Chapter 4
Chapter 4: When to Repair and When to Recycle ........................................................
When to Recycle
In This Chapter
Weighing the cost of repair against the price of a new laptop
Consulting a professional laptop repairman
Judging laptop quality before buying again
W
hen your laptop breaks, you face a question that’s more financial than
technical, sometimes more emotional than rational, and always more
complex than simple.The cause of the problem is the nature of a laptop. Although it is, at heart,
just a miniaturized desktop computer, a laptop is much more difficult and
expensive to repair and its internal parts tougher to replace. Changing a
video card or even upgrading an entire motherboard on a desktop is a job
well within the financial and technical means of many computer owners;
doing the same on a laptop may not make sense on any level but emotional.Staying Put or Getting Gone..........................................................................
Let me start with the fact that repairs for laptops are expensive. They almost
always use proprietary parts and highly integrated, tiny components includ-
ing a built-in LCD screen and internal video, audio, modem, network, WiFi
wireless, and other features. (WiFiis the most common design for wireless
communication; see Chapter 13 for details.)I’m just talking through my hat here, but I think the numbers are probably not
far from reality: If you were to buy a brand new laptop today for a typical
price of about $1,250 and then seek to build a clone from new and unused