Hard Protective Cases are Useless
They’re made of thin, brittle plastic that doesn’t absorb shock – it transmits it. If you drop your laptop, the rigid case just spreads the impact across the aluminum chassis underneath. There’s no cushioning. No crumple zone. No meaningful protection.
Compare that to a phone case. A good phone case is soft, rubberized, and designed with shock absorption in mind – curved corners, impact buffers, raised lips. Laptop hard cases? They’re just snap-on sheets of plastic that look protective but do very little besides trap heat and scratch your laptop.
Keep it Clean!
A basic microfiber cloth and lens cleaner will do the trick. Spray the cloth, not the laptop. Wipe the screen, then flip to the dry side to polish. Same goes for the chassis. Gentle circular motions will lift most grime without issue.
You should also regularly clean the keyboard. We get disgusted with some of these laptops we get to see… Keyboard covers are useless. They are more likely to press against the screen, which can lead to smudging and worse, cracking. You can use a soft airbrush (or even a make-up brush!) to sweep under the keys. The same cloth and screen cleaner solution can be used for the keyboard as well.
Hinges are Typically the Weakest Part
Laptop hinge failures are a surprisingly common issue, especially in consumer-grade models that rely on plastic mounts to secure the hinge mechanism. Over time, repeated opening and closing of the lid creates stress where the hinge attaches to the chassis. If the plastic housing around those hinge screws isn’t reinforced properly, it eventually cracks or snaps off entirely. Once that happens, the hinge loses structural support and starts pulling on the surrounding casing every time you open or close the lid – sometimes causing more damage than the original break.
This kind of failure is mostly seen in cheaper laptops or even some mid-range models that focus more on style and thinness than on build durability. When the plastic gives way, you might hear creaking sounds, feel extra resistance when opening the lid, or notice the screen starting to lift away from the base. If ignored, the hinge can literally rip through the casing, damage the display cable, or stop the laptop from closing properly. Repairing this usually involves either reinforcing the broken area with epoxy or, in worse cases, replacing the entire palm rest assembly – which isn’t cheap.
Don’t Buy an Underpowered Device
Even if your needs are basic, don’t go near a cheap laptop. Most budget models aren’t built to last much beyond the warranty period – and you can feel it. The build quality is flimsy, the performance lags, and the internals are usually outdated from day one. If you’re stuck with a slow processor (like Intel Celeron, early i3s, AMD Athlon or entry-level Ryzen 3), minimal RAM (anything under 16GB is a bottleneck in 2025), or tiny storage, you’ll quickly hit a wall. Your laptop ends up working overtime just to keep up with basic tasks.
Think about it this way: most people wouldn’t buy a car with 80 horsepower, even just for city errands. So why gamble on a $600 plastic laptop you actually use for hours every day?
Battery Tips That Actually Matter
Leave it plugged in? Sure. Most laptops intelligently bypass the battery when it’s full. What does matter is how fast you charge. The faster chargers actually heat up the battery during charging, so in the long run, its capacity is reduced. Great when you’re on the run. Not ideal for daily use. If your laptop supports USB-C charging (most do nowadays), you can get a 30W or 45W charger for overnight charging. It trickles power slowly, keeps battery temps lower, and extends longevity.
Here is an example of my own Lenovo ThinkPad laptop. It’s over a year old and spends 99% of its time plugged into my external screen that also charges it.
In any case, laptop batteries usually last two to five years. We can easily replace laptop batteries that no longer keep decent charge and it doesn’t cost much.
The #1 Reason Your Laptop Feels Slower Over Time
Clutter. That’s it. Leaving dozens of apps open, installing apps and never removing them, skipping updates, running with your SSD at 95% full – these are the things that bog your system down.
If you have a basic laptop with just 8GB of RAM and small storage like 128GB or 256GB, you need to leave at least 50GB free space for swap and breathing room. Restart your laptop once a week. Close your apps. Disable or remove the programs you no longer use. And do the updates when prompted!
Need help? Come talk to us and we will do the much-needed TLC!
