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Netbooks Have Higher Failure Rate Than Laptops
Barence writes "Netbooks are more likely to fail within the first year than their more expensive laptop brethren, according to new research. SquareTrade, an independent US warranty provider, analyzed the failure rates of more than 30,000 laptops covered by its own warranties. It found that 5.8% of netbooks malfunctioned within the first year, compared to 4.7% for regular laptops and 4.2% for premium laptops costing more than $1,000. The research also raises question marks over the legendary reliability of Macs. Three PC manufacturers — Asus, Toshiba, and Sony — boasted better reliability rates than Apple. Macs have a 17.4% malfunction rate over three years, compared to market-leader Asus, which has a 15.6% failure rate. HP was the worst of the nine PC vendors listed, with a malfunction rate of 25.6% over three years."
So you're telling me that something cheap isn't as well made as something expensive? Allow me to go re-evaluate my life...
Sometimes insightful looks into popular things really makes me sit back and think...
This just makes me say, "So what?"
"Most people, I think, don't even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?"
They are cheaper and lighter and more portable and get handled a lot rougher than a $1000+ laptop. Nothing about this is news.
What is this? A report from the Maximegalon Institute of Slowly and Painfully Working Out the Surprisingly Obvious?
After all, one of the things driving interest in NetBooks is their price. For makers to make money on them, they have to make them using lesser standards than their more expensive units. After all, a great deal of the same stuff goes into each and to keep the prices down, something had to give.
Besides, when the price is that low, people tend to start thinking of these netbooks as "disposable" and worry less about problems.
While I have absolutely no doubt that $300 netbooks die more often, there's no way I'm going to trust the numbers from a company that primarily offers warranty service to computers sold on Ebay.
I strongly suspect that a lot of the Apple, Dell and (especially) Lenovo notebooks they're servicing are several years old and are probably used or lease return models to begin with.
-- I wanna decide who lives and who dies - Crow T. Robot, MST3K
A Google search for "Aspire One fan" shows multiple vendors selling the fans for $20 or so, and a couple selling 'thermal modules' for about $40.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
I saw this the other day. What struck me most is that Sony and Apple have historically had the highest failure rates in the industry (maybe other than HP), and Dell has had among the lowest. Toshiba appears to have consistently low failure rates. I'm glad to see that Apple and Sony have improved (assuming the accuracy of the report), and very disappointed at Dell's slide.
Still, as an IT support guy, those numbers don't jive with what I see. Apple laptops need warranty service far more often than this study indicates, in my experience. I'd like to know more about the methodology of the survey.
Mac laptops don't have "power plugs" attached to their mainboard-- they all use MagSafe adapters which suffer extremely little wear and tear. And the new unibody laptops are extremely rigid construction. I'm not sure your information is up-to-date...
E pluribus unum
And the reason for the MagSafe adapters is because in the old Mac books the Weak Power plugs were breaking off when someone hit them requiring a full main board replacement :D
As someone who professionally provided tech support for Macs for more than 15 years, I have to disagree with you. I do think that when Macs have problems, they have BIG problems, but overall they have proven (to me anyway) that they are generally much more reliable than systems made by Windows PC vendors.
As for this SquareTrade article, it wouldn't surprise me if Apple fell a few points behind other manufacturers, though I cannot possibly imagine why someone would buy a new Mac and get a SquareTrade warranty instead of Apple's excellent 3-year warranty. Makes me wonder if the Macs covered by SquareTrade are largely used? You can't buy them at Target.
I also find it very odd that this year's SquareTrade report is almost entirely the reverse of last year's, when HP came out on top. Also, Lenovo is calling shenanigans on this year's data.
Liberal? Conservative? Compare perspectives at Left-Right
But correlation isn't causality. It may be that cheaper = worse, or it may be that cheaper = smaller form factor = more portability = more transportation and use = more wear and tear = more breakdowns. The article also says that Apple laptops are less reliable, but it could also be that Apple laptops are used more by their owners and again are subject or greater wear and tear. Or it could be that Apple makes crap laptops. With a correlation design, you cannot infer causality.
Absolutely true, the old power connectors were a nightmare, and replacing that part in the older Powerbooks was awful, as you had to remove about 80% of the components inside the book to get to it.
That being said, the MagSafe connectors are wonderful and I have never seen a model with that connector having power issues. The only issue I've seen on newer Mac laptops are broken screens, usually from dropping on concrete.
(Disclaimer: I work in an all Mac laboratory with huge ranges in the ages of all the Macs we have.)
Another /. story brought this to my attention and I did some digging. It turns out that the entire tech-blog-sphere is basing their articles on a 'study' done by Squaretrade, a company that sells extended warranties for computers and phones. I won't get into the ethics of selling warranties for brand-new computers that already carry OEM warranties.
The problem is that Squaretrade is in direct competition with Apple's Applecare. A few quick searches on their website shows that their plans cost more than applecare and that they lack some of the features of applecare (phone support, apple store support, ups dropoff service, etc).
So my advice is to take that bar graph with a grain of salt.
-b
No offense, but I've stopped responding to AC's.
I think, with the netbooks and PCs that I've handled, what makes the netbooks feel solid is their weight.
They are just heavy enough that they don't feel "light" in a flimsy way; but they are typically light enough that they don't flex when you pick them up(which is probably also good for the motherboard). To make a 15 inch laptop that doesn't flex requires actual engineering and decent materials, of the sort that you need to buy a business box or an apple to get. 15 inchers made of boring basic ABS feel like flimsy crap. Netbooks with the same basic ABS construction don't feel nearly as flimsy, because they don't flex when you pick them up.
My two year HP pavillion dv6535ep laptop exibited the following behaviour during time:
* After two months:
- A lcd pixel near the bottom right corner stoped working, it is red all the time.
* After four months:
- Maximum battery capacity lowered to less than half.
* After a year and couple of months:
- The integrated (USB) camera stopped working due to bad contact on wiring near screen hinge. The camera starts/stops working everytime the screen is tilted.
* After two years:
- The power supply adapter stopped working (it shorts the mains when it gets too hot).
My previous laptop was a Acer Aspire 1520:
* The battery capacity didn't go below ~80% after four years.
* The nvidia graphics card failed after one year and something.
* The power supply adapter failed with a lot of white smoke after two years and something.
* A SMD transistor popped up from mainboard after five years. After soldering it myself, the laptop continued working perfectly until today.
And yes, I'm carefull with laptops, I take proper measures to preserve battery life and my house's electrical mains are not faulty.