Gaming laptops have become increasingly the most popular choice for many people in the twenty-second century. Statistica.com claims that “In 2020, the global gaming laptop market is valued at 10.96 billion U.S. dollars, with forecasts predicting that the market will reach 17.82 billion U.S. dollars by the end of 2026.“ Here is a detailed article that covers all about how long can you expect a gaming laptop to last, the way to increase its lifespan, and what to choose a gaming laptop or a gaming desktop.
What Is A Gaming Laptop?
Before we jump into the lifespan, let us first make it clear what a gaming laptop is. A gaming laptop is essentially the same as a regular laptop but is built with higher quality features. A gaming laptop allows users to make use of a high speed, better graphics, huge memory, and a processor which is incredibly fast! Gaming laptops are however more expensive than regular laptops.
Typically gaming laptops are built using components that are of extremely high quality in order to allow the laptop to withstand heavy usage and allow them to play games requiring high graphics, smoothly without any interruptions. However, this does not mean that gaming laptops cannot slow down.
Is It Already Time To Change Your Gaming Laptop?
If your gaming laptop has been giving you a rather sluggish performance recently while playing games such as Apex Legends or Ops IV, it is quite likely that it is not just a part of your imagination. Gaming laptops often give you a slower performance before they entirely stop working.
You might think that this would be the case for a cheap and unbranded laptop and since you had bought an expensive and branded one so yours would probably work for a long time even though it got slowed down. But that is not the case. Gaming laptops do not last for a very long time. Soon the internal components of your gaming laptop will start breaking down and the frames would also drop drastically. Eventually, with such issues, you will have to buy yourself a new laptop. Now comes the main question: Exactly, How long should you expect your gaming laptop to last?
How Long Does A Gaming Laptop Last?
You can expect your gaming laptop to last for 5 to 6 years without maintenance. On the other hand, a cheap budget normal laptop would only last for 3 to 4 years without maintenance. Although the inner components of your laptop would easily for around 5 years, you can expect them to get slower. This is because with time the games become increasingly complex and are not supported by the components which were latest at the time they were bought.
Having said that there are a lot of factors that affect the lifetime of a gaming laptop. You can always extend the lifespan of your gaming laptop. But before we go into how you can extend the lifespan of your laptop, it is important to know the factors that affect how long your laptops last.
What Are The Factors Affecting The Lifespan Of Your Gaming Laptop?
There are a number of factors that affect the lifespan of your laptop. Here is a list of the factors:
- Heat: It is a well-known fact that heating laptops can lead to a lot of damage to laptops. As the laptop works, heat is constantly generated which degrades the working of the various part of the laptop. The importance of keeping your laptop cool cannot be stressed enough. Ensure that you always use a cooling pad(you can easily find them on Amazon) and clean the vents of your gaming laptop. While the ideal temperature of a laptop is 35-50 degrees celsius, it can get heated to 60-85 degrees celsius during a gameplay
- Battery: Gaming laptops typically have shorter battery life when compared to those regular laptops. This is because the components of a gaming laptop are often very hungry for power. You cannot expect them to last for more than 2 to 4 hours after charging them for a single time.
- Display: Apart from being the most essential component of a gaming laptop, it is also one of the most delicate ones. Generally, the life of a gaming laptop is directly dependent on the quality of the display panels used in the laptop. IPS panels that provide better colour reproduction are generally used in most laptops of high quality. Always choose IPS panels over TN panels because the latter does not offer high quality.
- The Graphics Processing Unit(GPS): One of the most significant parts of any laptop, a GPU renders images that you can see on the screen. Better the build of the GPU of a laptop, the longer it will last. GPUs that are not built with good quality will not last long.
- Memory Specs and Processor: Gaming laptops are often judged by the strength of their processors. While a warranty of 3 years is provided on processors by both Intel as well as AMD, they get outdated very quickly. It is therefore important that you purchase a laptop having the latest processor.
How To Increase The Longevity Of Your Gaming Laptop?
The above mentioned were the factors that lead to changes in the lifespan of a laptop. However, once bought these factors cannot be changed.
However, you can still increase the lifespan of your gaming laptop by following these tips:
- Cleanliness: Always keep your laptop clean. The build-up of dust can lead to the failure of a laptop early. Use canned air to clean up the ports of your laptop. This can prove to be a very simple but effective thing.
- Heat Disbursal: Make sure that the vents of your laptop are clear so that the heat generated by the laptop gets easily dissipated.
