EDIT: Getting a ton of great responses thanks everyone <3 Once this is up for 24 hours or so I’ll make another edit summarizing everyone’s recs for future reference. Keep ‘em coming!
TL;DR Have any recs for non-Apple phones/laptops that have lifespans of at least 5+ years?
Wanted to get everyone’s opinion on want brands/products have worked for them. I’m lightly techy and not afraid to put some effort in, but also don’t want to build everything from scratch. I think Apple’s products are often anti-consumer, anti-privacy, anti-yadda yadda yadda.
At the same time, with both phones and laptops, I’ve found my Apple products to have double or even triple the lifespan of any other brand. I did my research and bought a $1000+ HP laptop with Ryzen7 a little over two years ago, and due to a flaw in the hinge which is now subject to a class action lawsuit, the screen has cracked and it’s mostly unusable. Other purchase haven’t failed quite that dramatically but don’t tend to last as long. On the other hand, my or my partner’s old Macbooks and iPhones are easily seeing 5+ years of use in addition to software updates.
So let me know what’s worked for you!
Don’t buy HP laptops. They’re terrible. Framework is great, and Lenovo and Dell are generally pretty good. Put Linux on it if you care about privacy.
It’s a little early to pronounce longevity on Framework. They could be great, the pieces are there for them to be great, but the whole enterprise could fail and leave you with an upgradeable/fixable laptop with no upgrades or parts.
At the very least, if Framework dies, many of the parts are standardized, and the ones that aren’t are mostly open source. The SSD, RAM, WiFi card, and screen connector are all standardized. The expansion cards use USB-C and have an open-source shape; many people have already made third-party expansion cards. The motherboard has an open-source layout, and there are open-source CAD files to make custom enclosures (again, people have already done it). There are general schematics with pinouts on their Github, and they’ve provided exact schematics to repair stores. If they die, you end up with a laptop that is more repairable than almost any other, as well as a community with enough information to keep it alive if they want to.
I’m not knocking Framework at all here (and in fact they may be my next laptop), but repairability and long-lasting don’t quite mean the same thing. Usually when people say “long lasting” they mean something that is durable and reliable. Repairability can contribute to that, of course, but the option of 3D printing my own parts, or open specs on certain parts, doesn’t really make the device last longer without breaking. At best, it gives me some options to remediate it when it fails, and if I’m not capable of making my own parts, then my only option may be to buy parts anyway and deal with downtime.
I mean, a single year upgradable parts is already better than 99% of the market, thats not a hard bar to pass.
Just wanted to expand a bit on your comment - Dell have a few laptop product lines, and the Latitude line is the business one that should be the most reliable/longest-supported. I’ve had a few Latitude laptops that lasted 3 years each before I changed jobs and left them behind, and was satisfied with them. Worked well with Linux which was a bigger deal back in 2015 than it is now.
Other companies are probably the same - Lenovo thinkpads are good, yoga not so much.
Totally agree about Linux, it’s come a long way in the last 10 years and you can do basically everything there now. Battery life may be affected, I think that’s one of the last areas they need to work on.
Any laptop designed for enterprise like Lenovo Thinkpad or hp elitebook/ProBook
Your laptop was an HP pavilion, right? Those are designed to barely last the warranty period. Their engineers on this product line have a long experience of carefully choosing plastics that will degrade within 24 months
IMHO MacBooks are super overrated. OS support is not as long as normal computers (5 years instead of “indefinite”) and they still have hardware flaws to hinges and keyboard
IMHO MacBooks are super overrated. OS support is not as long as normal computers (5 years instead of “indefinite”) and they still have hardware flaws to hinges and keyboard
And batteries. Swollen batteries in MacBooks were very common at my work. I have never seen it in any other laptop but Desktop Support would just react to it with ‘o, another one’.
I don’t currently use macOS, but macOS support is typically about 7 years, sometimes up to 10. Apple supports the 3 latest versions of its operating system.
Mainstream Windows support seems to be about 1-3 years.
What are you talking about? You can take a Pentium 4 from twenty years ago and install latest windows 10. Microsoft releases a new version every 6 to 12 months but the computer updates automatically. Of course it makes no sense for them to continue supporting an old version that anyway everyone can update from without issues
And once apple decided the os is not compatible, your computer is on death row. Latest apps won’t run. Ok, can get security updates, but you needed to run latest final cut pro x? Bad luck, insert credit card and purchase new Mac
You, in fact, cannot install Windows 10 on a Pentium 4.
