I’ve had three Dell laptops. I had to replace a hard drive on one after a funky electrical problem in neighborhood. I had to replace the hard drive. The computer is eight years old. It came with Vista, upgraded to Windows 7 then Windows 10.
I ran over my Dell laptop with my truck. Had to replace the screen. It’s 7 years old now and still working. I’ve upgraded the OS twice.
I think there were a lot of bad hard drives following the flooding in Thailand that closed so many manufacturing sites. A lot of second rate hard drives in use for a while.
I also have a Surface. It developed a yellow streak in the display within weeks. They replaced it. Same problem with the replacement.
My husband has been through 3 Toshiba laptops to my one Latitude.
If you put a lot of time on your laptop buy accordingly. Home use machines are not suitable for heavy users and business class users.