- Updates: Keep your laptop updated with the latest updates in software as well as hardware
- Improve the RAM: If you want to boost you performance of your laptop, make sure to upgrade the SSD and RAM
- Charging Habits: Do not leave the charger plugged into your laptop for a long time. If you do this, your laptop will eventually start holding a lesser charge.
Although the battery of the laptop will have to be replaced after 3 to 4 years, other internal parts of the laptop will last for a longer time period.
What Is The Main Reason That Leads To The Failure Of A Gaming Laptop?
According to squaretrade.com, about 31% of laptops fail over a span of 3 years. There are a number of reasons which can lead to a gaming laptop stop working quite earlier than its expected lifespan. These reasons are not limited to but include firmware glitches, overheating, low battery life, and inadequate cooling. These issues do not directly cause the laptop to stop working but they make the GPU and the processor of the laptop work harder than they usually do. As these components work harder, there is greater wear and tear which eventually causes the laptop to stop working.
While these were the most common issues, some laptops are susceptible to some reasons more than others. These issues occur because some of the components of the laptop are not of as good quality as the other components or due to some design issues.
One instance of such an issue is that the gaming laptops which are built with fans and vents on the bottom of the laptop have higher chances of overheating. This is because when the fans become clogged with dust, the heat is not dissipated properly.
How To Make Sure That You Can Use The Warranty In Case Your Gaming Laptop Does Fail Early?
While you can do your best to prevent the failure of the laptop, it can still happen that the laptop gets a premature failure. In the case that it does, you must remember that most of the manufacturers provide users with a warranty for their laptops. However, a lot of people are wary about these warranties and doubt that they are not useful in most cases.
You can ensure that you get to avail the benefits of this warranty by following the given tips:
- Make sure that your gaming laptop is registered with the manufacturer. This will mean that your contact information is present with the manufacturer and you can easily make a claim in case you need a warranty.
- Always keep your receipts and invoices as proof that you had purchased the laptop. The proof will be essentially required in order to prove to the manufacturer that you had in fact purchased your laptop from a dealer who is authorized.
- Never throw the manuals and the packaging which you receive along with the laptop. Many times these can come in very handy and help you to troubleshoot a lot of errors that you might experience.
- Go through the manual and ensure that you follow the instructions given for the cleaning and care recommendations. Following the instructions, will ensure that any such damage does not happen which is not covered by the warranty.
While these steps are quite simple and easy to follow, you should not underestimate them because they will ensure that you do not have to pay any money out of your own pocket even if your gaming laptop fails prematurely.
Which Parts Of A Laptop Are With Repairing?
While you can repair most of the parts of your laptop, it is not always a reasonable thing to do. This is because some of the components of gaming laptops are very costly. Many times, repairing the laptops would not be worth it and it would be in fact a better option to buy a brand new laptop rather than spending money on repairing the old one. Here we have covered which parts of the laptop are worth repairing.
Upgrading of components such as a new SSD drive and RAM are quite cost-effective. They are done at a very low cost by the owners. It is in fact something which you should definitely go for. However, changing a major component such as the display of the laptop is not reasonable. It will take a lot of money and it would be a better option to buy a new gaming laptop.
However, that being said it always depends on the situation of the current laptop and your present finances whether you should repair your laptop or buy a new one altogether.
Gaming Laptop Versus Gaming Desktop: Pros And Cons
As is the case with any other item, a gaming laptop also comes with its own pros and cons. You can decide which ( a gaming laptop or a gaming desktop ) is worth your money by going through the pros and cons yourself.
Pros: Here is a list of the pros of buying a gaming laptop
- They are very portable and you can easily carry them anywhere with you, all you need is a laptop bag.
- Gone are the days when desktops were outperforming laptops. Gaming Laptops are no less powerful than personal computers.
- Gaming Laptops offer a lot of flexibility due to their portable nature
Cons: Here is a list of cons of buying a gaming laptop
- Gaming Laptops are not budget-friendly, they are quite expensive when compared to desktops.
- There is less scope for upgrading gaming laptops when compared to gaming desktops
- The problem of overheating is more pronounced in the case of gaming laptops.
Summary
A gaming laptop is a laptop that is built with components that have good quality and build. While they are quite expensive, they generally last for about three to five years without maintenance. However, you can increase the lifespan of your gaming laptop by following a few tips such as keeping the laptop tidy, using cooling pads, etc. Whether or not you prefer to buy gaming laptops, it is undeniable that they are one of the coolest pieces of technology being sold in the market currently.
