Unreliable Amilo PI1505 Should I Extend My Warranty?

I bought my first laptop in December 2006 an Amilo PI1505, the first one developed a screen fault within 2 weeks, it had a vertical bar around 2" wide lighter than the rest of the display. I returned the laptop for another. The second laptop just failed last week and is away for warranty repair. This time the screen just totally went but you could very faintly see the icons etc if you looked very very closely. I was advised that this was probably the invertor? Anyway it is away being repaired, part of me hopes that it will not be econimical to repair and I will get a refund, this is just wishful thinking and I cannot see it happening. My concern is that this laptop just has a 1 year warranty and if my past experiences are anything to go by I think I am going to end up with either expensive repair bills or a worthless piece of junk. Living in the UK laptops are a rip-off anyway this one was a pretty cheap one for around £550 ($1120). The 2 year extended warranty is £175 ($356). What I am wondering is asumming that this was an invertor failure, I read on another forum that the part was around £30 ($61). I do not know if this is true but if it is, is it a job that is easily carried out? I just wanted some ideas as maybe this is not the fault with the laptop, but I think the extended warranty price is a bit of a rip-off but I think it may be worth it. I guess you should expect cheap laptops to break, but mine has had little use and I am not really impressed with this brand and cannot see me ever buying another. Any ideas please?

 

The money you paid is gone. Forget about it.

Do you like the laptop enough to want to keep it running at the cost of 175 GBP? Keep in mind you can't buy a new laptop for that money, but you can keep the one you have alive. If you don't really like it and you don't really need it, you might be just as happy to let the amilo die and save the money for something you do like.

 

Yes I do like the laptop when it works so probably paying the extra for the warranty is worth it. Maybe the warranty will not be needed, but I think there is a good chance that it will. All that I was really wanting to know is can these type of failures i.e. screen invertor be replaced more cheapily yourself? Then I would not bother with the overpriced warranty for an unreliable product. I have never bothered with extended warranties as they always seem a total rip-off, but then again I have never owned something this unreliable.

 

Undoubtedly, you could probably replace the parts more cheaply yourself, provided you can find the part and get to it. Finding laptop parts can be very difficult from what I see on the boards. Also, you might not be able to easily get to the part you want to replace. To know for sure you if you could replace stuff you would have to try and disassemble your laptop. I tried to take mine apart (my son sprayed water all over it- long story) and found that I couldn't get to much without breaking lots of little plastic clips that hold the case together. I had to give up. You may or may not be in a similar position. I bought a warranty for as long as I wanted my notebook to stay functional. I use mine for work, so I got the 3 year warranty. But I also expected to stress mine out. No sedentary life of low cpu use for my laptop!

If you like the laptop and want to keep it working for the next year or two, buy the warranty. It is a bit of a gamble, in general, but it sounds like it would be a safe bet with your machine. Your time is worth money and you will spend a good bit of time trying to take things apart, find parts, etc. If you feel like you have a lemon (sounds like you might) and you don't like the state it's in when it comes back from repair shop, I suggest saving the money for a new laptop.