But when you start factoring in price, and the dismal state of the economy, keeping your PC upgraded to the cutting edge loses its appeal fast. Put another way, can you save money by keeping or even buying an older laptop? With a collection of new and older laptops, I set out to see if PC makers are right, or just blowing smoke. This story isn’t designed to sell you a new PC, or to argue that you should hold on to your older PC. Instead, I unearthed a lightly used, 7-year-old laptop instead: the Microsoft Surface Laptop 3, a device from the pre-pandemic Before Times.