Is the 2-3 year Sager parts warranty worth it?

So I'm looking to purchase the NP9130 but I have a few questions about the warranty since I have never owned a gaming laptop.

I plan on keeping the laptop for a good 3 years before upgrading, and will be playing games like Battlefield 3 and Diablo 3 from time to time in college. I wanted to know, will the 2 or 3 year parts warranty through XoticPC be worth it over the normal 1 year parts and lifetime labor warranty for my situation? Do parts like the GPU or CPU fail within a 3 year period commonly?

I'm asking because I would rather not spend the extra $79/149 for the warranty, since I want to keep costs minimal. However, if parts fail often, it may be a worthwhile investment. I would love to hear from some people that have owned Sager products before.

 

Warranties are always a tough call. While you could go years without any problems, how many of know someone or themselves have had a problem within in the first year. If you do have an issues beyond the first year having the warranty will pretty much pay for itself. But if you get the warranty and dont have need for it you've spent money you didnt need to. I think it comes down to how comfortable are you paying for repair or taking care of it yourself past the 1yr.

 

Yeah, I pretty much figured that the 2-3 year warranty is basically an investment at only 5-10% of the laptop price. I was curious what other Sager owners have experienced though, so I know just about whether the $150 will be worth it or not. $150 is a lot of cash to an unemployed high school senior going into college.

I have no doubt that XoticPC has a good warranty service though, as I have had multiple friends recommend their laptops to me.

By the way, when you guys get current 2-3 year old laptops in for service (I noticed you guys offer lifetime labor warranty on Sager units) around what percent of them have issues that are covered under the lifetime labor warranty and will be replaced, and what percent have major hardware issues (such as dead components) and need replacements under the parts warranty?

 

I've read horror stories on this forum about notebook graphic cards costing $500 to be replaced. That's without labor, and they are typically refurbs. This isn't limited to Sager. Just something you should consider across all brands.

 

I feel the 2 year warranty is a must. That first year goes faster than you think it will, and it's a good security blanket.

It also raises the resale value, if you're the type to look at new machines every year.

 

For the cost of a Sager warranty, I think it's very much worth it. $79 for two years is an incredible deal considering HP and Dell can charge a couple hundred bucks for a system worth half as much. If you plan on keeping the laptop for two years at least, I'd highly recommend the warranty. As noted, the GPU is probably your most volatile component and is also expensive. It's worth the warranty for that peace of mind to be honest.

It's too bad Sager doesn't offer a full accidental warranty though, only on the LCD, and for the price of the warranty ($239 LCD accidental - $79 standard = $160) you can replace the LCD yourself for $150 or so.

 

Unfortunately these numbers aren't available. Your wording makes me want to make sure you understand the difference between parts and labor. If you have a part fail during the parts warranty you will not have to pay for the part or the actual work (labor) to swap the parts. Since there is lifetime labor coverage, if a part were to fail after the parts warranty was up then you dont have to pay for the work (labor) to swap the part but do have to pay for the actual part.

 

And it's worth noting that while labor would ordinarily be an expensive component, parts can also be quite expensive. A good way to look at it is if you pay $80 for an extra year- what parts generally cost $80 or more to replace? For laptops nearly everything in it is going to cost you that much or more if it fails. The most expensive parts are the CPU/GPU/Motherboard. While it would be rare to see them fail in <3 years, sometimes they do and they can easily cost hundreds to replace with new parts

Warranties are entirely personal choice. I personally use them on expensive purchases that I will be carrying with me regularly (phone, laptop, etc). It's the same reasoning behind having car insurance- you pay (sometimes a lot) to have it, but regardless- it's better to pay it and never have to use it, rather than having no coverage and needing it.

 

I understand. Thanks for the replies MALIBAL and XoticPC. It looks like the 3 year warranty will be worth it then.

One final question: What happens if I purchase a NP9130 (Or the MALIBAL/Mythlogic equivalent) and the CPU/GPU dies in 2 and a half years? Do you guys usually have 2-3 year GPU's lying around that far in the future to replace?

 

Yeah... basically anything other than bad memory is going to cost more than the extra 80 dollars in warranty costs.. Even laptop replacement keyboards can go for more than that.... Its a g ood investment in my opinion.

 

You would get at least an equivalent part meaning if the exact same GPU wasnt available you'd could get the next step up.

 

i always recommend it to everyone on here. warranty varies depending on company and country.
my m860tu is coming upto 4 years old in september.
last march my 9800gt died. luckily i had extended to 3 year warranty and the card was replaced the same day to the better 260gtx. without the warranty it would of cost about £300/$450
for a extra few $/£ you will save a bucket load if you ever need to use it.

 

For myself, I would get the 2yr warranty just because after more than 2yrs I'd be itching for a reason to upgrade to something new and there is no better way to convince my wife that I need a new system than a$600 repair bill on a 2+yr old laptop

 

Frankly, I see it as gambling with Murphy's Law.
That said, I usually get the highest available warranty whether it be a car or a computer for that "just in case".

 

Exactly.

And after two years, resale value of the laptop has greatly diminished, as has its performance. I think 2 years is a good time of coverage for a performance laptop because chances are if you're into performance parts two years puts the machine significantly behind the curve, so if it dies after two years, you've got another reason to upgrade.

One thing to make note of though, unless things have changed, and maybe retailers can confirm/correct this, but the customer is responsible for round trip shipping of their computer if it needs repair, correct?

