Computers: Why you should buy the warranty.

I've never bothered. Certain purchases are already guaranteed by law anyway. And I've never needed one.

Sure, my last laptop blew up but it was 4 or 5 years old anyway and someone bought me a new one.

The 6 year old desktop I had and sold to my dad? Still works a treat without any problems. My printer's the same age, and works fine.

My first few computers, I spent $3000. The technology was QUICKLY outdated and outmoded. So I had this great $3000 computer that within a year, $1000 computers could surpass.

No. More. Now I spend $500 on a computer and don't feel bad about tossing it within a few years for another $500 computer.

I also NEVER buy the extended warranty. I think it's a ripoff designed to take more money from the consumer.

Electronic stores make more money off the extended service plans than any other product. The plans themselves don't cover any accidental damage. That includes anything they determine could have be caused by accidental use, even if it wasn't. Although the sales counselor will tell you they are very reasonable, that's not necessarily true. If they can justify not paying for the repair, they will. If your laptop screen cracks, don't expect them to fix it.

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Tirjasdyn said:

I admit I am not the norm.

However, when I buy a computer I buy it to last usually about 6 years (that's how long it takes software to catch up to hardware). I save and spend minimum $3000.00.

I include the warranty in this...I buy Dell (boo and hiss all you want, but they are the bang for the buck). I started buying Dell in 1999. Before that I assembled my own computers. This became less cost effective as warranties for individual parts lessened.

Anyway in 2005 I bought a Dell XPS m170, which at the time was their top of the line gaming lap top. Besides gaming and writing, I also work with 3d and digital painting...so good graphics are a must.

The beast has been great until this September...when inexplicably died. Since I still had the warranty (a 3 year one) I called up Dell. Dell sent a tech to my house, who over the course of 3 weeks replaced every single part of the computer except the case. The final diagnosis turned out to be catastrophic hard-drive failure cause by a serious configuration problem.

The configuration problem had to do with heat, and a bunch of folks were having the same problem. Either way Dell kicked their replacement policy and by mid-October I had a refurbished xps m1710. An older model, but a step above what I previously had. I was pretty happy.

Then just before Thanksgiving, it happened again. Turns out that the M1710 has the same configuration problem. I called Dell (in tears). They put me through troubleshooting then promptly reported that I would be getting another replacement. I wasn't too optimistic as this has been a pretty bad experience. But the tech was adiment that this was a known problem and I happened to fall in the periord before they realized that the m1710 had the same problem. (if you look on the internet for video with strange lines and dell m170 and m1710 you'll see a lot of these issues only showed up this year.

So this week I got my replacement. Dell sent me a brand new, gilded to the hilt XPS m1730. Just the 1gig of video ram has me drooling. They also gave me Office 2007, two years of McAfee, the full verision of Roxio plus some games and art software all the newest. They also gave me $300s in Bose speakers (if I only had a desk and an office...sniff.)

I've gotten another year added to my warranty and I plan to extend it.

Warranties are your friends. If you plan on having any large purchase for longer than 60 days, buy one.

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I bought a $600 Acer computer three years ago, no warranty.

It's worked just fine for three years. I've added modifications to it (graphics card, more memory, both for gaming purposes) but the total didn't go above $900.

If it blows up tomorrow, I'll spend another six hundred on a replacement that's better than the one I have now. I'd expect it to last about five years, which is usually how long I keep my computers.

Compare that. $3000 for six years, versus $1500, or less if my computer doesn't blow up tomorrow, which I don't expect it to do.

You're paying way, way too much, unless you've got a really top-of-the-line machine, and if you have one of those, it shouldn't be having the problems you're having.

I agree with those who say the extended warranties are a waste of money. Usually that's true for just about anything you purchase. The basic warranty should cover everything that's needed, for long enough to find out if you've got a lemon or not.

I buy my computers now based on storage capacity, not if they can run the lastest games. My mainbox computer is probably 7 years old. Paid $500 and it still does what I want it to do.

I haven't bought any NEW software in years. The old stuff works fine and in most cases BETTER than the new stuff. Most new software is just bloatware anyway. I still use Office 97.

Tirjasdyn said:

Technology is NOT disposible. It's a big problem that people belive it is.

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Actually, it IS. And they design obsolesence into it. That's why we don't use vinyl records any more. That's why we don't play VCR tapes. It's ALL disposible.

