Keep Above
New or used laptop
A new laptop against a used or refurbished one — two ways to own the same thing. Each side takes its price, what it would sell for after the years you'd keep it, its running costs, and — if it's financed — the interest, and lands on a cost per year. The sale values start from commonly cited laptop depreciation figures, marked EST.; every one is an estimate you can overwrite, and no winner is ever declared.
Not counted while this is $0
Sets where it enters the depreciation curve
Not counted while this is $0
Put in what each one would cost. Nothing here is read from your budgets, and nothing is saved.
| New | Used | |
|---|---|---|
| Paid up front | — | — |
| Value lost | — | — |
| Loan interest | — | — |
| Running costs | — | — |
| Total over 5 years | — | — |
| Cost a year | — | — |
| Cost a month | — | — |
What carries the answer when a laptop costs almost nothing to run?
A laptop puts very little in the running-costs box: it draws a small amount of power, needs no registration and carries no insurance of its own, so both sides are often left at $0. That leaves the price minus what it would sell for at the end doing nearly all the work, and the two resale figures are then most of what the cost per year reflects. Because the years field moves the divisor and the resale estimate at the same time, the per-year figures shift even when neither price has been touched.
A used laptop may have come out of a company fleet at the end of a lease, in which case it arrives with a working life already behind it and a battery that has been through that life with it. A replacement battery, a memory or storage change, and a warranty that may not follow the machine to a second owner have no fields of their own, so they belong in the price or in running costs rather than outside the comparison.
This is one of the tools built into Keep Above
Keep Above is a budgeting app where you enter your bills and income and it works out the balance you need to keep — so you can see what's safe to spend. No bank connection, no ads on your data.
New against used resolves into a cost per year across the years something is kept — which budgeting apps forecast your balance, and how far ahead.
About this calculator
How is each side counted?
One formula for both, cash or loan: the price, plus any loan interest, plus running costs over the years you'd keep it, minus what it would sell for at the end. Selling mid-loan settles the remaining balance, and if the sale wouldn't cover it the shortfall is stated as a fact.
Where do the laptop sale estimates come from?
Picking the laptop category seeds both sale fields from commonly cited published depreciation ranges for laptops — broad averages, marked EST., never a valuation of a particular machine. The specification a machine was built to is not part of the average, so a heavily specified laptop and a basic one of the same age arrive at the field with the same seeded figure. Type your own figure and the estimate steps aside; "Use estimate" brings it back.
Why does the used laptop have an age field?
Because a used machine joins the depreciation curve partway along: how much value the next few years would take off depends on how old it already is. The estimate reads nothing else. A battery that has been through a working life does not reach that starting figure, and neither does the condition the machine came back in, so both are yours to price in.
Where does a battery or storage upgrade go on a laptop?
In the price if it would be done before the machine is used, and in running costs if it would fall somewhere inside the years you would keep it. The calculator has no separate field for either, and both are the kind of cost that lands on one side only, which is why leaving them out understates whichever side would need them. A machine that would need neither takes nothing extra, and both boxes can stay at $0.
Why is no winner shown?
Because the figures that decide it — what a particular one would really sell for, what it would really cost to run — are estimates only you can make. The page states both results identically and leaves the call with you. Nothing is read from anywhere, nothing is saved, and nothing here is financial advice.