Do I buy a new laptop before I know if I need it?

August 16, 2008 9:28 PM

LaptopFilter: Do I get a new one tomorrow because I'll have the money and it's a good machine, or do I keep on with my trusty older machine that hasn't given me a touch of trouble yet? Much (maybe too much)

I’ve got a HP Pavillion dv1000 – I bought it for cheapz, on sale for around $700 and it’s served me well; it’s small, it’s keyboard is amazing, I rarely run into battery/CPU constraints. I’ve also got a 2.33GhZ iMac – I use it for most of my video/media/fun stuff. The HP has been my windows machine for two years now, and it’s got a lot of stuff installed on it – office, flash, adobe cs, two versions of cygwin, multiple versions of visual studio, eclipse, apache, five versions of java, sdks, plugins, the works. I need to have a windows machine, and I'm not spending more than a thousand dollars on a laptop, so the first person who suggests I get a MacBook and put boot camp on it can defenestrate themselves.

I’m starting grad school next week (a one year masters program), and I’m wondering if I should get a new laptop. Specifically, I’m eyeing the Sony Vaio FW, on sale for a shade over a thousand dollars at Best Buy. A part of me says that my 1.5Ghz, 1GB RAM two year old loss-leader laptop won’t survive constant use in software engineering grad classes. That part says that a 16.4” screen will be better than my 14.1” screen, and a Core 2 duo with 2.26GhZ and 3GB of RAM will be great for any needs (not to mention that I might be able to play team fortress 2 without having to reboot my computer every night, something I haven’t even attempted on the HP). And my parents are here, now, helping me move in. Through reimbursing them later, I could most easily get access to the money to buy it - but only tomorrow (because that much is over the limit of my existing credit cards, my checkbook is back at home and without my own internet, I’m hesitant to manage my money online right now. So I could have the money myself…in a week or two, maybe). Given how much I’m into technology and how much I’ll be working on the laptop, I’m not sure that I’ll be able to resist.

The other part of me looks at how much I’ve already spent moving in and looks at how much is installed on the HP. It’s worked fine so far – virus free, defect free, glitch free for two years. The only problem is that the fan introduces a whine into the audio feed, so it’s hard to watch videos or listen to music on it. I have no pressing need to get a new laptop. This part of me says to wait, see what classes are like and maybe try out team fortress 2 on the HP. Be reasonable, it says. And don’t impuse-buy. It’s important to be able to control yourself. Some stuff (Flash) I wouldn’t be able to install on the new computer, and I’m not sure of other’s compatibility with Vista (Adobe CS2?).

But then the first part kicks in and says that I’ve got some money in savings and what’s it for if not fun stuff? Most of the stuff I should be able to get onto a new machine in a week or two, and it’ll be good to clean house.

But then the second part says, “oh, yes, and you’ll make how much money this year? And can’t you clean house by /cleaning/ instead of, to continue this analogy, buidling a new house next door and wrecking the first one?”

And the first part says, “It’s a great deal, it’s a beautiful laptop, and it’ll last! Think of it as an investment. Or a continuing plan to stay on top of technology. You’ll need to be able to work with Vista. You can’t reasonably expect to build software without even having a machine that runs it. And everyone else will have Vista, too.”

And the second part says that it’s not critical and the first part says “you’ll end up buying it anyway” and the part of me that doesn’t war with its self says, “I wish I had some less biased input!”

So, hive mind, some help? Wait and see, or just get it?

posted by Galt to computers & internet (21 comments total)

Get it. Even if yours is working now, what if it craps out in the middle of the semester?

A second laptop, along with current backups, lets you laugh at such misfortunes.
posted by ottereroticist at 9:31 PM on August 16, 2008

Back up drive and the rest of the cash socked away. A new laptop is trivial to acquire when/if you need it, buy one when there is a reason to.
posted by iamabot at 9:47 PM on August 16, 2008

Oh and Vista is NOT a reason to buy a computer. It's a reason NOT to.
posted by iamabot at 9:48 PM on August 16, 2008 [3 favorites]

Never impulse buy based on some artificial time constraint that means you gotta do it NOW, because it prevents you from making a really thought-out choice: always hang on to your old computer as long as possible because your money will always buy more later: that's pretty much common sense and you know that. You want a shiny toy.

On the other hand your future financial stability is not going to be made or broken on the basis of saving a thousand dollars in 2008, so if you do foolishly impulse buy a shiny toy you probably won't regret it that much, unless you failed to do your basic diligence on the purchase and it turns out to be a lemon.
posted by nanojath at 10:07 PM on August 16, 2008 [1 favorite]

If it ain't broke don't fix it!

I second the Vista hesitation.
posted by CoinOp at 10:17 PM on August 16, 2008

Try cleaning house. Do a really good job of it, fix up any lingering annoyances you may feel with current house, and then reconsider question.

