Upgrading & Fixing Laptops DUMmIES

The economics of repairs and upgrades on a laptop underlie one of the

basic money-saving rules for electronics: Buy one step behind the newest

models. Remember that the machine that looked like the most fantastic

model yesterday is just as good today, and even sweeter with a sharp

markdown in price.

Is there something particularly special about the laptop you currently

have that makes repairing it worthwhile?

Does it possess a particular feature you can’t find in a new machine? Is

it particularly well suited to your needs? And now you can do the math.

Say you’re otherwise satisfied with the laptop you have; you have no

need to upgrade to a $1,500 replacement. If you can repair your machine

for $200 (and receive a warranty from the shop that promises the origi-

nal failure will stay fixed for a reasonable period of time; 90 days is a

minimum, and 6 months typical) sending it to the shop is probably

worthwhile.

But say the cost of the repair is $300, the model you have is only worth

about $150 on the market, and the old machine is barely adequate for

your needs: It’s too slow, the screen is too small, and it lacks modern

built-in facilities such as a large hard drive, CD-R, network interface, and

WiFi. In this case you would spend $300 and end up with a machine that

inadequately meets your needs.

Asking an Expert ............................................................................................

One of the experts I consulted for this book was Wesley Forrester, who owns

and operates http://www.portablecomputer.com, a laptop repair service. Forrester

was quick to acknowledge that some machines couldbe repaired but proba-

bly shouldn’t be.

“Is there something about this specific model that is special?” he asked. “If

you can’t part with it, that may be the answer.” Older notebooks have some

features that newer ones lack. One is an internal floppy disk drive, which can

be useful in quickly transporting files from one machine to another without

setting up a network or direct wire connection between them.

Another feature quickly becoming obsolete on laptops is an old-style serial

port. On many modern machines, the emphasis is on use of the USB port.

And, Forrester pointed out, even though a USB port can be made to mimic a

standard serial port — something I discuss in Chapter 16 — some older soft-

ware and hardware may be incompatible with that sort of workaround. As

Chapter 4: When to Repair and When to Recycle 57