Do I need a new laptop or can I improve my current one?

Sunshine_and_Roses

My current laptop is 9 or 10 years old, a bit slow starting up and when I have several tabs open.
It is an Acer Aspire E 15, and the sticker on the laptop say i5-4210U 1.7GHz with Turbo Boost up to 2.7GHz, 4GB DDR3 L Memory, 1000 GB HDD.  I have no idea what most of that means.

I took the laptop to a local computer shop 5 years ago to see if they could speed it up.  The receipt says they uninstalled McAfee and Malwarebytes, ghosted to 256gb SSD, moved some photos onto external drive.

Would it be worth taking it to a shop again for another update, or is the technology now obsolete?  I don't use the laptop much, mainly when I need a keyboard or doing monthly accounts, as I use my phone a lot.  I would probably use it more if it was quicker to turn on and set up.  

I would appreciate any help or advice you can give, thanks.

Vitor

As it's already had an SSD then it's time to upgrade. Even adding RAM to a slow CPU won't help much.

Sunshine_and_Roses

Vitor said:

As it's already had an SSD then it's time to upgrade. Even adding RAM to a slow CPU won't help much.

Thanks, I was looking to take advantage of Amazon Prime Day if I was buying a new one.  What do I need to look for, or what could I expect to get with a budget of around £500?  I would probably want to avoid Apple products, just because I have not used them before.  My phone and tablet are both Samsung if that makes any difference.

BlueonBlue

In your situation and age of laptop I wouldnt ever use any local shop as ive been burnt a number of times doing exactly that at £50 -£80 a time.
That was in london they replaced a harddrive with a faulty one that was going to fail, another shop used the incorrect thermal paste and spread it all over the place it was a complete mess and the wrong colour so very likely a substandard product causing further overheating 

Which magazine has a computor £5 per month remote tech access subcription which you can book multiple times per £5 a month or get a deal on 12 months  subcription for 50
I found in the end £5 monthly worked out when needed for a couple of sessions but you could book more 
You cant beat it for tune up value if your not capable yourself they start with the simple then you can book another session if it needs more indepth work.

I used it alot over the years since 2014 on a 2nd gen Acer i7 from 2011 and two other 2010 and 2013 older aptops .
They brought the 2013 i5 samsung back from a black screen of death with flashing task bar
https://signup.which.co.uk/wlp-tech-support
I would ring them so you can ask whatever you need to.

If you added 4gb more of ram from Crucial or purchased second hand from CEX I think it would help with having multiple tabs open givern the very low cost and ease of installion of extra ram

Then this would buy you time to look for a £££ deal on a new win11 laptop as win10 time is up in oct next year .
I used hotukdeals to find a 16in win11 2023 i5 for £274 .....but it took awhile to do it 
If you have 300-350 and look over a period of time you will find something thats good value eventually ....today these examples are showing
Nothing lasts long so you need to know exactly what your after and budget .

https://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/dell-inspiron-15-3520-laptop-fhd-1920-x-1080-120hz-display-intel-core-i3-1215u-8gb-ram-256gb-ssd-carbon-black-4379236

https://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/hp-255-g9-156-fhd-laptop-ryzen-5-5625u-6c-8gb-ddr4-256gb-ssd-upgradeable-ram-nvme-m2-25-4379078

Neil_Jones

BlueonBlue said:

In your situation and age of laptop I wouldnt ever use any local shop as ive been burnt a number of times doing exactly that at £50 -£80 a time.
That was in london they replaced a harddrive with a faulty one that was going to fail, another shop used the incorrect thermal paste and spread it all over the place it was a complete mess and the wrong colour so very likely a substandard product causing further overheating 

Assuming this is thermal paste for a processor then this stuff is almost always white, though it may be grey initially.  The colour makes next to no difference, and if its applied properly you're not going to see it anyway especially in a laptop.

Most budget laptops tend to overheat by design of the cooling solution which is akin to collecting dust bunnies, and this is more likely to happen first than any issue with thermal paste.   When the outlet gets completely blocked and there's nowhere for hot air to go, the net result is the laptop overheats.

Hard drive can't comment on but even new stuff will occasionally pack up fairly early in in warranty; bought a batch of seven laptop drives, put them in various laptops and every single drive came back over the next six weeks.  Bought a replacement batch with different manufacture dates on them and none of those drives were ever seen again.  Just the way the cookie crumbles sometimes.

BlueonBlue

Whatever the paste was that they used its was spread all over the board and the laptop was still overheating so they had compounded the original overheating issue.
You had to see it to believe such a mess and amount used was enough for a 3cm long toothbrush it was spread everywhere over the board .
A friend fixed it in front of me in the end after alot of cleanup of excess of this funny coloured paste .
We ordered a £12 very very small tube of  pure white thermal paste and it never overheated again .

The HDD replacement was supposed to be a new one but another local shop put in a used one with a very high fault ratio after testing it ,,,it was certainly going to fail at some unknown point so my friend put a new ssd in .
Both shops when confronted were in complete denial as you would expect from such chancers .
This is a London thing its not uncommon .
So I wouldnt use local repair shops unless known to be reputable .

JohnB47

OK,  as usual this thread has gone off on a tangent, not addressing your actual 'problem'. What is that exactly?

I have a 9 year old Win 10 laptop that I reinstalled win 10 on, and fitted an SSD to,  and it works likes new. Seriously, very fast and with no problems.

Old can work like new. So I repeat - what is the actual problem?

BlueonBlue

You can read the first line of the post to find the OP,s issue

Sunshine_and_Roses

JohnB47 said:

OK,  as usual this thread has gone off on a tangent, not addressing your actual 'problem'. What is that exactly?

I have a 9 year old Win 10 laptop that I reinstalled win 10 on, and fitted an SSD to,  and it works likes new. Seriously, very fast and with no problems.

Old can work like new. So I repeat - what is the actual problem?

Basically, is it more cost effective to get a new laptop now or keep trying to update my current one and be patient with its slow speed.  

BlueonBlue

Well for £5 you will see a better user laptop experience with which tech service with the laptop you currently have and further advice on memory.

Cex will be about 1.50 to £10 for used memory
Crucial memory will be a abit more new but is far easier  for the non technical at £20 aprox 

Im certain more memory and a which tech service or two would help but so would a £500 new laptop

A new win 11 laptop is about how much you have to spend ie expendable income and only you can decide that but is very doable from 300 to 600 new right now .
I bet or believe the price of  win 11 laptops increases as the win10 Oct 25 end date gets closer though .

BlueonBlue

As a £323 refurbed OLED example once 15% code is added
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/235601663470?itmprp=cksum:2356016634704279eae5a39348c1a12812d6f85690a7|enc:AQAJAAABkL6ClmSKIaUnL3NHMG4VC

I dont know if memory can be upgraded which is best to research before purchase.
Some wont want a refurb which is understandable but they may not want to pay 400-500-600 either 
I believe you can do better but it means taking your time and watching out for a deal .
Hence upgrading the old laptop in the meantime is a option