“Why don’t laptops have good resale value?”

(Answer requested by Andrea Hemphill)

Laptops usually get resold when something’s broken or becoming obsolete.

Laptops can be hard to work on. Even routine upgrades — simply adding RAM or installing a faster hard drive — sometimes require special tools or knowledge, and may be actively prohibited by the manufacturer’s warranty.

It’s even worse for tightly-integrated components like the keyboard or screen: When they break or wear out, the replacement parts plus labor can exceed the cost of a whole new unit. You also can only do exact replacements: You can’t splice on a higher-def screen than the rest of the laptop supports, for example.

And truly major upgrades — like changing the CPU — are effectively impossible.

Plus, portable devices are often subjected to more wear and tear (or even outright abuse) than desktop units.

All of which means that old laptops and notebooks tend to not to hold their value.

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