Your Notebook May Fail, Like it or Not

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Notebook computers present a special support problem. They are self-contained systems, all-in-one devices, so when something goes south the whole thing is often out of action. A failed laptop is a miserable thing to have on your hands, as it usually means the whole thing goes back to the repair center to get made whole again. Reports that denote the failure rates of notebooks are good to follow, as it makes sense to purchase brands that do better than others. One such report was mentioned by Techblog, and while some of the findings were expected others were surprising.

While many of the laptops I use are evaluation units that only stay around for a short while, I buy a lot of notebooks for myself and the family. We tend to keep them for several years if they hold up, and I have my own impressions for which brands have fared better for us. I have experienced few notebook failures truth be told, with a MacBook Pro being the most problematic. I have used Sony, Compaq, HP and IBM laptops for years without a single problem.

The MacBook Pro problem ended up requiring a warranty replacement of the entire system board. It was an intermittent problem, and thus hard to diagnose. One thing that Apple was smart to realize was that in times of stressful system malfunctions, customers like having a local place to take the system, and talk to a real person who is knowledgeable about the product.

A new report issued by SquareTrade, a company that provides independent warranty for laptops, says that there is a 20 percent chance that a laptop bought today will fail within three years. They base this finding on 30,000 warranty claims, so it has a decent statistical base. It’s important to note that a small percentage of these claims were due to accidental damage, something that can’t be attributed to build quality.

The report demonstrates clearly that you get what you pay for, with netbooks, entry-level notebooks and premium notebooks showing a likelihood for failure within three years of 25, 20 and 18 percent respectively. Build quality does matter in the case of notebooks especially, as they can be handled roughly through traveling and the like.

The most interesting part of the report to me is how individual brands rate for failure. ASUS and Toshiba, two companies said to be in merger talks, are the most reliable brands of notebooks. Gateway and HP were the two showing the highest failure rates. It is important to note that these are projections, not actual failure rates. It should also be noted that not much is separating the four least likely to fail, nor the four most likely.

The complete report can be downloaded here (PDF).

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