Laptop warranty?
 

Last August I bought a tablet PC (discussed here). I recently received an e-mail from Lenovo for an extended warranty. The prices seem quite reasonable (there are a number of options).

Description Price
1 YR IOR 9X5 NBD 1 YR ONSITE REPAIR 9X5 NBD $39.00
2YR PICKUP DEPOT 2 YRS PARTS AND LABOR DEPOT $69.00
3YR PICKUP DEPOT 3 YRS PARTS AND LABOR DEPOT $119.00
2YR IOR 9X5 NBD 2 YRS ONSITE REPAIR 9X5 NBD $139.00
3 YR IOR 9X5 NBD $219.00
4YR PICKUP DEPOT 4 YRS PARTS AND LABOR DEPOT $229.00
4YR IOR 9X5 NBD 4 YRS ONSITE REPAIR 9X5 NBD $349.00

IOR = onsite repair
NBD = next business day

I usually don't buy extended warranties, but some of these seem like they could be a good deal, especially since a tablet PC has more things that can go wrong than a regular laptop (i.e. touch screen, rotating hinge).

I think the original computer cost was around $2500.

I don't know the details of the warranties.


What do you think?

It's a good idea if you expect the laptop to fail during the warranty period. Are you hard on your computer? Walk around with it much? In the rain? Bang into things a lot?

What about food? Do you like to drink soft drinks or coffee whilst working on it? Eating crackers? Do you bathe and compute? (Yes, I've seen it done)

If the answers are no to all of the above and you bought a decent laptop, then no, skip the warranty.

Well, looking at it from the bookie--er, insurance statistician's point of view... they think it is more than twice as likely to fail in four years than in one year. (If the four-year price were just four times the one-year price, then you could surmise that they believe it had the same chance of failing each year.) For whatever that's worth.

The problem with laptops is that there are almost no commodity parts available, except for the memory chips (which are pretty cheap to replace) and the hard drive (which is fairly cheap to replace from a hardware standpoint--and that cost will be dwarfed many times over by the cost of losing your unbacked-up files).

The hard drive is the most likely thing to go. But if you do need a new display unit, or video card, or motherboard... you'll spend a lot more on that repair (up to a substantial % of the price of a new laptop in the case of the motherboard).

before you buy it, look at the cost of replacing it at today's prices. divide the cost of the 3 yr warranty by the price of the replacement. if it approaches 20%, forget it.

The value of the warranty (at least to me) declines over time. By the time the computer is 4 years old I'll be hoping it dies so I can replace it without feeling guilty. I don't think I'd go for more than a 2-year extension (the computer will be a year old when the original warranty expires). At $70 to 140, that's probably not a bad deal.

I've sent Lenovo an e-mail asking for details about the various warranty options.