Worth upgrading Samsung RV510 laptop?

longwalks1

my partners Samsung RV510 laptop is old, we think 6 or 7 years maybe, but she loves it and is used to it (she the worlds biggest technophobe)
The battery is dead so has to stay plugged in, and it runs very slow.



It has 4Gb of RAM and a T3500 2.1 Ghz Celeron Dual Core


Is it worth getting a new battery for, and upgrading anytihng to make it faster, or would it be better to bite the bullet and get a new, cheap laptop?

JJ_Egan

Price a battery up price a new laptop .

John_Gray

The word which would make me suggest that you get a more recent second-hand laptop is "Celeron".

An alternative to purchase might be a complete clean-up of both unwanted software and fluff - but that may take a fair amount of time...

that

an ssd will make it a bit more responsive, and will give a greater battery life

this page gives cpu upgrade options, but read around before purchasing. Be weary of the extra heat generated.

If she is happy with it now then probably not necessary upgrading. Compared to a new laptop the speed would be marginal.
http://www.cpu-upgrade.com/CPUs/Intel/Mobile_Celeron_Dual-Core/T3500.html


It get to a certain point where any speed difference becomes unnoticeable to the user.


"[FONT=&quot]but she loves it", What ever you buy will be wrong, so just get her a new battery [/FONT]

EveryWhere

britishboy wrote: »

my partners Samsung RV510 laptop is old, we think 6 or 7 years maybe, but she loves it and is used to it (she the worlds biggest technophobe)
The battery is dead so has to stay plugged in, and it runs very slow.



It has 4Gb of RAM and a T3500 2.1 Ghz Celeron Dual Core


Is it worth getting a new battery for, and upgrading anytihng to make it faster, or would it be better to bite the bullet and get a new, cheap laptop?

It's actually eight years old and slightly higher spec than the laptop I''m using right now, which has a Celeron T1600 CPU. It is more than adequate with it's 4GB of RAM and SSD.
But are you up to doing the upgrade?
The costs can be minimal. £25 for a 120GB SSD, Replacement battery £10 to £15.

The upgrading of the hardware is very easy. Expect less than ten minutes to fit the SSD.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wd07ZRWpA3Y

That alone will transform the performance of the laptop.

Then preferably a clean install of Windows 7 64 bit and to transfer data from the old drive if needed.
Do you have the Windows 7 installation media and key?

So the answer is if the machine is still in mechanically good condition, upgrade.

culpepper

Ive just done mine. I bought a new SSD (with birthday money) and used the free migrating software from samsung's website to clone the old drive. You do need to buy a cable to connect the SSD externally if it doesnt come with the new SSD .A new battery is nice but if the lappy is only ever used plugged in anyway, then not essential. My lappy is the RV515 and 6 years old. It came with windows 7 and has the key on a sticker on the bottom. The cloning software copies the recovery drive over too if you have that rather than windows on discs.

If wanting a clean install, its probably easier to do the recovery on the old drive first and then clone that to the new drive. You can resize the drive sizes in the software too. Clean out any dust and fluff from inside the lappy when swapping the new drive in.

If you have the OS on discs, obviously you dont need to clone it unless you want to keep the set up from the old drive and all its software.

You can search online to discover how to launch the recovery partition . I think it is a key combination on boot up but I have only needed to do it once and that was some time ago.

Whatever you do, its a good idea to download the drivers for your lappy from samsung first and store them on a usb stick. Also any antivirus and spyware software so you can install it before needing to go online.

arciere

Not worth spending any money on it, IMO.
Celeron will make it slow regardless of a SSD drive (you will see a performance improvement of course, but not so much to justify the price).
A new battery would would also be quite expensive (unless you buy low-quality ones, which normally last far less than original ones).

EveryWhere

arciere wrote: »

Not worth spending any money on it, IMO.
Celeron will make it slow regardless of a SSD drive (you will see a performance improvement of course, but not so much to justify the price).
A new battery would would also be quite expensive (unless you buy low-quality ones, which normally last far less than original ones).

Sorry, but your post is just wrong in every way.
SSD and a clean install will transform the performance. SSD makes a BIG difference, regardless of your dismissive assertion. Added to that the removal of the Samsung bloatware by way of a clean install will make even more of a difference.

Your battery story also makes little sense. Even a original battery will only give around 150 minutes, so if a £10 battery gives 120 mins what would be the problem? Certainly better than 30 minutes.

You seem to have missed the post wherein I inform that I am using a laptop of similar specification, so can testify to actual performance, rather than your completely imagined synopsis.
£35 to £40 for a much improved laptop is most definitely worth it.

If you don't agree, then what is your suggestion as an alternative to spending £40 on a laptop for everyday usage?

arciere

EveryWhere wrote: »

Sorry, but your post is just wrong in every way.
SSD and a clean install will transform the performance. SSD makes a BIG difference, regardless of your dismissive assertion. Added to that the removal of the Samsung bloatware by way of a clean install will make even more of a difference.

Your battery story also makes little sense. Even a original battery will only give around 150 minutes, so if a £10 battery gives 120 mins what would be the problem? Certainly better than 30 minutes.

You seem to have missed the post wherein I inform that I am using a laptop of similar specification, so can testify to actual performance, rather than your completely imagined synopsis.
£35 to £40 for a much improved laptop is most definitely worth it.

If you don't agree, then what is your suggestion as an alternative to spending £40 on a laptop for everyday usage?

Still haven't learned how to deal with other's opinions, have you?

"If you don't agree, then what is your suggestion as an alternative to spending £40 on a laptop for everyday usage?" save the money and buy a new laptop when possible, that's what I would do. I wouldn't spend £40 on a laptop that is worth less than that.
It's a Celeron CPU and it's a 7 year old laptop. SSD can make a small difference in this case, but it's not the hard drive that is the slowest component, it's the CPU.
I wouldn't buy a 120GB anymore, too small, unless you are only planning to browse the internet. Another 12 months max and you will be complaining about your laptop again.

Also, just to be clear, I wrote IMO in my post. A quick search on Google says that IMO means "In My Opinion". I never said 'this is what the Bible says'. If you don't agree with what I wrote, it's not my problem, that is what I would do if that was my laptop. No need to emphasise your arrogance by saying that my post is "just wrong in any way".

Last time I checked, this was a forum. Definition of forum: a meeting or medium where ideas and views on a particular issue can be exchanged.

Hope it helps.