Onsite or depot warranty?

I am interested in a 3 year warranty on a high end R61 or T61 Lenovo laptop for home use, but unsure whether to get an onsite or depot warranty.

I understand that in the later year(s) of a warranty, the entire laptop may be replaced by a new model intead of repaired, if the original model has been discontinued or parts are unavailable.

If that is true, is a replacement with a newer model more likely to happen with a depot or onsite warranty? or does it matter?

Fuzzy

 

Onsite is better than Depot.
The replacement thing: it doesn't matter.

 

Onsite (generally) means they come fix your laptop at your place, while Depot means you would have to send it in (or they come pick it up) and they return it to you.
Onsite therefor is the better option. Not everything can be fixed directly (obviously). But for "smaller" issues, you won't have to miss your laptop for hours/days/weeks.

 

I really like the idea of an onsite warranty but....

There are too many horror stories on this and other forums detailing how onsite techs butchered someone’s notebook. Things like scratches, misaligned parts and left over parts are common.

My impression is that onsite techs are likely to be less familiar with Lenovo because they fix multiple brands, and this inexperience can lead to shoddy repairs. Where the depot techs work on nothing but Lenovo and tend to do better work.

Do a search and you will see what I mean. Here are a few examples:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=2546801&postcount=75
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=1754686&postcount=12

 

A related question I had was how long a warranty is really necessary? Three years seems like a good deal but if I really need to shave a few bucks off the final price would one or two years be enough, or would that just be 'penny wise and pound foolish', as the saying goes?

My trusty pre-Lenovo R50p has been rock solid but I don't really know how well the latest generation will hold up by comparison. Any recommendations would be appreciated.

 

If you don't plan to upgrade soon... get 3.

 

How long do you want to keep your laptop? After 2 years the new technology out there will probably dwarf the T61. I think 2 years of warrenty is a good deal.

 

For IBM I went with the 4 year total care depot, it had only cost $25 for the last year.
As for how long to get one, I would go based on the estimated time you will be using it, my last laptop is 7 years old and still going as fast as a PIII 1ghz, 256mb can chug, it also works as a great space heater

 

Since i have a way around i went with a extra 2 year with depot(1yr onsite vs 2yr depot)

 

If you asked this question a month ago I would have said depot. I would have argued that the depot has a better supply of parts and can probably do a better job repairing your laptop.

However, I have actually experienced depot repair and now, from experience, I would say get the on-site repair. It has been more than 3 weeks since I sent my laptop to the depot and they still haven't been able to fix it or even pinpoint what exactly the problem is. They swapped the motherboard twice and the CPU once and it was still non-functional. Apparently their replacement parts were defective! After complaining a lot I was able to get a loaner laptop but that was only after being without my laptop for about 10 days.

There have also been 2 parts back-orders so far on my repair case, and all my communications with the depot have been VERY unsatisfactory. You can't talk to the techs who work on your machine, and the people you can talk to only have vague status updates. If you want clarification you get the excuse "well I'm just reading you what the tech wrote" but you can't ask the tech for clarification, they don't let you talk to them. If you had on-site repair you would at least know what the hell is going on. I had to get in touch with someone higher up in the company who then contacted the techs to find out what was going on. Even then and after much delay, I never got an answer that wasn't second-hand or third-hand information.

So, based on this experience, I have lost whatever fair I had in the troubleshooting skills and parts availability of the depot and would reccommend on-site repair. In fact I have lost a lot of faith in Lenovo in general but I won't get into that because there is a small chance they might still do right by me. I'm hoping for a happy ending to all this but as of right now there's no end in sight to my troubles. I was told a few days ago that since it was taking so long, I would just be given a new laptop and not have to wait for the repair... but I haven't gotten any confirmation of that yet or any ETA on when I can expect it. I just have to wait and hope I don't get screwed.

 

Goodness Hellbore, I was just looking at your configuration. It's identical to mine.