Boy, do we have a nice slab of
data for you to sink your teeth into today. The 3-year service history of more than 30,000 laptops has been pored over, analyzed, and reduced to gorgeous comparative charts, which you know you're dying to know more about. We should note, however, that the service was provided by SquareTrade, whose primary business is selling
extended warranties, but that shouldn't completely prejudice us against reaching conclusions on the basis of the presented facts. Firstly, netbooks have shown themselves to be on average 20 percent less reliable than entry-level laptops, which in turn are 10 percent more likely to break down than premium machines. In other words, you get what you pay for -- shocking, right? The big talking point, though, will inevitably be the manufacturer comparison chart above: here ASUS and Toshiba (
rather appropriately) share the winners' spoils, while
HP languishes in the ignominious last place, with more than a quarter of all laptops expected to suffer a hardware fault of some kind within three years. So, does your experience corroborate / refute this info? Keep it gentlemanly, okay?
posted November 17th 2009 11:09AM
My first laptop was an Acer, had it for 10 years without any problems.
Got enough money and bought another Acer.
After a year and a half the dvd drive died. Sent it to a third party repair place, Blue Raven Technologies in Ma..
They stink, i had to return it twice because they couldn't get the drive faceplate to close properly and the eject button has to pressed in a certain way before it will eject. Only use them if you are forced to.
The warranty is up so the next time it fails i'm going to buy a slot loading drive and try installing it myself.
Our experience:
Four Toshibas since 1989--all still operational. Never a problem until the latest (2007), which often needs multiple reboots before it recognizes its onboard WiFi.
One HP -- screen died right before warranty expiration, serviced. Died again. No warranty. Took it apart and got it working again. Died again. Junked.
One HP/Compaq -- still runs MS Office, but forget WiFi. And the branded external floppy direct from HP online store -- died after a month and a half. And they refused to honor the 2-yr. warranty--said it wasn't their responsibility.
One IBM and one Lenovo -- still crunching away, no problems.
DELL is in the middle of the pack? NOT RIGHT!
Something tells me the way they collected this data is skewed. Over the last few years I was in contact with 4 Dell laptops -- all of them had problems.
Dell Inspiron 9000 -- USB port problems
Dell m600 -- built-in mic dead. After a year of troubleshooting I bought external mic that bypasses soundcard.
Dell (unknown model) -- dead on arrival, also had problem getting refund for tax????
Dell (did not bother to check model) -- after 2 years HD R.I.P.
That's 4 out of 4. Did any of them get counted in the chart above? NO! That goes to prove that they collected some specific data that does not reflect situation on the ground. Over.
One year into my Gateway, so far it still runs and have only experienced one or two blue screens. Two years to go.
I agree with this chart, Ive had two hp laptops. They both have had multiple problems due to poor quality parts. There tech support is a joke. My laptop wouldn't turn on it was about 13 months old so just out of warranty. Their answer was pay $400 for a new motherboard, but were trying to convince me to buy a new laptop from them. I cracked the case open and found it was just a poor quality ribbon cable that had the ends flaking off. $10 part on ebay and it works like new. Now my lcd screen inverter is going out too, the screen only comes on after opening and shutting the lid a few times. I also have an ASUS monitor for my desktop that looks awesome and feels like it was made with quality parts and was cheap too.
HP's poor performance could be attributed to the fact that they sell a large number of refurb's through their retail channels. Whereas, other manufacturers either sell direct through their own website or through other channels. Since this chart was made through a 3rd party warranty seller, HP's refurbs would account for a much larger % relative to their total sales through retail channels. Other companies like Apple would only be selling new models, but HP would be selling a mix of both through retail. I'm assuming, of course, that this company doesn't also sell their services through the manufacturer.
Funny....I own a Satellite A105-S2236, and it's undoubtedly a bigger piece of shit than my old Dell. I can't go 5 minutes without a lock-up...
Of course, with a 6-months-post-launch copy of Vista Home Basic (SP2, of course), and a Celeron M...I set myself up for it.
btw...no battery problems with me...my 1GB RAM feels like an inferno after 5 minutes with my Zune Pass (yes, I own a 120, and I KNOW this isn't relevant in any way, AND a sure sign of fanboyism, but...ZUNE FTEW!!!! Can't wait til they make a 128GB HD!!!)
