of course, your mileage may vary; I've got several working laptops from the turn of the century, but others might experience failures in the first year of operation.

 

IMO old notebooks (like your friend’s IBM) are made much better than the new Chinese made ones. These days notebook manufacturers are cutting cost by putting in cheap components, therefore don’t expect an entry level consumer level notebook to last more than 2~3 years. But on the other hand, a more expensive business class model still might give you 5 years. Basically you get what you pay for…

 

Older laptops were built to last. I have a number of Pentium 1, 2 and 3 systems which are still running today. Alot of the newer laptops break down so much quicker because the whole idea of a laptop is portability, so the manufacturers make them super thin and consequently they become weaker. The older systems may be 2" thick, but they were made of heavy plastics which you just will not find these days. Your friends IBM is probably one of the most durable systems you will find. After the acquisition by Lenovo, quality dropped alot, so IBM doesnt even have the same durability they used to have.
Right now the most durable systems chassis wise are the panasonic toughbooks.
Second to them are the lenovo business class and the dell vostro/latitude series.

If you take care of your laptop it should last more than 2 years.

K-TRON

 

Some laptop designs are just better than others. The better designs tend to show up in the 'business' class ones, and they tend to be more conservative.

For instance, compare the Dell Latitude D830 to the Dell XPS m1530. The XPS is made mostly of plastic, while the Latitude D830 is made of metal. Aside from the obvious mechanical differences, the metal case on the D830 is able to dissipate heat much more evenly than the m1530's case.

Software is another thing that often obsoletes laptops. "Business" laptops, more often than not, stick to well known components for which there is rich multi-platform driver support. Whereas, for 'consumer' laptops, typically they will only support the OS it was shipped with. I am pretty confident that the Dell/HP/IBM business laptops shipped today will have no problem running Windows 7 if they are adequately equipped. I am not very confident that driver support will be as rich.

Also, along the same vein, Dell has updated their D630/D830 firmware to support 8gb of RAM. The m1330/m1530 line only supports 4gb max, and Dell has (AFAIK) not updated the BIOS on those laptops. If this doesn't change, this means that the upgradeability of the m1330/m1530 will be impaired, which also affects the overall useful life of the laptop.