When a machine really is finished
Name the honest reasons to replace a computer, and see the free option most people are never offered.
There are honest reasons to stop spending money on a computer, and it is worth naming them yourself rather than being told them by somebody with stock to shift.
Key points
- The honest reason to replace a computer is missing security updates, not age
- Find your own support status on the About page, rather than being told it
- Name the free route that gives an abandoned laptop another five years
What to remember
- Support status is a date on a settings page, not a judgment about age. Look it up before anybody sells you anything.
- Age is not the test. Security updates are. A well-kept ten-year-old machine that still gets them is fine; a three-year-old one that does not is not.
- How old is the machine you use most?
Try this
Find the About page on your own machine and read the version line. That one line tells you whether anybody is still repairing the holes in it, and it is the only fact worth having before somebody sells you a replacement.
Practice: When a machine really is finished. Your first lesson is free, with no account or card; the rest are part of a Lantern plan. Interactive lessons require JavaScript.