I think warranties are a rip-off,however, I did buy one with my last computer, and thank God I did, I needed it as soon as the first year's service warranty ended!

First of all, I had a Compaq Presario, it lasted two years and then it just died. I'd had some more memory put into it, supposedly professionally, at PC World. The pages were shifting up in a step-like fashion after I'd had the bigger memory put in. I'd never be able to prove it was them who messed my PC though.
I tried everything to make it right and it was getting worse and worse with each thing I tried. I then got a good friend, who works with computers, to take the bigger memory back out. It still wouldn't work properly. So I tried to reinstall the the software etc. Now, the Windows software was a dvd, that you had to make yourself when you got the computer from new. They were too tight to add their own software. As with anything, who knows if a brand new dvd-r is faulty of not, but the software wouldn't do anything to my PC either and then rendered it totally useless. That PC has been sitting inside of our shed, as a worthless and expensive bit of junk, ever since.

Annoyed, I wasn't going to buy another Compaq product, so I settled for a Fujitsu Siemens. Lovely machine, so I thought, but I still paid out for the extra warranty. As soon as the original one year warranty ran out, last Christmas, the PC wouldn't go any further than the logging on stage, it just hung there useless. Thankfully I had paid out for the warranty this time, so after two visits to the menders, my PC is still being used now and is still under warranty until Christmas 2010... But you can guarantee, that as soon as that warranty runs ot, my PC will conk out too.

Will I buy the extended warranty when that one is dead? You bet your @ss I will!

Btw, my laptop's CD drawer went kaput just three weeks before the year's warranty ran out too. At least I got that fixed for 'free'.

All I do on my laptop is play some games (I like puzzle, board and card games), email, surf AW and use MS Office.

That said, my 1gbRAM, 160gb HD Vista laptop is £200 cheaper than the first crappy PC I got, a desktop! So even the 'worst' computers on sale these days are pretty damn cool. This one has a built-in webcam and card reader, plus a DVD-RW drive which I haven't even used yet. My desktop didn't even play DVDs!

And what makes it better is - I didn't pay for it!

I'm thinking of putting my foot through my telly in four or so months.

42" flatscreen here I come!

(Although my aunt might wonder why things keep breaking right before Christmas and my birthday...)

Tirjasdyn said:

But the problem is that folks are beginning to believe technology is disposable after 1 year. It's not.

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People believe EVERYTHING is disposable. That's how our society, how Madison Avenue, have programmed us

Every year new car models come out, even if the updates are insiginificant. New computers come out on a regular basis. New televisions. New DVD players. New cameras.

Every year the new models of everything some out, all the magazines tout all the added benefits of each item.

Like it or not, it's a disposable society.

About the only thing that doesn't seem to be on this yearly schedule are game systems, they take 3 to 4 years to cycle through.

And then there's some of us who believe we should get or money's worth. When I nuy a C, I want at least ten years out of it, not a measly two. I feel ripped off all round. Old things were made to last, these days the companies only cater for those with more money than sense.

Shadow_Ferret said:

Like it or not, it's a disposable society.

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New technology isn't always designed to be disposable. Like it or not, it becomes disposable because of the nature of new technology. Yeah, incrementally, it doesn't always move as fast as companies might have you believe, but when those incremental advances happen constantly, over time, they DO begin to matter--depending on what you want to do.

If all you do is email, surf the web, and word process, it's not a whole lot of difference.

But when it comes down to everything I want out of my computer, I'm not going to be satisfied with something 6 years old.

Just for a few examples now... A couple years ago, when I bought my laptop, I upgraded my RAM to 2GB, which was a lot for the time. I value it, because it means I can use many programs at once. It's nice knowing I can run two operating systems at the same time, run analyses on my high-end statistical software, word process my homework, have my email and my instant messaging program open, surf the web, download some big files, and listen to music all at the same time. It got a little slow sometimes, so a few months ago, I upgraded to 4GB RAM, which is pretty standard now. So now I can do all that and more.

No, not all new software takes advantage of new hardware. Many programs don't even take advantage of 64-bit yet. When Snow Leopard comes out, it'll probably be a long time because many programs take advantage of Grand Central or the GPU's processing power (if you're not a Mac nerd, you can ignore all that). But some software is already pushing hardware to the limits, or can always implicitly benefit from an upgrade in hardware. Games are one example of this--it's not always noticeable to us plebeians, but for a seasoned gamer not to have the latest video card, he or she will notice a different in the latest games.

