At V2 Systems, we recommend replacing your computer every three years.  There are multiple reasons for this.  Warranty concerns, Productivity concerns, and Security all play into why we chose three years as the cut-off point.

Warranty

Most computers ordered by us come with a 3 year warranty.  After that time period, if hardware within the computer goes bad, then we are stuck with replacing the part out of pocket, instead of relying on the warranty.  With laptops, this is especially a concern, since many of the parts within a laptop are customized and can only be obtained from the manufacturer. 

Productivity

Productivity is the main reason for why the three year cutoff.  Computer technology changes so quickly that a computer built three years ago is quickly obsolete.  Each generation of hardware increases the speed of the computer, and each generation of software uses more of the hardware to do what it does.  After three years, something that took 1 minute to do now takes 5 minutes to do.  This problem gets more and more prevalent as the computer ages.  Four minutes of lost time daily equals 20 minutes a week, which equals roughly an hour a month, which turns into 12 hours a year.  Twelve hours in which someone can do something a lot more productive than sit and stare at a computer screen.  I have heard of computers that take 15 minutes to boot up each morning.  Imagine the time recovered in lost productivity if that boot up time was reduced to 30 seconds.  More than enough to recuperate the cost of a new computer. 

Security

Lastly, newer operating systems and programs are more secure from security threats than older computers.  As time passes, software companies find and fix security holes.  Granted, new ones are found and exploited by hackers.  But, the fact remains that newer operating systems are much more secure than old ones.  This leads to less work required to clean the computers when they get infected, and less of a chance of getting infected overall.

We want computer users to use their computer efficiently.  We don’t like it anytime a user has to wait to do something on their computer.  In order to accomplish this, though – the computer has to be replaced on a schedule.