Step 4 · Decide
Repair it, or replace it?
Three numbers and the kind of computer. You get a bottom line and the arithmetic under it. The rules of thumb are ours, written out below; your own needs come first.
Bottom line
Fill in the four boxes
For example: a 3-year-old laptop, a $189 quote, $650 for a comparable new one.
Our rules of thumb
- Useful life: laptop 4 years, all-in-one 5, desktop tower 6. Plenty last longer; this is a planning number.
- Repair costs half or more of a comparable new one: lean replace.
- Half a year or less left of that life (or past it), and the repair costs more than half a year of a new one: lean replace.
- 35% or more of a new one, or more per year left than a new one costs per year: close call. Years left are never counted as less than half a year.
- Anything else: repair makes sense.
- Whatever you decide, ask the shop whether your files can be copied off first.