Before I decided on this one, I also checked the second-hand/refurbished market, which in my country is quite extensive. The cheapest refurbished PC is just $29.
Thing is, one of these companies that sells refurbished PCs has been in the market for more than 20 years. There must be people buying these.
I expect to use this PC for at least 10 years.
How old is yours and how long are you looking to get out of it? Do you have a back-up old one that you keep around just in case?
ASUS VivoBook TM420, Ryzen 3 4300U, 12GB RAM, 256GB NVMe. ~1 year old, current beast of burden.
Lenovo T440, i3-4010U [2], 8GB RAM, 120GB SSD. In my usage since 2016, model is from 2014.
Of course there is X301 somewhere, with 1.8" SSD (probably 128GB?) and unknown amount of memory. The only machine with working DVD-R drive.
> I expect to use this PC for at least 10 years.
On a new $200 PC? Doubt it. It would work, of course, but... It's probably on Celeron?
[0] https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/71071/i...
[1] https://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/K8/AMD-Athlon%2064%20X2%20420...
[2] https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/75107/i...
I tend to replace my system when one of the following is true...
My current boot drive is the size of the ram I would get in a new system
My current ram is the size of the ram on the video card I would get.
My system is basically at both of these thresholds. That and I also dont like that my laptop is probably more powerful at the moment.
I'll replace it soon: the 1TB SSD is has been "full" for a year or two now, and with macOS Ventura it cannot run current software any more. If it weren't for that, I'd likely keep it for another few years -- unless I drop it, it would likely be fine for a 10+ year life.
My model has been to double the storage capacity with every purchase, but I think I'll likely go 4x this time (unless SSD prices go up).