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!
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!