Reasons to Fix Your Hardware

All IT Equipment will one day die and need replacing. All equipment will eventually blow a circuit, get dropped one too many times, or short its main board, but determining the end of life for hardware can vary widely depending on the equipment type and your specific industry. But before you reach for your bosses check book here are some reasons not to replace your hardware, at least not just yet!

1. It’s often, very often, cheaper to repair existing hardware rather than replace it. Third party repair companies can normally repair IT hardware for 20 to 40% of the replacement cost, and this applies to a wide range of equipment from consumer electronics, POS and Barcode equipment, tablets and laptops and most everything, really.

2. Repaired equipment normally is covered by a comprehensive warranty. Reputable repair companies will give you a six months warranty on the complete unit, and not just the initial problem. They will stand behind their repairs.

3. Sometimes new equipment will have some kind of game changing functionality that older hardware doesn’t have. Or perhaps there are security issues with the older equipment. In these cases it makes sense to buy new, but that’s not common. Older hardware won’t look as sexy as the new stuff, but the functionality is normally much the same and it’s way cheaper!

4. New equipment can be a pain! Roll outs can be difficult – you can suffer from bugs, DOAs, recalls and cost over runs. Hardware roll outs in the field are expensive too, as you may have to contract a third party to do it for you.

5. It’s just greener man! The world has a mountain of used IT hardware that it doesn’t know what to do with. Read more about how not to handle e-waste. It’s just better for the environment to re-use and recycle in all areas of life, including IT hardware.