I’ll try to keep this specifically about laptops, but unfortunately some real-world concerns may have encouraged me to start this topic. Just want to warn you about that up-front.
Basically, my laptop is currently perfectly fine. It’s approaching its fourth year since I first bought it and booted it up (got it in April 2021), but still getting all the necessary security and firewall updates from Windows 11 and my antivirus; the mobile RTX 3060 still runs like a dream with the latest Eevee rendering tools combined with Ray Tracing; and it is still overkill for all but the most poorly-optimized commercial games out today (not that I have Steam installed anymore–just use my laptop for Blender and work these days, and my Steam Deck for gaming). Inevitably, it seems that the battery is dying and I can only use my laptop plugged in, but since I have always used it like a desktop (not really using it away from my desk) and my power settings are basically set so that it only uses the GPU’s full power when plugged into the wall, that’s a non-issue.
My original plan is to finally upgrade it around early-to-mid 2026–I think using this 5 whole years before even thinking about upgrading is a good middle ground of not being wasteful and envious of the “next big thing” all the time, while ensuring my hardware can still keep up with the latest power-hungry features of future Blender releases. However, I am growing a bit concerned about certain…tariffs I’m hearing about in the news lately that seem like they will raise the price of laptops, game consoles, and all of my other favorite hardware drastically if enacted, among many other things. Should I just bite the bullet and upgrade now while prices for laptops and basically everything else aren’t unbearable for me personally?
This is somewhat complicated by the fact I got my current laptop during the severe chip shortage and likely paid FAR more than was appropriate for an RTX 3060-equipped laptop due to that real-world event temporarily raising up hardware prices overall. The reason I didn’t hold out a couple years for things to balance out again was because my previous desktop suddenly died on me that year. Coincidentally, I got THAT desktop during another bad year for hardware prices, somewhere between 2015 and 2017 (can’t remember), when the early rise of Bitcoin and cryptocurrency supposedly caused hardware prices to spike for a while. I may not notice much difference if I have to over-pay for my hardware for the third time in a row in 2026, but on the other hand, this Black Friday may be my chance for me to finally break the cycle of me tending to upgrade hardware at the worst, most expensive times. Then I wouldn’t even have to think about this again until 2029 and 2030, and HOPEFULLY the world itself will finally be somewhat predictable again, if not better off, by then.
There’s also the matter of Blender generally not taking full advantage of any GPU (especially the sculpting or texture painting modes), making an upgrade to overly-beefy hardware overkill even in the best of times, and especially the ever-lurking fear that I might upgrade too early and be forced to miss out on any truly life-changing hardware innovations due to my general rule of hanging on to hardware for 5 years to minimize e-waste. NVidia insists that its RTX 50-series will not be overpriced like the current RTX 40-series, and it would be immensely cool to hold out for an RTX 5060-equipped laptop in 2026 like I originally planned, two full generations ahead of my current GPU and able to render ray traced Eevee scenes at a noticeably faster clip.
TL;DR the question remains: Should I just buy a new laptop while prices are lower than I’m used to, even if my current laptop could easily hold out for another year or two?