Have you ever regretted not buying extended warranty for laptops ?

Have you ever regretted not buying an extended warranty plan for laptops ?

How long do you usually get the warranty for ?

Also, in case you had a 3 year warranty, have you encountered the phenomenon of a laptop failing in its 4th year (or is this only specific to thinkpads?)

 

Three years ago, I was going to buy the extended warranty for my G4and I didn't. Last year, the harddrive went out and I had to install a new one myself. I saved money, but if it hadn't been for the Applestore "Genius" doing me a favor, i would have lost a lot of data.

If you are afraid to fix things yourself, get the warranty.

 

This is a tough one! The people who sell make a lot of money on these! I am poor and the fact that if it does not break in 1 year I doubt MFG defect. Once you get past that, I do not expect to get hit by lightning or win the Lotto. So I don't expect problems w/lappie! I do not buy extended warranty's on electronics. Also none of them I know of cover data recovery!

 

I'm more concerned with things that cannot be replaced easily - motherboards, backlights etc.

 

Check out
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=32267
It indicates there is a high chance of a thinkpad failing in year 3 & 4

 

I buy it at the time of purchase. As you said, expensive things like screens and motherboards make me really nervous.

I had a 3 year warranty on my old Inspiron 600m...had a bad mobo and bad screen in the first 18 months, totally paid for itself.

 

Almost every friend in college (we all graduated this May) who bought a T40 frosh year from the school had at least one major failure (motherboard, HD or screen) by senior year.

Of course, they gave us all 3-year warranties, so a lot of people had out-of-warranty failures their last semester of Engineering majors... ouch.

Yup, those T40s really cooked themselves good. That "legendary Thinkpad reliability" and "road warrior level quality" really showed how many different ways a laptop can fail.

Our school now sells all machines with 4 year warranties.

 

When I bought my Averatec 6130hs in 2004 from Sams Club I bought the 3 year extended warranty and I haven't used it yet. When I bought my HP NC8430 I didn't need to be an extended warranty because it comes with a standard 3 year warranty.

 

depends on the person, i don't plan to use my computer much more than 2 years, most likely i'll be tempted to sell this laptop in 2 years and buy a new one anyways. I bought mine laptop for little over 600 and in 2 years I'll probalby be able to sell it for 400.
so in 4 years, it'll cost me $200 to receive 4 years worth of warranty(never needed warranty in my past 10 years though) and significant hardware upgrade over the original laptop. VS the alternative of spending $800 for the same computer but with longer warranty, use it for 4 years(with the last 2 years stuck with subpar performance) and in the end probably only be able to sell it for $200.

 

Unless they had red my sig and bought with a CC, then the repair would have been covered
But seriously, I totally get what you mean. In our group also, the t40s somehow autodestructed just after the 3 year warranty expired

 

I have got a 3yr extended one, my gpu failed just short of a year (literally a few days before). So i asked myself the question, what if i didnt extent it, and it failed after my 1yr warranty? It would have cost me half my laptop...

 

In case you had a 3 year warranty, have you encountered the phenomenon of a laptop failing in its 4th year (or is this only specific to thinkpads?)

 

If you are accident prone, clumsy, or just plain unlucky on a regular basis, I think a 3 warranty is right for you.

 

i sold a P3 toshiba 1900-303 in feb to my uncle and that i bought in jan 2003 and i didnt buy any ext on that and its still going strong as in nothing broken or defective.

i thinks its down to handling, tho i did have a sony laptop in 2001 that had a malfunctioning cd writer after 2 month but that was replaced under warranty.

warranties depend on cost of laptop i would say....
more expensive the higher the priority for a ext warranty

 

Yes,

Had a Toshiba laptop that died once before the 1 year Warranty and then died again about a month after the 1 year Warranty died.

My next Toshiba I got the three year and had it repaired a couple of times within the three years, well worth the money given that both times a new motherboard was required.

 

The only machine I ever bought an extended warranty on was an old desktop bought back in 2003. I used it to replace a faulty CD writer... and that's it. Total waste of money. My Toshiba has til mid October on it's standard 1 year warranty. Unless it's a major issue like motherboard or screen I could fix it myself anyway for small money. Something larger and I'd just buy a new laptop.

 

I got the 3year dell XPS warranty thing, and boy did it help me out.
Had my desktop since october '05.
I'm on graphics board number 5. I OC'd the hell out of my 6800's because I was angry that the 7800 came out A WEEK AFTER I had ordered.
Dell eventually upgraded me to a 7900gs for free, but still, my overclocking days are over soon as my lappy shows up.

I wouldn't want to risk having it go out of spec. and blow up.

Basically, if you want to OC something without overvolting and want it under warranty, its fine.

I for one would never NOT get a warranty (throwaway society FTW), though I suppose that putting an expensive laptop on insurance would be an even better idea.

 

Im much more concerned with something like dropping the laptop or stepping on it, or having it get rained on in a backpack, or damaged in travel than any defects, or easily fixable things like replacing ram or hard drives.

I also have a 17 month old who likes to destroy things.

My wife and I both destroyed our cell phones in the past month - I had mine in a plastic bag with my lunch, and the salad container broke and the phone was soaked in salad dressing for a few hours -destroyed. She had a bottle of water in her purse open, and destroyed hers that way.

Those were just $100 cell phones. With a laptop, the chances of something happening to it are just too great. Accidental damage protection is a must, for us.

If you dont use it, great! Waste of money? Not really. You had peace of mind that entire time. Thats worth a lot.

 

I kinda am right now... man these dell inspirons are built well