Laptop extended warranty - worth it or not?

littlemoney

Is a 2 year warranty worth paying for on a new dell laptop or am I ok to go with the 1 year included in the price. I suppose my basic question is how good are current laptops?

My present Dell laptop is nearly 7 years old and I have had no problems with it. Are the new ones just as good?

digp

What does the extended warranty cover?

You have rights under law; these things should last a reasonable period of time.

teddysmum

The 'two years' is actually only one, as it begins at the time of purchase while cover by the one year anyway.

musafir05

Laptop become outdated within year..save the cash and replace the faulty parts yourself.

SuperHan

Laptop is most likely to die from accidental damage of some sort, so your money would be better invested in this.

As digp says, you do have the Sales of Goods Act to fall back on if it fails through no fault of yours, but this will take a little bit of time and possibly (refundable) money to pursue.

Parva

Totally agree with above responses, don't waste your money! It's incredibly unlikely the laptop will fail through 'normal' use within two years and you can bet that even if it does you end up fighting a battle to prove that you didn't actually cause the fault in the first place.

The sale of goods act also covers way beyond one year of warranty, although it's a very subjective issue. Buy a £50 Android Tablet and you're unlikely to get any recourse beyond the 12 months if it breaks, spend £600 on an i-pad and you're likely to still have a claim after a few years (provided that it's a fault with the manufacturing, not you dropping it in the bath).

Either way, extended warranties are an absolute waste of money. Me personally, I've never bought an extended warranty and never will. Things usually break well within 12 months or they just don't (for a long long time after) in my experience. Should they break after that and a repair is viable, the repair will ultimately cost less than the insurance I have paid (if I had paid).

Furthermore, you can get better policies to cover such breakages from other insurance firms, never ever waste the money on cover from the likes of PCWorld / Currys / whatever. My advice is either do without the insurance or if you feel more comfortable being insured, check around the online insurers that cover such things, most insurers do and you'll get a far better deal and far better cover.