Notebooks: Wise to pinch pennies in Warranties?

[S4]

I'm sure we've all built our dream machines on paper or in our minds before. They have the latest and greatest hardware to hit the market, guaranteed to be the envy of all........Then the dreaded "budget" ( Married guy terminology for: the amount of money we can spend without the wife finding out!) comes into the picture.

My situation: I'm looking at a Dell Inspiron, I have it all configured but I'm over "budget". Would it be wise to pinch a few pennies off the warranty and go from a 3 year to a one year?

For the most part, the notebook will not be traveling. Basically the farthest it will travel is from the computer room to the living room. Where my wife tells me the rest of the family hangs out. hmmm

Worth the pinch or not?? Any thoughts would be appreciated

 

[dullard]

For desktops the extra warranty is usually a complete waste of money. For example suppose you can spend $300 more to upgrade from 2 years to 5 years. In 4 years would you rather have $300 cash or replacement part for a slow dying computer that you probably don't use much anymore? Heck with $300 you could easily purchase several 4 year old computers... If a part goes bad just after the 2 years warranty expires, your $300 probably is more than enough to cover the cost of a 2 year old replacement part. Studies have shown that 90% of the money you spend on an extra warranty is pure profit to the company (and you average getting 10% back).

Laptops are different. LCDs have a much, much higher failure rate than CRTs. Trust me, they can be bad faster than you can blink your eye. Replacement parts for a laptop could run $500-$1000 easily. So your $300 won't cover you if it fails just after the warranty expires.

Truely will you use your laptop in 3 years? If so, get a 3 year warranty. If you think you will get a new laptop in 2 years, then don't spend the money on a 3 year warranty. It isn't as cut and dry as with the desktop computer. Dell was sneaky by not allowing the really useful 2 year warranty.

 

[SteelCityFan]

I pinched on mine.. I got the cheapest possible.. (1 year everything). It is my understanding that Dell will allow you to purchase an extension at later date as long as you are within your original warrantee...I may end up doing that depending on my experiences with the machine in the first year. I would ask about that though since I am not 100% sure.

I am also of the opinion that if something is going to go wrong, it is going to go wrong within the first year.

 

[apoppin]

Get the FREE extended warranty by purchasing with a "premium" credit card (e.g., VISA Gold).

It will double the manufacturers's warranty (to a full extra year - TWO years on your notebook!).

 

[SteelCityFan]

Hmm.. I ordered with a Platinum Mastercard. I'll have to look into their extended warrentee programs...

 

[S4]

Thanks for the quick input!

apoppin - I always forget about the "double the warranty" clause on those cards. Probably be the first time I ever got anything other than a monthly statement out of Master Card!!

I also agree that if something is going to go wrong under normal use it will happen within the first year. But then again I don't have much experience with LCD's.

Anyone have experience with Dell warranties or problems with LCD warranty coverage?

 

[apoppin]

I am on my 3rd month in Hawaii with my Dell Inspiron 4100 (back to Cali in about 3 weeks) . . . really happy with the notebook ( . . . Hawaii is OK . . . . . . )

I think 2 years is sufficient warranty . . . by then, I think I would be thinking of (selling it &) upgrading it about that time . . .

 

[RossMAN]

<< Get the FREE extended warranty by purchasing with a "premium" credit card (e.g., VISA Gold).

It will double the manufacturers's warranty (to a full extra year - TWO years on your notebook!). >>



apoppin is right. Make sure to buy your laptop with a major credit credit (Amex Blue, VISA or MASTERCARD) which offers to double a manufacturer's warranty for FREE.

 

[staticfly]

get the longer warrenty. I did what you plan to do, skip on the warrenty. I have a inspiron 3800 and things started going wrong within a couple of months. I extended it to 3 years for that reason. I can't do anything to fix a laptop aside from replacing the hd (already had THAT done) and thats not a cheap repair either. Things do break after a year on laptops, get the longer warrenty now, it will cost more later.

 

[hans007]

allright for note books usually if you take care of them they should be fine. the lcd backlight might day in the 1-2 year range, but thats not that expensive to get fixed usually. as long as you dont crack the lcd, its probably not worth paying extra for an extended warranty.


also if its more then 2 years old, the extra 200-400 best buy or something would charge you would be wasted. your laptop would totally suck by then. i take dcare of my laptops so i dont really worry.


also i never understood how those credit card warranties work. like who handles the warranty? i mean the manufacturer doesnt know what credit card you used. do you send it in to your card company?

 

[Conroy9]

i always get the 3-year warranty for notebooks.

the difference to me isn't anything about the failure rate, but that it's much harder to fix things yourself in a notebook than a PC.
Of the different notebooks i've had (from different manufacturers), i've had
1) power supply intermittently stopped receiving power
2) random keys fail on the keyboard
3) battery all of a sudden maxes out at 80% capacity, after very little use (computer is plugged in all the time)
4) refusal to boot (computer would power up, spin drives for 8 secs, then power back down)

all of these problems are a bit of a pain to solve on a laptop, and can pretty much happen at any time.
notebooks are also more expensive, so you might not want to replace it as often...

 

[Sunner]

I agree on going with the longer warranty on a laptop.

They tend to experience much more problems that desktop's, mostly since you move them around alot.