Ok then an athlon64 from the year 2003
So I’ve only somewhat recently got into the Apple ecosystem, but I can tell you that once a macOS version loses support it’s technically on death row but nowhere near as dramatic as you mention.
I recently daily drove a Mac running macOS Catalina (2019) and I was surprised that it still ran everything I needed for my IT degree (Zoom, Office 365 suite, VSCode, Signal, Tailscale, etc.) and the only real issue I noticed was Apple’s Xcode not being compatible.
I also own a Mac mini 2012 with i5/8GB, and while I don’t use it often, my parents daily drive that as a smart TV and web browsing machine with no real issues at all. The last official version of macOS on it was Catalina, but I used community patches to push it up to Monterey (2021) and it’s totally fine.
I think when you own and actually use a Mac, you will find in its own way, that they do last longer than Windows equivalents. I have a 2012 Latitude with i5/8GB and yes I could run the latest Win10 natively (but not Win11 without hacks) but I don’t think it exactly cuts the mustard anymore, and I think most people who would use it would generally agree. Given its age I would just Linux it up if I wanted to daily drive it.
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Fairphone is also 100% repairable like the framework. 5 year warranty and software support.
Edit: The rumor is that the Fairphone 5 will be announced next week
I would really consider to get a fairphone if they had a smaller variant. Lately I’ve grown tired of only having huge phones and I don’t mind making some hardware sacrifices if I can use it comfortably.
The Asus Zenfone 10 was a good candidate, but their bootloader unlocking tool is still down, so you may be locked to only 2 years of OS updates
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I would not trust apple products. Self cracking display on laptop? Updates that slow down devices on purpose? no, thanks
Never had any issues on any of my macbooks and I’ve had them for over 5 years each. My 2012 mbp still runs as good as the day I got it!
I can’t say the same about my 2012 mbp, it’s been basically useless for like 5 years now.
I was referring mainly to newer models, the older line around 2012 was really good.
Fair enough, you’re right they were great. Tbf everything up until the 2015 models were solid, as they were somewhat upgradable. Though, I’ve got a new M1 MAX and it’s easily the best laptop I’ve ever owned!
My key caps have been falling off my work provided M1 Air. Thankfully, the keyboard is so crap I can barely tell the difference.
Ended up repurposing an old XPS 13 that I found in a supply closet as my dev box.
Wayland+Sway == Infinitely better experience
Laptops: ThinkPad P-series. The repairability that the T-series used to have with slightly beefier specs and better heatsinks. Great for Linux.
Phones: FairPhone 4 (FP5 will likely be announced end of the month so wait for that) - user repairable, supports alternate operating systems, 7 years official OS support from FairPhone.
The real P-series, though, the P14s and P16s are just T14 and T16 with slightly more aggressive fan curves so they boost a bit more.
That said, the T series are still very nice laptops, they’ve just followed the industry trend of sacrificing user replaceable RAM, and in some cases, wifi. They still have published hardware maintenance manuals, and readily available parts for repair.
I just grabbed a P14s gen4 AMD, because I need 64GB RAM for my intended purpose, but prefer and need no more than an AMD APU. I still might sacrifice part of my intention and get a T14s instead, for quieter operation and slightly better build quality.
For phones, new pixel with grapheneos.
The new pixel phones have 5 year support windows now.
They have 3 years of operating system updates and 5 years of security updates. Source
Thanks, I’ll adjust my claim to 5 years. I must have misremembered re the longevity of security updates.
Thanks, Pixel+GrapheneOS has been the most tempting iOS alternative for me so far.
I can’t say if the quality is still the same, but I bought a Chromebook when they first came out for $99 and that little buddy has lasted me a decade now. It’s seen me through a deployment, a degree, several moves, and has been through a load of abuse and come out the other side working as spiffy as day one, minus some scuff on the screen. (Unfortunately Google has recently aged it out, but I’ll find a use for it with a virtual machine perhaps).
I imagine most little netbooks are similarly built and can withstand a boatload, although their computing power definitely lacks.
I have an aged out Chromebook running lubuntu just fine. In my case, I had to open the bottom and remove a “write protect” screw, then it installed and it’s still going strong. I had to mess around with the keyboard settings a bit, but otherwise it worked just great!
