10 Reasons to Upgrade Your Laptop

How long are you going to creep at a snail's pace on your old laptop? If abysmal startup times and lagging video playback aren't enough to convince you, here are 10 great reasons to upgrade your laptop.

 Your laptop is old and outdated

Moore’s Law states that the computing power of integrated circuits doubles every two years, so if your laptop is even four years old, it’s 200 percent less powerful than this year’s hardware. Moreover, most computers collect programs and extraneous files like an open can of soda collects bees, and often hard drives become so burdened by unnecessary data that all manner of performance is slowed.

 Better battery life

The cells in laptop batteries degrade over time, and it’s not unusual for those elderly batteries to hold less than an hour of charge. Current laptops can achieve up to and exceeding five hours of standard usage.

 Upgraded memory storage

Many of the best gaming laptops still have a hard disk drive (HDD), which uses a spinning disk to store and retrieve data. But some new laptops have made a turn to solid state drive (SSD). Back in 2007, when you bought that clunker of a laptop, SSD was still a nascent technology. Nowadays, the solid state drives are becoming common in laptops, resulting in faster program loads, speedier boot times, and lower power usage. However, they are more expensive, per GB of storage, than their HDD counterparts.

 Portability/lighter weight

One of the benefits of all this new hardware is a reduction in weight and an increase in portability. Some new classes of laptops come with the moniker ultraportable, usually weighing in at a feather-like burden of less than 5 pounds. Thinness, too, is a common characteristic of new laptops, and many aren’t thicker than an inch.

 Computing power and efficiency

The laptops on the market these days provide the most powerful consumer chipsets the world has ever seen, proving to be exponentially faster than the chips even two years old. Current gamer laptops, for example, employ intelligent graphics switching in order to better utilize electrical and processing power. These new chipsets switch from integrated graphics (using memory shared with the CPU) to dedicated graphics (utilizing a stand-alone graphics card) based on the user’s activity. This feature reduces power consumption and extends battery life.

 New operating systems

With the exception of a few failed releases (Windows Vista, I’m looking at you), new operating systems are generally viewed to be an advancement over the previous iteration. A number of the new laptops come with the Windows 8 OS installed, which benefits from a laptop-tablet hybrid OS, expanding utility and versatility. On the Mac side, OS X Lion is the latest and greatest, including a number of new features like multi touch gestures and networking upgrades.

 New software and games

Your five-year-old gamer laptop isn’t going to cut it in today’s gaming marketplace. High-end games like the Skyrim or Witcher 2 require new high-end chipsets. The latest and greatest from Nvidia and AMD will meet your graphics processing needs much better than your prehistoric machine. Similarly, CPU-intensive programs like Adobe Premier or Photoshop will run much more smoothly on a newer more powerful system.

 Reliability

Let’s face it, that old lame laptop isn’t what it used to be. You have trouble getting any work done between forced reboots and waiting for MS Word to open. A brand new laptop will cut down on time wasted and boost your productivity.

 The timing is right

Consumer electronics – and especially computers – follow a predictable timing schedule. As new processors are developed, the old ones become outmoded and cheaper, and the computers that use them drop in price. Mac products are the most punctual, with their new laptops generally being released in the summer and fall, and PC timing schedules are harder to pin down, since there’s a wider array of manufacturers. But time your purchase right. Intel’s recent upgrade to Ivy Bridge from Sandy Bridge, for example, was worth waiting for.

 Your needs have changed

Starting a new job or a first semester at college are both good reasons to make a laptop upgrade, and both bring helpful considerations. How many days out of the week are you planning on bringing your laptop to work or school? If you’re planning on packing processors three or more days out of the week, a lightweight 11- or 13-inch laptop might be for you. On the other hand, a 15-inch desktop replacement might be better for a home computer station.
Check out our gaming laptop reviews to find out what might be the best fit for you.
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