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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...
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?
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.
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I'll defend them a bit - they say in their paper that they exclude computers that were purchased as either refurbished or used.
But that's where my defense of their methodology ends. They say the total sample size was 30,000, and they analyzed 9 brands that had over 1,000 units each. IMHO, that's still a pretty small sample size. The margin of error on at least some of those numbers would be around ±3%; that would be enough for the "top 6" manufacturers to be roughly indistinguishable. Keeping that in mind, I'd say there are two groups of manufacturers, reliability-wise: Asus, Toshiba, Sony, Apple, and Dell are more reliable, and Lenovo, Acer, Gateway, and HP are less reliable - but only by a couple percent.
Also, I'd object similarly to their comparison of netbooks against the larger notebook market; they say in their paper that netbook market share was 10% of all laptops until Q4 last year, so I have to assume that their 1-year data is probably similar, meaning 10% of their 30,000 samples are netbooks. That means a margin of error around ±2%. However, the difference between netbooks and "premium laptops" in reliability at 1 year is only 1.6%.
Finally, I almost missed this, but all their 3-year reliability numbers for all laptops are "projections" from their 2-year data (their 3-year reliability numbers for netbooks are projected from just 1 year). So take any error they had at 2 years, multiply it by 3/2, and you're off even further - I suppose that means the margin of error on some of these numbers is probably closer to 4.5%.
All in all, I'd say their paper is a little light on numbers. There are a whopping 11 actual data points that they base all of their data on in the paper - the other 13 data points are projections (all but 1 is a projection from data that is not quoted in the paper). Add to that my general sense of distrust in anybody that sells an extended warranty, and, well, you get the idea.
To insert some unscientific anecdotal evidence; I've had my MacBook back in for repairs three times since I got it two years ago. But the issues I've taken it back for (some faint marks on the screen, and two cracked palmrests) I would have (and indeed have in the past) tolerated on a cheaper laptop with a manufacturer without a highstreet presence. My willingness to complain (and therefore register a failure) is raised because there's someone I can walk to and yell at who will fix it quickly and for free.
All intents and purposes. Not intensive purposes.