Qns regarding Dell Warranty for 1530

I am planning purchase Dell 1530 notebook. But the basic model which they have is only with 1 year warranty. And if i need to add additional 2 year warranty i have to pay another 299$.
I am basically from India and right now in USA for my work. I may go back to India may be in another 1-2 years.

Considering the above is 3 year warranty worth $299? (Dell customer care told me that i may

Can you guys suggest me what will be the optimum number of years for warranty?

I am looking for a nice looking laptop with good performance. I will be using the laptop for basic home use and some light gaming(Not a hard core gamer). IAnd i am looking for laptop in the range of 1300-1400 USD.

Below is my configuration with 4% DPA discount and 25% coupon discount applied. Let me know what you guys think about this configuration. Is it worth the money or i can get another config with same price

XPS M1530, Intel Core 2 Duo Processor T8300 (2.4GHz/800MHzFSB, 3M L2 Cache)
Tuxedo Black Casing XPS M1530
3GB, DDR2, 667MHz 2 Dimm, for XPS M1530
15.4 inch Wide Screen WXGA+ TrueLife LED LCD with Camera for XPS M1530
256MB NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT
250GB 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive for XPS M1530
Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium Edition, English
Media Direct 3.5
DELL SUPPORT 3.4,DIM/INSP
Internet Search and Portal
Icon Consolidation Application
Vista, PC-Restore, Dim/Insp
Dell Owners Manual installed on your system,click on icon after system set-up to access
DELL RESOURCE DVD,BACK-UP, XPSM1530
Turbine Lord of the Rings Online
ADOBE ACROBAT READER 8.1 DIM/INSP
8X DVD+/-RW Slot Load Drive for XPSM1530
Roxio Creator DE 10
Integrated High Definition Audio 2.0
Dell Wireless 1395 802.11g Mini Card
McAfee SecurityCenter 15-month
56 WHr 6-cell Lithium Ion P Primary Battery, for XPS M1530
No Internet Service Provider Requested
No Productivity Software requested
No Productivity Software requested
Soft Contracts - Qualxserve
3 Year Limited Warranty
Warranty Support,2 Year Extended
Warranty Support,Initial Year
Dell Hardware Warranty PlusOnsite Service, Extended Year(s)
Type 15- Third Party At HomeService with Nights and Weekends, 24x7 Technical Support,2 Year Extended
Dell Hardware Warranty PlusOnsite Service, Initial Year
Type 15- Third Party At Home Service with Nights and Week ends, 24x7 Technical Support, Initial Year
Dell Wirless 355 Bluetooth Module (2.0+EDR)
Finger Print Reader XPS M1530
You have chosen a Windows Vista Premium System
Intel Core 2 Duo Processor
15.4 inch Black Wide Screen WX+ LED TrueLife LCD with 2.0 MP Camera for XPS M1530
Camera Software XPS M1530 2.0MP
DataSafe Online Dim/Ins/XPS
DataSafe Online Dim/Ins/XPS 1YR-FREE
Insp Datasafe 3GB,1YR(Incl in price),DHS
To activate your online backupaccount, go to Start, Programs, DataSafe Online
Special Offer - $50 off (included in price)
S and P Drop-in-Box Marcom forDHS Notebooks

Subtotal: $1,369.75
Shipping and Handling: $0.00
Sales Tax: $75.33
Total: $1,445.08

Thanks for your help.

 

Any help guys?

 

Seems like a good configuration to me.

As for the warranty, it's kind of tough to ask others for help on whether or not you should buy a warranty. In order to give some advice I would need to know how you plan on using it. Will you be traveling a lot with it? Will you take it on day to day trips to the office/coffee shop or will it just sit at home? Are you going to take it to the beach to use while swimming? Are you going to leave it sitting unattended in a room full of strangers with criminal records? These are all pressing questions to take in to account when buying a warranty. Generally though, if you are buying a machine that costs a large sum of money and you plan to not buy a new laptop for a long time, at least buy a 3 year parts and labour warranty which is only an extra $120 or something. $40 a year to protect against hardware faults isn't too bad for a computer that costs around $1500.

 

Thanks RJT.

I mostly use it in my home. And will not be travelling it with very frequently. may be 4-5 times in an year when i travel to a different city for some vacation. Also i am not worried about theft as we are living in a failry nice place. And i will not be taking the laptop to outside places like beaches or coffee shops.

This is the additionl 2 warranty option i am seeing in my cart,

An Additional Year of Service Upgrade Your Years of Service. Choose 2 Years of At Home Service and protect your investment!
(If Complete Care selected, number of years must match Warranty term)
$199.00

An Additional 2 Years of Service
Upgrade Your Years of Service. Choose 3 Years of At Home Service and protect your investment! $299.00

 

I got only the 1 year warranty, if you're on a small budget, then I would use that $300 on other things rather than warranty, if I was you, I would get the T9300 2.5Ghz instead of the T8300 2.4Ghz, the T9300 got double the cache.. I would get wireless n, get the 2GB RAM instead of 3GB, then buy a 4GB kit off newegg for like $50 or something, 1 year is a long time and if the laptop is gonna mess up, its gonna mess up in the first year..
Just my suggestion..

 

ok thanks Leflix. I was very inclined to take T9300 and wireless N, but backed out because of my budget .

Anybody has any other suggestions?

 

This is just my experience from working with dell laptops, and i have only had one other one besides my current one, and it has been an excellent machine, however about halfway through the 2nd year of owning it, the thing started to act funny and then totally quit on me.

i had dells complete customer care package, and called the guys at dell, they ordered me a new motherboard (i told them i thought this was the problem, for trouble shooting problems dell is not the greatest, IMO) and the tech was at the house within a couple of days at my convenience, took him about an hour to put the new mobo in and it was good to go again.

i dont mean to scare you into buy a warranty and i honestly usually never buy warranties but i was glad i had this one!

i am kind of hard on my computers though, i take them into the woods a lot during the summer, too check trail cameras, so they ride on four wheelers, or atp, type vehicles.

also for an extra 20 or 25 dollars (not sure what they have them at right now) i would go with the wireless N, intel minicard. and if you can go with the lowest amount of ram for the machine, and then get the 4 gb kit off newegg.com or crucial.com, that should save you a bit of money. as for the 2.5 processor, thats up to you, i am not sure how much of a difference there is between the two.

 

hmmm...still not able to decide to go for warrranty or not

 

It`s cheaper to get the warranty now than to deal with repairs later. Laptop, unlike desktop, cost more to repair and are more difficult to fix. And it will have a better resale value should you decide to sell it while still under warranty.

I got mine with 3 years NDB onsite. I have peace of mind knowing Dell will send someone over with part to fix it if it breaks.

 

Thanks guys for the help. I am going with 3 year Warranty.

Also i will change the wireless to Inten N.

 

Hi,
I don't know if this helps you or not...but my 1530 was my first lappy, and it came with the 3 year warranty (which I was happy about). Then, I purchased the 3 year accidental for my own "piece of mind".

If, my lappy would've only came with a 1 year warranty, I would've bumped it up to a 3-year. I just wanted to keep myself covered per se