Apple's profits should accurately reflect the amount of money spent on R&D and design then. Oh wait, they don't.

My 4 year old Dell Inspiron 1720 still works great just like the day I bought it, unlike the Acer lappy I also have the Dell is as solid as a tank

Oh look still trolling and he said "fanboi". Things elderly copy-editors should never do, item 1: try to sound hip. It just make you look a bit more pathetic than you already do.

Check the secondary market: see what holds its value best.

Now, you've been asked to stop trolling the Apple forums. Please desist.

In reply to a post by gilesjuk:

Makes you wonder if Dell or others would do the same?

Yes they did.

I'm glad my MBP has Intel and AMD graphics

I had a laugh when my daughters boyfriend lifted his Dell laptop up and the dvd drive literally fell out of it and onto the floor. He wasn't so amused though.

In reply to a post by stniuk:

I had a laugh when my daughters boyfriend lifted his Dell laptop up and the dvd drive literally fell out of it and onto the floor. He wasn't so amused though.

Ouch.

Although there are consumer Dell ranges, and corporate Dell ranges, the corporates tend to last ok for 4 years, but might look battered. Lenovo corporate laptops are pretty tough too (Thinkpad) but not the consumer line (IdeaPad).

Panasonic Toughbook next time ??

I've had my Thinkpad for six years, and it was old then. Still going strong (although it has needed a couple of new batteries).

This was an entirely troll free forum previously. Maybe it will become so again.

Mine died do the the faulty GPU after about a year (2008-ish) which they fixed, as I understand it, by replacing the whole logic board. I could be mistaken though. I have to assume the ones they replaced the faulty ones were not faulty themselves!

They do replace the logic board - it is effectively a new computer, needing new authorisation with ITMS.