Report comment

I suppose it depends what they bought 3 years ago Arthur.

Speaking as someone who builds PCs as a bit of a hobby, laptops are notoriously bad for being upgraded and really are just a 1 off purchase that expires in a few years. They're no where near as modular as a proper desktop due to chassis size and cooling constraints.

Even a decent PC is going to need some pretty hefty upgrading after a couple of years to stay current and there is a point at which you basically have to replace the whole lot anyway (the manufacturers tend to significantly change the architecture every few years to the extent that the expensive parts all need upgrading at once - effectively giving you a new PC in the same box).

That said, as pointed out below they're unlikely to need the most cutting edge tech able to run high end 3D graphics so you might expect them to last a bit longer. Which takes us back to the first sentence. Presumably they knew they didn't need to be bleeding edge so bought some middling machines that have come to their natural life end.