The Christmas shopping season is now starting and many of you will consider buying a new laptop or netbook. If this is the case for you, then do consider this very interesting study on laptop and netbook reliability. It covers the reliability of laptops up to 3 years since purchase for all the major vendors (including Apple) and the reliability of netbooks up to a year since purchase. The study has some very surprising conclusions and, most likely you will be suprised to learn that HP is the worst in terms of laptop reliability while ASUS & Toshiba are the first. One conclusion that did not surprise me was that, one year in, netbooks fail 20% more often than laptops.
Laptop & Netbook reliability – 1 in 3 Laptops fail over 3 years
What a crock! The study was done by a company SELLING 3rd party warranty contracts. “SquareTrade analyzed failure rates for over 30,000 new laptop computers covered by SquareTrade Laptop Warranty plans…” First of all, 3rd party warranty contracts cover the product AFTER the inital manufacturer warranyy expires. Anyone contacting these guys has likely already gone through the OEM warranty. Also, it does not say what constitutes a verified failure or if the failures are the result of misuse, negeligence, or just dumb users. I have owned over a dozen laptops and services hundreds from Dell, HP, Apple, Fujitsu, and lesser knowns such as Averatec. I have yet to see a single harware failure that was not user-induced. (This is not including one failed power supply brick and several that were recalled.)
/Cal/