Is it worth repairing, or should I just buy a new one?

It’s the question we’re asked more than any other, usually within thirty seconds of someone putting a laptop on the counter. Is this worth fixing, or am I throwing good money after bad?

The honest answer depends on three things: what’s actually wrong, how old the machine is, and what you use it for.

The short version

As a rough rule, a repair is worth doing if it costs less than about a third of what an equivalent new machine would cost, and the rest of the computer has a few years left in it.

That’s a rule of thumb, not a law. A four-year-old laptop that’s perfect apart from a cracked screen is worth a screen. An eight-year-old laptop with a failing drive, a swollen battery and a dying hinge is three repairs stacked on top of each other.

What’s wrong matters more than age

People lead with the age of the machine. We’d rather know the symptom, because age alone tells you surprisingly little.

Usually worth repairing:

• A cracked screen — from £72. A clean, self-contained job; the rest of the machine is untouched.
• A failing hard drive — from £84, and often the repair that makes an old laptop feel new.
• A dead battery — cheap relative to the machine, and the difference between a laptop and a desk ornament.
• Not enough memory — from £180 plus the drive.
• Liquid damage, sometimes — depends what was spilled and how fast it was switched off. Worth a look; we won’t charge you to find out.

Usually not:

• A failed motherboard on an older machine. The most expensive component. Past about five years the sums rarely work.
• Several faults at once on an old laptop. Any one might be worth doing; three together usually aren’t.
• A machine that can’t run the software you need. No repair fixes this.
• Very old laptops with discontinued parts.

What we do before quoting

The diagnosis is free. That’s not a promotion — it’s how we’ve always worked, and it exists precisely because of this question.

We look at the machine, work out what’s wrong, and ring you with a firm price before any work starts. You decide. If we think it isn’t worth repairing, we’ll say so, and you’ll have paid nothing to find out.

We’d rather tell you honestly that a laptop isn’t worth fixing and have you come back in three years, than take £200 off you for a repair that buys six months.

“But it’s only a few years old”

A machine that isn’t old, isn’t broken, and just feels slow. The owner has decided it’s had its day.

Nine times out of ten it hasn’t. A laptop from four or five years ago with a mechanical hard drive will feel transformed by an SSD — not “a bit quicker”, but genuinely like a different computer. Before you spend £700 because the old one is sluggish, let us look at why it’s sluggish.

What about the data?

This is what people worry about most, and it’s worth separating from the repair decision entirely.

Your files are not lost just because the computer won’t turn on. In most cases the drive is fine and the fault is elsewhere. Whichever way you go, don’t write off your photos on the assumption they’ve gone with the machine. Data recovery and transfer starts from £102.

So — repair or replace?

If you take one thing from this: find out what’s wrong before you decide. Almost every “should I replace it?” conversation we have happens without anyone knowing what’s actually broken — and that’s the one piece of information that settles it.

Bring it to the workshop on Station Road, no appointment needed, or ring 01753 884700.