Also research properly whether your current software will work on Vista*, because that too should impact on your decision. It's easy to say, "Some software may not work," and shrug it off now because you want the shiny new toy of your dreams, but it might be a bit more annoying if you find most of your stuff has to be replaced. ;)

If you're planning to carry it around at all, too, keep in mind that smaller = better. I bought a laptop once upon a time because I liked the idea of mobility. I sold it within 6 months (losing myself and irritating $1000 in the process) cuz it was so much of a pain to carry around that I felt better off cutting my losses and going back to a desktop. If your current one's small and you appreciate that, keep that in mind.

A set of nice surround-sound multimedia speakers and a cheapie-cheap DVD player might solve your video/music woes for much cheaper, consider, too.

* which in my view isn't as bad as people make out it is; I actually think XP's hideously ugly-looking and went straight from Win2k to Vista to avoid it. That said, it's certainly not so different you're going to have compatibility issues or going to 'fall behind' if you don't use it!
posted by springbound at 10:17 PM on August 16, 2008

And the first part says, “It’s a great deal, it’s a beautiful laptop, and it’ll last! Think of it as an investment. Or a continuing plan to stay on top of technology. You’ll need to be able to work with Vista. You can’t reasonably expect to build software without even having a machine that runs it. And everyone else will have Vista, too.”

Just to rain on the impulse-buy parade: Don't think of any computer as an investment. There's no need to stay on top of technology by buying the latest shiny thing. I'm a professional software engineer who has thus far managed to avoid using Vista; it's not a prerequisite to very many positions.

If you don't need it today, then wait 6 to 12 months and get a better machine (for the same price) when you finally do need one. I say all this as someone who just fought the temptation to get a cheap Thinkpad, as they introduced some newer models. My current notebook does everything it needs to do.
posted by knave at 10:21 PM on August 16, 2008

Always, always, always wise to put off PC purchases as long as you can.

Sadly, the demise of Mike's Hardware UK's excellent road maps has required me to look other places, but this wikipedia article on Nehalem architecture is useful info.
posted by yort at 10:28 PM on August 16, 2008

Replace the laptop only when it no longer suits your immediate needs. Laptops depreciate rapidly, so putting money into one before you need it is not a wise investment.
posted by zippy at 10:32 PM on August 16, 2008 [3 favorites]

Oh, and I'm an engineer too. Of my windows machines, I'm happily running Windows 2000 on one, and XP Pro on another.
posted by zippy at 10:33 PM on August 16, 2008

Write down all the new machine's droolingly desirable specs, then wait for your old laptop to die, then buy a new laptop spec'd according to what you wrote down, for about a third of what you'd pay for it right now.
posted by flabdablet at 11:22 PM on August 16, 2008

If it ain't broke don't fix it!

True dat. If it craps out on you than go buy a new one but the specs you're running (1.5, 1 gb of RAM) are plenty fine for almost any application out right now, if it's unbearably slow with your new school programs than upgrade to 2gb ram, won't cost you more than 50-75 bucks and you'll probably run it just fine. I'm sure you're law school wouldn't require you to use a program that can only be run on a super computer, if they did than that's just mean.
posted by BrnP84 at 11:34 PM on August 16, 2008

If you want the laptop now and can *really* afford it, (rather than just convince yourself you can) you might as well go for it. Better to have your HP as backup if something else goes wrong, then have to buy a laptop in a hurry. Make sure you do backup your files regularly.

Sony do put a metric buttload of crap pre-installed on their laptops that even uninstalling doesn't seem to remove all the speed-sapping tentacles of; you'll get a huge speedboost by wiping vista, and doing a clean install with the code on the bottom, or even 'downgrading' to XP.

Check the graphics card on it for tf2 though; if it's a standard onboard intel, it won't be any better than your iMac. Even an nvidia 8400M is pretty crap.

Oh, and it's most definitely not an investment. Buying a laptop in 6 months, once nehalem is out, prices will drop even further. But if you always wait for the prices to drop, and the next great tech upgrade, you'd never buy a computer in the first place.
posted by ArkhanJG at 4:09 AM on August 17, 2008

Put it off until you really need it, and make sure you make backups so that you don't lose everything from when your laptop hard drive eventually craps out.
posted by that girl at 6:07 AM on August 17, 2008

if you always wait for the prices to drop, and the next great tech upgrade, you'd never buy a computer in the first place

This ain't necessarily so. After each round of great tech upgrades, there is generally a significant price drop on tech that was bleeding edge about twelve to eighteen months ago. That's generally where I recommend people buy. Buy the new stuff and you pay through the nose upfront; buy too far behind the bleeding edge and you can have trouble sourcing compatible accessories at reasonable prices (have you seen the price of large PC-133 RAM sticks lately?).