Another example would be video conversion. I rip much of my DVD collection onto my computer and my TB external. Currently, with a 2.16 GHz Merom processor, I can do that in about real time. My computer is only about two years old. With a new one now, if I had something, say 2.5 Ghz or 3 GHz, I'd probably notice a difference. Maybe not a meaningful one, if you don't care how long it takes to rip a DVD. In about a year, with Snow Leopard making it possible to utilize the GPU more with the appropriate software, and a Nehalem processor, I'd definitely notice a difference.

If you take care of a computer, it can last for much longer than ten years.

Even if you do take care of it, though, computers are complicated machines. Cheap ones that aren't as well made, or don't have as quality parts, are going to be more likely to break.

*shrug*

I don't treat my computer as disposable. I wouldn't call it disposable. But I wouldn't want to use a 6-year-old computer on a daily basis. That's just me. I just like getting my hands on new technology, and I like using it to its limits.

That said, there are many different reasons people buy new computers too often.

1. Maybe they did just get ripped off and it's a crappy machine. Sometimes that is the reason, but--going back to the point of the topic--that's what the warranty is for. Even if you have a crappy computer, ditching it after two years because it just doesn't work anymore shouldn't be acceptable.

2. People don't know how to handle software rot. This is mostly a fault of Windows' registry. Install and uninstall too many applications, and your computer won't work as quickly. It doesn't matter how little you have installed now, if your registry is bloated, the computer isn't going to work as well. Without knowing a little about software, over time, your computer is NEVER going to run as fast as the day you bought it. With a little knowledge, if can run that fast until the day you buy a new one. Just as an example, I would advise anyone who buys a computer from a company that installs all those pointless 3rd party programs by default to reinstall the operating system, first thing, so it's completely clean. Other problems, like letting your hard drive fill up too much and running on the slower parts of the disk happen, too.

3. You *do* take care of your computer and *could* keep using it for another ten years...if you only ever want to use it for exactly what you bought it for. But some of us aren't like that. Planned obsolescence isn't always so planned as much as it is the nature of technology. Ultimately, as the hardware and the software allows for it, I will want to do a lot more with my computer today than I did ten years ago. For some of us, that's just how it is.

I expect to use this laptop until the end of college. It's be about 4 and a half years old. I could still keep using it, if I never expected much more from it. Instead, I plan on buying a $99 student ADC membership just before leaving college and using my once-per-lifetime super-massive-discount on the best Apple laptop out there in 2011.


All that said, I *do* have an epic collection of vinyls.

A computer can last you a long while if you plan well. Someone who buys a Core i7 now, with a new motherboard that supports the new LGA1366 socket type can probably go with it for a long time. The point is that you can upgrade various components if you feel they're lagging. I got my computer upgraded a year ago. My upgraded one had 512 MB RAM (imagine what I must have had before!). Last month, I bought and installed 2GB. that cost around $50. The upgradability of desktops is very useful, as you don't need to spend thousands of dollars in the initial purchase.

When buying a computer, buy only what you need. As software becomes more demanding, you can upgrade the appropriate hardware.

The only problem is with notebooks. Upgradability is limited there, so the more you invest in the beginning, the better. Fortunately, upgrading notebooks is becoming easier with time, so we see the same advantages that desktops offer.


I prefer assembling the desktop, rather than buying from a store so each of my parts have their own warranty. However, I intend to make a notebook purchase in Feb 09 and I'm leaning towards DELL due to the warranty. Warranty can be very helpful for notebooks. DELL has a very good reputation regarding warranty. A friend of mine had a LOT of parts replaced (keyboard, LCD screen, top panel) all covered by the warranty.

Some lucky computers don't break for years, others develop problems in months. For some people, investing in warranties pays off- for others it doesn't. I have replaced my video card once in the past year thanks to the warranty. My CPU, motherboard and RAM warranties have another 2 years left.

Hmm, my Dell laptop died just two months before the extended warranty ran out. And my 3yo Mac died after 6 months, then Mac kept it for a month to fix it (not so good when you need to produce a magazine twice a month on said Mac). Both the Dell and Mac are still kind of struggling on - a bit slowly these days - while I play on my new MacBook Pro yay! Warranties have definitely paid off for me.