Ask HN: How often does your company replace your laptop?

#1

Post by feischi » Sun, Jul 21, 2019, 10:31 AM UTC

A large industrial corporation I have worked for would only replace a company laptop after 5 years unless it really stops working. It's all Windows laptop, and the laptops employees could order are mostly models from more than 1 year ago. Needless to say that productivity drops significantly after 2-3 years.

I just would like to know if this is a common practice, and how often does your company replace your laptop?

Re: Ask HN: How often does your company replace your laptop?

#2

Post by llampx » Sun, Jul 21, 2019, 12:15 PM UTC

Where I've worked, laptops are often seen as fungible resources aside from OS, i.e. all Mac laptops are interchangeable and all Wintel laptops are interchangeable. On the other hand, laptops haven't gotten much faster until very recently with Intel's 8th gen chips going to quad-core so I can see the IT and bean-counter perspective as well.

The bigger the company the more likely they are to have a policy such as the one you mentioned. I've been working for startups recently, and what you are issued is what you'll be working on for a long time, at least unless it stops working and can't be replaced (eg, a 2012 Macbook Air that isn't manufactured anymore)

As a team lead I have to fight to get the best hardware for my team sometimes, like 16GB RAM and good screens. So sometimes someone gets an upgrade just because of that, and the old laptop goes to someone who doesn't need to run demanding apps.

Re: Ask HN: How often does your company replace your laptop?

#3

Post by gshdg » Sun, Jul 21, 2019, 1:33 PM UTC

3-year leases aren’t all that uncommon. I’ve also been at a SmallCo that would buy brand new top of the line Mac laptops for developers and number crunchers, and then cycle them down after a few years to staff whose workloads were less demanding. They averaged 6-8 years out of a computer.

Asking developers to work on 6-8 year old hardware is definitely penny wise/pound foolish, tho.

Re: Ask HN: How often does your company replace your laptop?

#4

Post by milquetoastaf » Sun, Jul 21, 2019, 1:35 PM UTC

My company doesn't even provide laptops. It's all BYOD D:

Re: Ask HN: How often does your company replace your laptop?

#5

Post by astrosloth » Sun, Jul 21, 2019, 1:47 PM UTC

Company I work for supplies us with the new MacBook Pros every two years

Re: Ask HN: How often does your company replace your laptop?

#6

Post by nik736 » Sun, Jul 21, 2019, 2:59 PM UTC

In Germany laptops are written off for 3 years, so I would imagine 3 years is the period most companies are replacing laptops here.

Re: Ask HN: How often does your company replace your laptop?

#7

Post by spectramax » Sun, Jul 21, 2019, 3:43 PM UTC

4 years, it’s painful.

Re: Ask HN: How often does your company replace your laptop?

#8

Post by bobochan » Sun, Jul 21, 2019, 3:54 PM UTC

It used to be three years, but five years is now becoming common unless there is a compelling need. Honestly, I am okay with it. My current laptop is a Early-2015 MacBook Pro with 16 GB of RAM and it has been flawless since they day that I bought it. The battery life might be slightly less, but it really does everything that I want it to.

Re: Ask HN: How often does your company replace your laptop?

#9

Post by segmondy » Sun, Jul 21, 2019, 4:09 PM UTC

spectramax wrote: post #7

4 years, it’s painful.

Why? There's not much difference between 4 years old laptop anymore.

Re: Ask HN: How often does your company replace your laptop?

#10

Post by segmondy » Sun, Jul 21, 2019, 4:11 PM UTC

gshdg wrote: post #3

3-year leases aren’t all that uncommon. I’ve also been at a SmallCo that would buy brand new top of the line Mac laptops for developers and number crunchers, and then cycle them down after a few years to staff whose workloads were less demanding. They averaged 6-8 years out of a computer. Asking developers to work on 6-8 year old hardware is definitely penny wise/pound foolish, tho.

Have you been to Amazon? I don't think I saw anyone with a laptop that was newer than 4 years old. Being Frugal seems to work for them and they are the top cloud company.

I would say most developers don't need new hardware unless they are building games or developing CPU intensive application. Most laptops today have more resources than your microservice will have in the cloud.