It's perfectly reasonable to wait for the price of the new systems you're lusting after right now to drop. Because they will. Lots.
posted by flabdablet at 6:10 AM on August 17, 2008

I’m wondering if I should get a new laptop.

I find dealing in large dollar amounts confusing. Instead, I like to evaluate my purchases in comparison to other possible purchases. Would you prefer a new laptop to a 24" monitor? How about a (second hand) car? An iPhone? Part of a deposit on your first house?

Through reimbursing them later, I could most easily get access to the money to buy it - but only tomorrow (because that much is over the limit of my existing credit cards, my checkbook is back at home and without my own internet, I’m hesitant to manage my money online right now. So I could have the money myself…in a week or two, maybe).

Whatever you decide, you could just take your laptop to a wifi hotspot and connect to your bank over SSL, so I would take the time to make the right decision, rather than rushing it while your parents are here and you're busy moving.
posted by Mike1024 at 6:33 AM on August 17, 2008 [1 favorite]

Solution:

1- Get ready access to your money. Put the laptop cash into a savings account. Sure, you'll only get 1% off of it. But that's way more than the instant loss you'll take when you buy a new computer that you don't need to.
2- Back your stuff up.
3- Buy a new computer when the old one breaks.
posted by gjc at 8:25 AM on August 17, 2008

Through reimbursing them later, I could most easily get access to the money to buy it - but only tomorrow (because that much is over the limit of my existing credit cards, my checkbook is back at home and without my own internet, I’m hesitant to manage my money online right now. So I could have the money myself…in a week or two, maybe). Given how much I’m into technology and how much I’ll be working on the laptop, I’m not sure that I’ll be able to resist.

You do not have the money to buy the laptop and have no real appreciable reason to buy it beyond wanting something new and cool. If a Vista-enabled laptop were necessary for your graduate program, they would have told you so; as it is, it sounds like you're looking for excuses to make a consumerist splurge with no real reason to do so.

Hey, I sympathize. A friend of mine showed me his Asus EEE and I've been jonesing for one since. However, since I don't have an extra $400 to throw away, and have no reason to buy one, I'm not going to. Live within your means, especially since you're moving into a new place--really, it's good to have a nice cushion for those things you've forgotten to get for the new place, which will invariably surface within a few weeks.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 8:48 AM on August 17, 2008

So you've got appliance A which works fine, maybe isn't as new and shiny as appliance B, which will work only a little better and you want us to tell you whether you should buy appliance B when your money is already tight?

Something tells me you've already got your mind made up to buy the newer laptop and you're just hoping enough of us won't come along to scold you. How old are you? Why don't you run this question by your parents and see what they say.

FACT: there will always be a "deal" on some laptop. You'll always be able to find one that is on sale, or discounted, or factory refurbished, or whatever. So, you should not feel any pressure to buy this laptop "because it's a good deal." (HINT: laptops bought at retail stores are almost never a good deal compared to online purchases anyway...)

FACT: Your currently laptop works fine. And you haven't even started class yet, so you don't even know if it won't be a good fit for school. So, you have no justification for replacing it on the grounds that it's not up to snuff.

FACT: A new laptop will only be marginally better than what you have now. It maybe a little faster, with a bigger screen, but those things are of very minuscule value to most people.

FACT: You can't afford it. And even if you could it would still be a foolish waste of $1,000 because as established above you don't have a justification.

Save your money. The longer you use your current laptop the most computer you'll get for $1,000 when (and if) it eventually dies.

You're in a one-year grad program? Use your laptop for another year then reward yourself for completing your program with a new laptop next year - preferably after you land a job.
posted by wfrgms at 9:18 AM on August 17, 2008

I say hold on to the laptop you have. The question you should ask yourself is: What will the new laptop do that my current laptop won't? You're going to run the exact same software and do the exact same tasks. Buy a new laptop when you run into performance or other problems, not just because you want to. If you do need to buy something new in 6 months, you'll get a better laptop for less money then.

Also, there is little to nothing wrong with Vista. 90% of the complaining you hear is people parroting what other people have already said. That being said, don't buy a new laptop just to get Vista.
posted by cnc at 11:36 AM on August 17, 2008

I’m eyeing the Sony Vaio FW

If you're eyeing a Sony.. Well, the only reason to look at a Sony is because style is more important than function.

More memory and dual cores are always good things, but you don't have to spend $1000 to get that in a laptop (I spent $400 a while ago). I agree that you should have at least two machines so that you have a backup, but that other machine shouldn't be another laptop (it is much easier and cheaper to beg borrow or steal working parts for a desktop to keep you going while you work out problems).
posted by Chuckles at 8:42 PM on August 17, 2008