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It's a Samsung Notebook that I got back in 2012 after I graduated college.

Back then it looked cool, heck - ANYTHING looked cool. During college we got really **** laptops from Lenovo. They were clunky and awful to use. I knew I wanted a new laptop as a college graduation gift.

I didn't realize the drawbacks until long after stuff started happening to it. Firstly, it has an internal battery. The battery started spazzing early last year. It was something subtle that I didn't realize was happening because I was just busy doing my writing on my laptop. So the battery could have been dying earlier than that.

Now my battery hardly lasts 30 minutes. It gives horrible estimates as to how much battery life there is left.

I'm really confused as to how to properly treat your laptop battery. It seems to go both ways. In college everyone said that when it's at 100% you should take out the charger and let it drain, then charge back to 100% again. Then I found out that was a terrible idea and it's what drains your battery in the first place. Then I find more counter arguments saying it's a myth that draining your battery is a bad idea. So I don't even know.

It's also rather annoyingly delicate. These little things near the fan on the bottom keep breaking off - it's superficial but still - really? I just hold it by the bottom for like ten minutes and those little pieces come off. One of the USB ports on the side, which I really liked to use, broke. I wanted to fix it but apparently that port is part of the motherboard, so it would need more extensive repair.

I then also realized too late that the graphics power on this laptop is utter crap. It has Intel Graphics 3000 or whatever - basically the bottom of the barrel. At the time I didn't think about wanting to play games because I'm not much of a PC gamer other than emulators and old PC games I still play. But over time I became attracted to more games and also I started making a machinima and the graphics limitation is a bit of a pain.

Long story short, I don't know if it's worth it to fix the battery at least. Or I may want to get something else in the future once I've stocked up on cash. Or maybe even a desktop instead - it's been ages since I had a desktop. I was wondering what laptops/desktops people had and how good they were.

In my experience, leaving laptops plugged in all the time is what kills the battery. I haven't had any issues with them at all since I started only charging my laptop while I'm using it.

Other thoughts:
- Laptop batteries tend to run $40-$80 depending on the model. They're very easy to replace, but make sure to test the rest of your hardware if you go that route. Batteries can sometimes take other components down with them, and once you start replacing the more expensive parts, it's hard to argue against just buying a new computer.

- Ports are almost always going to be direct motherboard attachments on a laptop. Motherboards are actually pretty cheap as far as components go, (mainstream range in desktops is $50-$100) but replacing one in a laptop is going to be a major pain.

- Intel 3000 is pretty useless, but the 4000 can be surprising. I can't run some simple 2D games at any settings on my laptop (w/ 2.2 ghz i-5 and 4 GB RAM), but XCOM is completely playable and Borderlands runs at max settings. Also, this laptop cost about $300, and one that performed similarly with a dedicated GPU ran $1k a few years earlier. I wouldn't bother with dedicated graphics unless you're desperate to play things on the go.

- Buying a laptop is a nightmare because manufacturers are aware that the average consumer has no idea what any of the numbers in the specs mean. You can get a reasonable laptop for under $400, but you can also spend $1000 and get an absolute piece of crap. If you decide to buy another, make sure to research what you need and remember that more money does not remotely equate to a better system. Anything that can handle most recent games at any settings is generally going to run $800+, unfortunately.

- Desktops are more of a mixed bag. If you're willing to build one yourself (which isn't nearly as hard as people make it out to be), $500-$600 can net you a system capable of running everything out there at max or near max settings, and you could squeeze a budget-but-still-decent system out for something in the $300-$400 range. Pre-made desktops tend to add a a few hundred on top of what it would cost to build it yourself, but they're also priced more reasonably than laptops.

Batteries are voodoo magic. It varies between brand, manufacturer, chemical base...

My computer took a crap, too. It was a used p.o.s I got off Facebook so I didn't expect much out of it.

Laptops are kind of a crapshoot, similar to buying any namebrand desktop. What's a good line one year might end up with crap transistors and cut corners the next. It all comes down to knowing what the parts are, reading user testimonials and trying to find what people say is good for use, knowing what your needs are and then figuring out how high above those needs you should buy to be safe. Because laptops are working with very little space and they are still frequently just using parts from other manufacturers, you could end up with usability problems in something as simple as the mousepad.

If you have a question about any individual part, I and others may offer our opinions, but if it comes down to apples to oranges (should I get nvidia or ati, etc) it's always going to be a matter of preference.

Regarding your USB problems, don't get your hopes too high about a newer system being more durable. Wear and tear on a portable computer is usually going to be pretty high, and USB is a bit finicky already. I've had ports quit working and then come back from the dead just because I reseated the motherboard, etc.

Overall, I wouldn't really recommend a laptop for gaming or editing video, as high end graphics can burn out pretty fast. It's more sensible to have a desktop-like system where you can swap out modules as you need to.