Sager's No Dead or Partially Lit Pixel Guarantee

Hi all,

I am debating whether to select this $100 option in my configuration. By now, I figure several forum members have received their new Sager laptops and could provide some feedback.

Specifically, for those Sager owners who did not select this guarantee--did your screen arrive with any dead or stuck pixels?

Thanks.

 

I did not select the guarantee and I do not have any dead/stuck pixels. At least not any that I notice and I looked over the entire screen at least 5 times.

 

I have no dead pixels and didn't choose the warranty.

 

My year old NP8690 didn't come with dead pixels. I did not opt for the guarantee.

 

I didn't get the Guarantee but I DID get a stuck pixel (see http://forum.notebookreview.com/hardware-components-aftermarket-upgrades/420709-bad-pixels.html).
I think the Guarantee is worthless. Just return the laptop if it has a stuck pixel and buy a new one.
I could not do this as I was moving out of the country and was willing to live with the stuck pixel. I use an external monitor most of the time. But even when using the laptop monitor the stuck pixel doesn't bother me much.

 

I chose it on my pre-order, but will probably cancel it to get the blu-ray burner. Seems like a good chance of not getting a dead one.

 

Chose the guarantee and received no dead pixels.

 

In short, no, it's not worth it. The odds of receiving an LCD with a stuck pixel, are extremely low.

Better to spend that money on the hardware.

 

You can always return it, or Mythlogic offers 7 days no dead pixel warranty for free...

 

Yeah, I was going to mention that. I do like how they have the guarantee built into the base price.

 

I think they charge you like $30-40 for it effectively, but a lot of their upgrades are cheaper.

 

Psst, it doesn't add any cost to the laptops (thats a $0 dollar option in our configurators)

 

Your base configs are a little bit more though! Either way your deals are pretty good... I paid you...

 

I agree with K_J!

[Seanwhat, stated below that this post was incorrect (no, excuse me - he said terrible) math and logic, so since I wrote it in the middle of the night, I came back to it this morning. The math was okay, but in attempting to keep things basic I was a little misleading with what that math represented in trying to help people understand what they're dealing with when it comes to the science of dead pixels and warranties thereto. I should not have used the term probability as that was not my intention - only to show the real numbers of failure based on Sager's warranty minimum. Perhaps, in the future I won't attempt such a post so early in the morning, and also, maybe 'Seanwhat' will offer up CONSTRUCTIVE criticism to posters rather than simply just saying something is wrong on the face, you'll notice he didn't offer any opposing information; however, I do thank him for bringing my attention back to this thread so quickly, so I could better explain myself more clearly for both him and others]

For a native resolution laptop of 1920x1080, there exists almost 1920x1080 = 2,073,600 full pixels on screen. Further, there exists 2,073,600 x 3 = 6,220,800 sub-pixels on screen. Each sub-pixel is a transistor, which can have some issues as we've seen recently from the Cougar Point chip flaw. The standard Sager replacement warranty kicks in at 5 or more dead sub-pixels (DSP), and to have 5DSP would equal 0.0000008 or 0.00008% or 8 hundred-thousandths of 1% for defective sub-pixels on a 1920x1080 LCD.

This translates to an LCD screen that even with 5DSP would still be 99.9999% defect-free, which is better than bacterial soap (99.999%).

To have 1DSP would equal 0.00000016 or 0.000016% or 16-millionths of 1% for defective sub-pixels. The LCD remains at 99.9999% defect-free status.

So, if you do get 1DSP, you're just as likely to have 5DSP due to the limit of 99.9999%. Manufacturing cannot actually reach 100% defect-free status (they can in theory, but that would exponentially raise their costs and ours).

Perhaps it's worth $100 for some people to forgo 99.9999% to definitely receive 100%, but when we talk about such small differences (1-hundred-thousandth of 1%), to me it's not worth it. Each to their own though!

For unbiased information on this subject you can check out the ISO-9241 Standard, for which most manufacturers exceed Class-2 Panels.

 

I'm sorry for being so blunt here, but this is both terrible maths and terrible logic. Everything written is wrong.

 

It's certainly okay to be blunt, but being blunt is not in-and-of itself being helpful or constructive. You were free to put your own math and logic to the thread but you didn't, and in not doing so foresake the premise of good-intentions.

 

What he's saying is that the % failure for 1 pixel failing and the % chance for at least 1 pixel failing are absolutely unrelated... For example, if 1 monitor in 50 has 1 dead pixel you have a 2% chance to hit it, so your $100 is insuring against a 2% chance.

However if 1 in 100 has 5 or more failing, then 1% chance they would have replaced it anyway.

In that case your only benefit is from the 1% chance left where you have a failure that is not covered so you paid $100 for 1%.

 

Sorry. I should have mentioned I can't really add to it.

It's impossible to calculate the probability of a screen having dead pixels without either knowing the chances of any given pixel being dead, or estimating it with a large enough sample of similar screens.

Additionally, the only way to figure out whether it's 'worth it' to buy the guarantee would be to calculate the probability of 1-5 dead pixels on the screen and multiply that by the loss associated with having 1-5 dead pixels and and not buying the guarantee (which would most likely be the amount of money to replace the screen). This then needs to be compared against the probability of 0 dead pixels multiplied by the loss associated with buying the guarantee.

I don't suppose any retailers could provide some numbers on the proportion of customers who complain about dead pixels (including those with and without the guarantee)?

I apologise for my earlier response; I didn't have time to write anything more up, but i wanted to get the point across.

 

So basically what i said without trying to go into numbers.

 

I doubt the resellers would say how many of the screens have dead or stuck pixels.. As it would potentially hurt their profits. We need a massive poll to even have a guess at the percentage.

 

I agree with everything posted above. My previous post, as is hopefully now clearer, was always intended to be based solely on the actual-number warranty guiding LCD replacements from a manufacturer, and not the theoretical probability of randomly receiving a dead pixel for which I was originally misinterpreting to readers. I wanted everyone to see what the $100 actually gets you, which is the betterment of 100% defect-free versus 99.9999% defect-free; I don't like people to take my word on something without showing them how I got there as a foundation. I just shouldn't create a foundation when I'm not fully cognizant and inter-threading different thought processes with one another.

 

Well I had a 9280, perfect, no dead pixels, I have never had a dead pixel on anything in my life. I decided it was not worth lugging around at the time since it could only house 1 video card versus the 8690 which had the same GPU, but a lesser CPU. Of course when I powered it on and did some tests, one of which a dead/stuck pixel grid, I noticed a dead pixel in the bottom of the left upper quadrant. So not quite in the middle, but I can definitely see it.

Now ok, razor's logic states the percentage of the defect on the screen based on how many pixels there are in total versus the number of dead or stuck pixels. As was said, there is no real way to predict or calculate the chances of a dead pixel that we can come up with, without inside knowledge, which we are not going to learn.

The real problem is it's a flaw, and when I go to sell my 8690 soon, I will have to put in the description it has a dead pixel, which is pretty much like me applying for a job with a Felony, it's a turnoff to whomever is considering it. So it's not really worth paying $100 for the dead pixel warranty, but it can really bite you in the later if you are one of the unlucky few. I also have a stuck red pixel that pops up every so often, it's an easy fix of just pressing on the panel, but still, if it were to stay stuck...it would really de-value the laptop even more, and I would probably be better off buying a new panel.