 

It depends on the retailer. For most, it's either free shipping both ways or at most you're only responsible for one way shipping. Check the terms of the warranty for the specific retailer you're interested in.

Pretty much the only time you'd pay both ways is if you had a US based warranty but were living internationally.

 

If you've got the means to upgrade after only 2 years that is.. I've had my current laptop for ~4 years now.

I've heard a few times from various dell techs that most computer repairs from failures are needed in the 1st and 3rd years.. Held true with my current laptop. Had to have my optical and hard drive replaced in year 1 and my mobo replaced at the beginning of year 3.. No problems at all in year 2..

I plan to get the 3 year warranty and if I decide to upgrade between now and then, I'll probably do it through my reseller so my new parts will be covered under warranty.

 

Thanks for post this question Heihachi_1337. I've been wondering the same thing.

 

I got accidental warranty from squaretrade.com... all my good electronics have a warranty as with pets and kids in the house, there is a huge gamble. on a previous HP laptop i tripped and fell on the laptop with water, pretty much overall destroyed it. Squaretrade gave me full cost of replacement within 5 days... def worth it......

 

Personally, I never purchase extended warranties. My logic is that the amount of money I save by not buying warranties across numerous items (phones, laptops, etc) I save more than enough to pay for any failures that may occur, but I don't mind doing repairs myself either, especially on the laptop, that way I'm not without it for so long. If you don't exactly have much spending money (like if you're a college student or something) and can't afford unexpected expenses like a failure in your laptop, however, then it might be worth it. On that note, I've had my laptop nearly 3 years now and have yet to have anything break, and I travel a lot so it sees its fair share of abuse.

 

Gear332,

I understand where you're coming from, but you may be gambling with something you haven't expected - rising costs of components.

After a year or two, finding an adequate replacement for a failed part might be quite expensive. This isn't a problem with disk drives or memory. Rather, I worry about the other components. As there are a lot less of them, I've seen replacement mobos, GPUs, and even some CPUs all go UP as they are phased out of production and cannot be easily attained.

In a ~$4K laptop, the extra $130 ensures any problem is resolved without additional expense. But as you said, if I don't run into any problems, I'm out the $130. But if I DO, and it is an expensive repair... well, the money is piece of mind.

 

My Visa card has their so-called Warranty Manager service that automatically tacks a second year onto the base 1 year warranty for Sagers/Clevos. Basically, the warranty itself lasts for the original time, but the credit card company pays for any service you need the second year, in accordance with the terms of your original warranty. All Visa Signature cards offer this and I think some AMEX cards should as well. They also offer reduced rates on warranty extension, if purchased from them, as well.

A few months ago, I'd have said extended warranties weren't necessary if you replace every 2-3 years. But, my new laptop has spent its short life broken and/or in RMA (three so far). So, now I say get the warranty!

 

Well, that's the other thing with warranties. Even if it exists, you have to be careful because it could be out of service for weeks at a time. Third party warranties are sometimes better because you can get better service. But I think the turnaround time for Sagers are usually pretty quick.

 

Not worth it. - Clark Howard.

 

Do any of the resellers keep tabs on which length of warranty I'd the most purchased? Perhaps also at which years warranty claims tend to occur? Could be interesting to see legitimate numbers..

 

You have a ~$4k laptop? I'd say most people here spend under $2k. It all really comes down to what you can afford. Companies make money on warranties. They don't sell them at a cost that'll lose them money, so you have to figure the odds are in your favor that most likely you won't need it. It all comes down to whether you can afford the unlikely repair costs should they arise.

As far as rising costs of components go, I purchase every 2-3 years, and feel the likelihood of something breaking in that time are very slim. Outside that time (outside 3 years anyway), it wouldn't be covered by an extended warranty anyway. Also something to consider is that some people may not be able to afford to buy a new computer as often (and therefore making it more likely that they need to use the warranty) because they have the added cost of an extended warranty every time they purchase a laptop which adds approx 15% or more to the cost.

Just food for thought from a different viewpoint.

I believe all Amex cards do as well. The Amex platinum does for sure.

 

Most ppl in the world, or most ppl on Notebook Review (NBR)? In general that is probably true, but I take it you haven't visited the other forums on NBR. If check out some of the other forums here on NBR, you'll come across forums for vendors of gaming laptops and or high-end machines - Alienware forum (model M17x/m18x), Apple (MacBook Pro), Sager (NP7280) / Clevo (x7200) forums. In any case, the base price on these machines is an average of $2500. By the time you configure these machines with 2 to 4 SSDs, 24 to 32GB of RAM, dual GPUs (SLI or CrossFire), high end LCDs, etc., prices can quickly jump.

Agreed. Ask Sears' why they would like to sell you an extended warranty with every appliance.

Same here. However, some laptop parts are harder to come by and tend to be more expensive over time. The mobo example I gave actually happened. Paid what seemed like $70-$100 over what it should have cost on a lappy that was about 30 months old. With the warranty, it would have paid for itself, but if something else had gone wrong, then I would have been in the red. As I said above, for the right price this is definitely "piece of mind."

If a warranty is more than 3-5% it is not worth it. Or if you faithfully get a new machine every 12-24 months also not mostly worth it. However, there is a category where 24-30 months (for around 5% of cost) that it makes sense.