Clevo and extended warranty. Worth it?

I will have the funds soon for a new notebook and I have already settled on one of 3 Clevo's:

The W110ER with 8gb ram, an i5-3210M and 128gb Samsung 840 Pro ( starting with a barebones from RjTech )
The W370ET with 8gb ram, an i7-3630QM and 750gb HDD ( From Xotic )
The P151EM with 8gb ram, i7-3610QM, 750gb HDD and the GTX 670MX ( From ProStar as I can save $50 going with the 3610QM over the pointless 3630QM upgrade )

As far as performance goes, STALKER is the only demanding game series that has my attention and I find them highly re-playable and will likely be playing them for the next year or 2 along with TF2, CoD4, CnC Generals ZH w/Shockwave 1.1 and Red Faction ( the original : ) so even the W110ER is more than enough power for that I will be playing.

Here in lies the question of questions for me. Whatever unit I use will be my desktop replacement and will be powered on doing one thing or another 24/7 most likely. With a laptop being used this much, longevity is my main concern so can I trust all or any of the specified Clevo's not to let me down within the next 3 years?

From what I've read about the W110ER, while it is the fastest of it's kind it does seem to have a higher chance of failure than the other 2 laptops so would the mere $120 for the 3-year warranty be worth it for that unit? Also, though Clevo seems to have some of the highest build quality amongst laptop manufacturers, would I be safe for at least 3-years with these units and spend the extra $120 - $150 on upgrades or would that money be best spent on the warranty?

Configured as I plan to, the most expensive setup would be the P151EM at roughly $1,200 and the W110ER being the cheapest at about $975. I'd be comfortable spending that amount whether it include the 3-year warranty upgrade or redirecting the funds into hardware upgrades.

This may be the last time for the foreseeable future that I can make this kind of investment into any computer with preparations for going back to school and such. If the W110ER, WP370ET or P151EM are of high enough quality that failure should be the farthest form my mind, I wouldn't mind being able to slap an SSD or larger SSD in one of the machines to make the most of the hardware itself.

 

who is your reseller?

 

Excellent questions! The investment in the warranty or upgrades is a double edged sword; I think it depends on your technical knowledge. If you're technically inclined and proficient at working on systems yourself, then the warranty might not be necessary if you can do your own repairs. But if you don't feel entirely sure of yourself and don't have much experience, then the warranty is definitely something to take into consideration.

In any case, yes: Clevo's are solidly built!

 

oh, my bad, after re-reading your post, you havent chosen a reseller yet, i would recommend checking to see how the reseller handles its warranty, because some resellers, such as prostar does not allow you to do anything with your laptop, some even go as far as voiding the warranty if the back plate of your laptop is removed, thus you cannot clean or repaste at all. I would recommend xoticpc, since they allow you to do pretty much anything to your laptop, from cleaning, repasting to upgrading your CPU/GPU (baring any hard modifications).

while prostar's customer service is execellet, i would still recommend xoticpc

 

That is a fair assessment and recommendation by Silverfern. Just remember that if you don't have accidental coverage, and you unintentionally damage something, no warranty will not cover parts + labor. Extended warranties only supplement the length of time you are covered under normal wear and tear of the unit, unless specified otherwise.

 

@Silverfern, thanks for the nod!

I would recommend picking the computer that best fits your needs and not worry about which may have warranty issues. With computers it impossible to say which will have a problem because where there is an issue its because of a particular part. For example if you got the same hard drive in all three models then your chance of failure is the same. The best thing to do is pick the warranty for how long you want the computer to last you. If 2yrs is good go with that, 3yrs go with that.

 

ever since the fiasco of the 9800GT graphics card that decides to die just out of warranty for many hundreds of members and many more not on this forum i always advise to take the extended warranty. whats a few hundred £/$ when youve spent over a thousand on a laptop which has electrical parts that sadly can develop faults. you are then lumbered with courier each way, parts which can cost hundreds and labour.
luckily in the last 5 years weve only had the one flaud card but what if........

 

Well, ideally I would like the PC to last for at least 3 years and for the first year or so it will likely be my only PC so it will get used a lot. The last thing I want is it to fail just outside of a standard 1 year warranty but if the Clevo units are as reliable on average as an average quality desktop then I'd have no worries in needing an extended warranty.

Hell, if I bought a used laptop I was looking to spend $400 - $600 anyways for 0 warranty and I'd have done that without wondering if it was going to fail soon. I guess I'm a believer in if it's still kicking after a year or 2 it must be a good unit as most units that will fail prematurely will do so in less than a year.

I've always had good luck buying second hand computers from forum members and since this is the single largest system purchase I'll have made since 2006 on a new system, I'm just trying to find out if my desire to go with an extended warranty is justifiable or if I would be better off spending that extra $150 on upgrades.

 

Just to add my own personal experience, I went with the extended 3 year warranty (parts+labour), reason being, I am very comfortable having that peace of mind for the next 36 months I am going to use my laptop, good example is just 3 weeks ago (yes, it was holiday period, but my seller was kind enough to replace the motherboard and send back before he left), having bought my laptop only 6 months prior, my motherboard decided to fail on me and I ended up having to RMA my laptop. This is not Clevo's nor your builder's fault necessarily, sometimes electrical equipment will fail, of course I am well within my warranty period, but I was not phased as I knew I had warranty and sent my laptop off and got it back in the same week. I am glad I bought the warranty as I know I will be covered for any faults for the next 3 years and by then I will buy a new laptop anyway, that is my opinion though YMMV, I pretty much use my laptop 24/7 so it is more prone to fail if there are faulty parts.

 

I personally picked the 3 yr warranty because it is very fairly priced. Places like Dell & other major OEM's would likely charge you at LEAST $200 for 2 years... yet for $150 you get 3 years on any model. I generally recommend not getting a warranty on almost EVERYTHING, but this one has value. $50/yr or ~$4/mo.

If the warranty is ~10% the cost of the computer, it just makes sense to me, because in 3 years your PC will not drop anywhere near 90% in price. Other places the ratio is closer to 25% of the cost of the computer for that duration.

Just my opinion.

 

make sure you check with the seller the terms and conditions of the warranty and make sure that they pay shipping to and from, otherwise it would not make the warranty worth the money paid.

 

The warranty is through Sager. You can view it here:

custom gaming laptops - Welcome to Sager Notebooks

 

ah, mine is not a sager though, it's a horize so that't why I said to check with seller as they will have all the details.

 

Ah I saw he listed XoticPC at the top which is a Sager reseller (I believe RJTech is too?). But yes, doesn't hurt to ask.

It should be on the site somewhere if it is a decent reseller. No reason to hide it.

 

Sager and their resellers will fall under that policy. Other Clevo resellers will have their own so you do want to check with them to see what they cover.