I've sent the laser back, and as soon as it arrives at its destination, I'll be issued a refund, which in turn I'll put toward a used PS2. @Mish mentioned quite a while ago that a fat PS2 is for the win, but doing my own research, slim PS2s are more reliable and last longer, even though my slim PS2s have only lasted about two years, with two exceptions: There was one that only lasted about a year, though that might have been the one where it was just the CD laser that went out, preventing me from playing PS games. (The same one that went completely out two weeks ago.) I don't remember. The other one is my refurbished one that lasted about four years and went out last year in April. I don't remember how long my original fat one lasted.
I'd personally go for the Slim, but that's just because from personal experience, when we got the PS2 on our first day, it broke on us and my parents had to return it for a full refund and got a slim one instead, and it's lasted almost..11 years...I think? Now granted, I haven't used it in a very long time ('bout 2 years or so), but if I were to put it in, I'm sure it'll play as well as before. Not to say it didn't have trouble reading disks sometimes, and we had to put something heavy on the disk reader to keep it down enough for the thing to read stuff as times, but maybe I'm just biased? Kinda makes me think I should just turn the darn thing in, since I don't use it, and the only thing at this point I could use it for is play Legend of Dragoon easily, since emulating on my computer is a giant pain getting it to read the disk alone, but everything else is either on PS4, or coming to PS4 (.Hack//GU Last Recode can't get here fast enough)
It was a pretty formal and insightful recommendation to him when you said "for the win" and by no means an informal acknowledgment of an item you owned and enjoyed. How could you forget
New PS2 ordered about three hours ago. Condition: Used - Very Good. $81.54 and free shipping. It's worth it.