The Laptop Lifespan
Listed in the “NYU Polytechnic School Freshman Course Requirements”, I was required to purchase a Lenovo PC for my first summer courses. Being the cool and stereotypical engineering student that I was, I covered my laptop in stickers - many from friends, some from travel & music events, others from the trendy shops of SoHo, and several from my working at startups in Los Angeles and New York.
Though I’m a bit more selective with which stickers are showcased on my laptop nowadays, I’m still adding stickers to this same laptop… I was a freshman in college nearly 8 years ago, and so my laptop, is 8 years old! This is unheard-of by user standards but it is attainable, my laptop is proof of that.
And so I want to let you in on some great news that the tech industry doesn’t want you to know… so much of what the average user needs a laptop for, can be done on “old” (3+ years) computers. My laptop was running into some major processing and runtime issues, which prompted a few hours of clean up. After running my favorite system scans, removing unused apps & some sneaky malware, freeing up storage space on my C: and D: drives, my laptop is running like it did on the day I bought it. Granted, am I able to see the latest cat face emoji when I access apps like Instagram or Facebook from my laptop? Nope! But I have my phone for superfluous content and because its not something essential to my user experience, I am elated to have saved $700+ (double that for you Mac lovers), and prevented another piece of perfectly fine electronic equipment from becoming e-waste.
There is a lot of coordinated and convenient marketing from computer giants like Apple, HP, and even Lenovo, about computers only being good for a few years. And I do agree that every electronic has a limited lifespan because its utility will be increasingly more limited as the components become less capable of running advanced applications. However, I recommend to everyone, trying some similar cleanup first and then even trying to replace components rather than the entirety of the product.
E-waste represents 70% of America’s toxic waste - mostly due to lead. 20 to 50 million metric tons of e-waste are disposed of annually. Like so many resources we have depleted, there is a shortage of raw materials needed to build electronics. Urban mining is a response to this shortage to reclaim and reuse materials from discarded products and “waste”. This is why it is crucial to dispose of electronics properly. Try to fix components before replacing your entire computer with a little IT Support.
Imagine if I took your computer apart, component by component, and pointed to the one piece that was causing the issue, amongst dozens of other pieces working as they should. Suddenly, you are less inclined to throw this computer away, right? I hope so. Another reason for throwing away electronics, isn’t due to issues at all, rather the shiny new upgrades and new generations of products. We do not need to be the first adopter of every new piece of technology, and the earth will thank us for it!
And for the times, your electronics are beyond repair, give it to me (Malibu & Los Angeles locals), so that I can take it to a proper disposal site where components are salvaged, and toxins safely handled.
Bluewater Road Tech can save you the cost of a new laptop with a just a few hours of Tech Support, learn more about our services!
On our way to tech nirvana. Thank you for reading!