For phones 5+ years of updates is good compared to the alternatives, and is why I have one. For a computer, on the other hand, it’s just not very impressive. Perhaps FairPhones come close (don’t know how long their software is supported but their selling point is longevity), but their specs aren’t that impressive. On the flip side you get something repairable.
MacBooks are often built better with higher quality materials than many other laptops, but it is essentially a computer. Most computers that have high enough specs will always run the latest version of most Linux distributions or Windows barring any need for weird drivers from the past century. Feels a little iffy to have a perfectly good computer that won’t update software anymore just because. Up until recently you could just install some Linux OS on your old MacBooks when it went out of support but honestly I don’t know whether you can still do that after they started making non-x86 stuff.
With all that said, haven’t seen many laptops physically outlive MacBooks’ updates. With the exception of some ThinkPads and possibly some XPS models. Plastic laptops with plastic hinges tend to struggle keeping up, especially if the display is on the larger side. A large gaming laptop living the life of a typical MacBook, going to cafes and university in a backpack every day is probably gonna have more stress on hinges etc.
As for HP I have only heard bad stuff about them for the last 10 years or so. Don’t think I’ll buy stuff from them due to their evil printers that won’t scan without ink etc.
Not many specific recommendations here but just some observations I have made. Hope it’s helpful.
I agree on HP printer subscription ink, that is an outright scam. But I have had an HP 2017 Zbook for daily use and travel and 0 issues.
Okay i’m not sure how much + is in your 1000$ and obviously there’s a manufacturing defect at olay here. But man a MacBook is 2000$+ I have heard this argument too often unfortunately:
I tried Android once and it was horrible so i just went back to iPhone©™ and now everything is great again.
Context: they bought a 300$ Samsung phone and expected it to perform the same as their previous 800$ iPhone…
And this just sounds too similar. “I previously had a 2000$+ device, now I bought a 1000$+ one and it doesn’t perform the same.” Except for the part where it’s also a shitty brand and the device had a manufacturing defect.
Oneplus phones are good. Beastly specs and run LineageOS. Also not too challenging or expensive to replace (most) parts.
thinkpad T series laptop
Side note, I have such mixed feelings on HP. I have only anecdotal things to say, so please keep that in mind!
I bought a budget HP Pavilion back in 2020, for a similar reason to you, because of the Ryzen setup. It sees use 4-5 times a week. And I have to say… I love it.
The build quality is, in my opinion, outstanding for a budget ($600) laptop. Its metal, solid, with almost no noticable keyboard flex. It feels so much better than both Dells my wife and I use for work. And the keyboard is actually my favorite of all the boards in my house.
My family has always had new tech coming in and out of the house and one of the longest lasting devices we had was an HP 2-In-1.
I don’t support their scummy software practices (shoutout brother printers). But for the most part every piece of HP tech I’ve bought has been average or above. But online they’re somewhat universally panned. Its interesting.
This is just in my limited experience, I work as a tech for an MSP and I’ve generally seen HPs fail more so than other brands (not by a wide margin but I wouldn’t buy a HP).
The other device we see fail more is Microsoft Surfaces, especially the tablets. I love the form factor and what Microsoft goes for with them but I’d never buy one purely on the reliability concerns I have, and (with a couple of exceptions) terrible repairability.
I would have agreed until the hinge broke through my HP Envy x360 screen :-(
Not much of a warning before it happened either, I would look into your model to see if that’s a recurring issue. Apparently you can loosen the tension in the screw on the hinge ahead of time to help avoid it eventually snapping. Good luck either way!
My work machines get cycled out after 3 years, but I’ve had good results with Lenovo and Dell.
I mean, if we’re going by anecdotes, on average, most gear will last 5 years more often than not. I still have my Samsung Galaxy Note 3 that’s still working, just that it’s sorely obsolete on the software side. Another even more extreme example: I also have a Samsung i600 that’s also still working, and only recently has the battery started showing signs of bloating. That’s a 15+ year-old phone!
The several thousand laptops the charity I worked for (and still volunteer for sometimes) give out yearly also indicate that plenty of laptops will make it past the 5 year mark. Until last year we were still giving out 6th gen Intel laptops.
Samsung Galaxy Note 3
Whack LineageOS on that puppy!
xiaomi. super cheap and top notch specs. have multiple phones and laptops. even without case the phones are almost unbreakable
Can confirm, I bought a Poco phone F1 and I still use it to this day. Bought it in 2018
