How Often Should You Buy a New Computer?

Buying a new computer is not an easy decision to make especially if you are out of budget. But generally, the decision depends on how you, your students or your employees are using the machine, the problems and issues that keep on getting to the surface and what you expect from the computer itself.

Typically, ,most studies involving the “total cost of ownership” gives the conclusion that computers need to be changed every four years. The list below should help you justify why you want to buy a new computer or otherwise, why you would want to wait a little longer before purchasing a new one.

• Are the computer(s) on your possession four or more years old since you bought it?
• Do you need or else don’t want a better hardware such as a Disk burner, a DVD Drive or a hard drive having a bigger storage capacity?
• Are you, your students or employees often complaining about the computer’s slow processing speed?
• Has there been a significant decrease in your machine’s performance which needs a major hardware replacement?
• Does the new software recently installed on your machine decrease its overall performance?
• Are all the games and other software you wish to install on your machine barely meeting the requirement of your system?
• Do you want to make an upgrade to a newer version of the operating system that is installed on your machine?

If in case you checked at least three or more of the boxes above then it is time to make an upgrade or buy a new computer. If you checked less than three then you might want to wait for a few more months before deciding to buy a new computer and choose a more recent version of your operating system (upgrade).

Quick Tip

A slow computer can be caused by many factors that can often be fixed by doing some maintenance steps which you can actually do by yourself. Don’t be in a rush to dispose an old computer, be sure to go over each maintenance steps first before deciding to buy a new computer.