Here's my top Seven Uses For An Older Laptop:
7. Recycle - Clean your hard drive (there's a good how-to on ZDNet) and then take it to a recyling center. Here's a good resource for finding a recycling center near you.
6. Donate to Charity or to family/friends. This is a no-brainer and if you give it to charity or schools there are sometimes tax benefits to doing so.
5. Games Media and/or Music - You could install Mame and run games on your laptop or you could install a
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4. Roll back the Operating System to a less power-hungry operating system. Linux will do the trick.
3. Upgrade Hardware - it might just be in need of more memory for the applications it is running. If it can handle a memory upgrade, sometimes this is the cheapest and easiest route to go. Another useful hardware upgrade is adding a wireless card for wireless internet access.
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2. Strip it for parts. You can extract the DVD player to be used in another
PC if it is worthy. You can also strip the hard drive and buy a hard-drive enclosure. I've done this with an old laptop and use the hard drive as an external, backup hard drive.
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1. Digital Picture Frame - this is of course my personal favorite since this
is what I chose to do. It was fun, useful and is an attention-getter when we have guests over. For more on how I converted my wifes old laptop into a digital picture frame Read My Recent Post on How I Did It.
If you have any other ideas for old laptops, let me know in the comments.