That if a laptop is 6 years old it will only last 4 more years. Or that a Pi will last more than 10.

If it is a generic laptop, yes. 10 years is a stretch. Components used in the motherboard are probably not high quality enough to last more than 10 years. A manufacturer does not have an incentive to put high quality stuff (that is probably costlier) in a laptop who's only selling point is cheap for the "features", and not reliability or longevity..

One might get lucky with such a laptop, but I won't count on it.

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jasomill 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Sure, but $200 on eBay will get you something along the lines of a Dell Latitude, with decent build quality, cost-optimized more than a flagship workstation-class laptop, but certainly not designed to squeeze out the last penny at the expense of reliability or repairability like the cheapest consumer models.

And if you buy a 5-year-old corporate laptop in very good condition with minimal visible wear on the keyboard and touchpad, it was likely only used as a desktop replacement connected to a dock, so unlikely to have suffered abuse not apparent from visual inspection alone.

If you're planning to use it as an actual laptop, price out a replacement battery before purchase, as battery capacity will degrade over time, even if the laptop is exclusively used on AC, so will always be something of a crapshoot.

Otherwise, I'd expect the rate of component failure to be no higher than for any other lightly-used laptop of similar vintage, which is low.

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boomlinde 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

What makes you assume that the Raspberry Pi is using higher quality components?

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qsera 4 hours ago | parent [-]

One thing is that Raspberry PI have a fewer of them. So less chance of one becoming faulty.

Regarding higher quality components, I think the for the usecase (I mean the kinds of thing it is supposed to be used for) of Raspberry PI, reliability is more important.

This also matches with my experience.

	▲	boomlinde 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> Regarding higher quality components, I think the for the usecase (I mean the kinds of thing it is supposed to be used for) of Raspberry PI, reliability is more important. That you think that reliability is more important for a Raspberry Pi usecase than a laptop doesn't somehow magically make it a fact that its components are of higher quality than your average laptop. You only speculate and then speculate further on the basis of your original speculation. That's not how you arrive at a basis for a factual claim or an estimate.

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gambiting 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Again, is that just a feeling, or do you have some data to actually show this. In my experience even old basic Acer laptops easily last more than 10 years, probably without the battery and married to the charger forever now, but they will work fine. But I don't go on the internet and tell everyone laptops last most than 10 years just because I know of a few Acers lasting that. Likewise, do you have any statistics on longevity of Raspberry Pis.

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pixl97 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Is it a fanless laptop? Fans aren't any different than filters in cars. They fail and need replaced.