I've had an HP laptop for almost 7 years. It has an Intel Celeron D processor and 512MB of memory and I've triple booted Ubuntu, Win XP and Win 7 on it. I run Matlab, Labview, Visual Studio 2005 and myriad of other labor intensive applications on it. It's seen some very hot conditions over 3000°F and some as cold as 33°F. My only comment to the reliability of laptops is that it really depends on how well you take care of your equipment. It also very much depends on how well you know your equipment performs. Obviously, I can't overclock or game on my laptop, but I was able to run some laborious calculations like a Monte Carlo simulation, which by no means is at all an easy thing to do while at the same time program a simple interface in VS 2005. Honestly, if you want to buy an Apple/Mac then go for it, I've never had the desire to buy their laptops mostly because the applications I want to use are not compatible for. It's perfect if you are an artsy fartsy person, but for real calculations and real work to get done, not practical at all. Furthermore, if I want unix then I'll get it for free, no need to pay almost a 500% premium for it. Honestly, do your research though because HP has made some quality products too. I think I've had more trouble with business class Dell's than I've had with HP, hell I have an old HP Vectra used on my assembly floor and that's worked for close to 15 years versus a new Dell Adamo crap out straight out of the box. However, everyone's situation is different.
One thing to consider is that HP had absorbed Compaq. Compaq made excellent servers, however I'm guessing many of the same people who worked on servers have now been tasked with working on laptops and that may explain why the quality of HP laptops have faltered over the years. However, my next laptop/netbook will probably be from Acer or Asus, I'm much more comfortable with a desktop for what I do and a netbook seems to suit my needs for mobile computing. However, given a choice on laptops Toshiba so far have been a good choice, you can drop them, step on them and I've even lit the rugged outside on fire and the computer will still work. Of course to be fair, I'm talking about the high end of laptops in every case, not the low end consumer laptops. Since if you buy crap then you will undoubtedly receive crap. Technology works like that and is to be expected.
Where is the within 1 year list? My HP would be on that group, motherboard failed within 6 months, luckily it was still under warranty.
My experience with Sony laptops has not been positive. Every Sony laptop we acquired for work broke within the first year or so. Intially we relied on service repair. But then the units continued to have issues. We ended up replacing all the units with an alternate brand that has proven more reliable. It wasn't matter if there was going to be a problem, it became more of matter of when. I'm not sure if we bought a bad batch, but it's one of those incidents that sticks in your mind. And I think what made it worse, is that we paid a premium for the Sony laptops.
Hi
Haven't read the comments but I did read the article.
I've personally worked on thousands yes thousands of devices all different makes.
I have this to say...
Take care of your stuff! Honestly just take care of your stuff.
I've NEVER had a device of my own fail.
Almost every client of mine says the same thing - I don't know what happened. Before i look inside this is what i see scratches front and back,dents, and dings. As soon as I look inside I see more of the story tobacco, lint, water (sooo much water), tar, dust, pot, make up, cocaine, coffee - the list goes on and on. If HP has a bad track record i blame their pricing the less you pay for it the less likely you are to take care of it. Sony and Apple products tend to cost more therefore they are treated better end of story. Why are Asus and Toshiba at the front of the list? No average user buys their stuff but a tech might and guess what? We take care of our stuff.
The truth is none of these companies make their own stuff - toshiba makes a majority of the hard drives that go into everyones devices and samsung makes the memory. Asus makes boards that go into many of the computers including you guessed it HP. The difference is not in the hardware people it's in the users.
That's my rant for today.
I know two people who had sony laptops, both are barely making it to 3years..Aside from some charging issues, my old school macbook pro is running great
I think for those of you who doubt the survey. You guys should check out this PC World survey that is much more objective and has a fully explained and clear "methodology".
http://www.pcworld.com/zoom?id=112915&page=6&zoomIdx=1
http://www.pcworld.com/zoom?id=112915&page=9&zoomIdx=2
The results aren't as dramatic - but basically toshiba comes out really bad for customer service, but pretty good for reliability, while hp and compaq bottom out on quality.
I'm not sure why Asus did so well- my EEEPC left mouse button broke after 16 months and ASUS was not interested in fixing it.
Interesting stats.... I myself have a Compaq while my wife and 19 yo daughter both have a Toshiba... mine has never had a probelm, but both of theirs have crashed (wifes was repaired once by Toshiba) and now my wifes wont even power up, the lights come on but thats it no screen