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Monday, March 9, 2009

Broken computer!

My ten year old Alienware has bitten it.  For the second time.  At this point, it makes more sense to buy a new machine than have the old one repaired - it will be less expensive for more machine.

Always consider investment/return when something breaks.  Sometimes, replacement is a better option, sometimes repair.

What I thought about:

This is a piece of equipment I use every day, so having a trouble free experience is important.

Will it do what I need it to? When it's working, yes.  The problem being that it would cost more to repair than to buy a new, better system by quite a bit.  The last time I had a problem with the machine, it was nearly a thousand dollars to fix.  At the time, it was worth it.  Now, I can get a far better machine for at least four hundred dollars less than the cost of repairing it.

The question of needing something fancier is almost moot in this particular case - more power was a nice idea the first time, but far pricier than the repair for the sorts of things I do.  Now it is not.

Were it a newer machine, the choice would not be so clear cut.

2 comments:

  1. Ah... the death of a machine. I have multiple feelings about these issues. On one side I dread hardware failures. They are often are hard to diagnose, have replacement costs, and there can be data loss. The flips side of that is that I do enjoy the idea of possibly getting something new and shiny. A new toy that can offer more potential and easy of use that was not available or possible before.

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  2. Exactly my quandry - though the age of the machine made the choice easier.

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