Are all electrical retail store advisors this annoying?

[james.miller]

Unless it's a brand like Sony though it's unlikely to be even worth £400 by the time the 1 yr warranty is up, another year and your going to have paid more in warranty than the laptop is currently worth. Take my HP business laptop for example, bought for £700 in dec 06, sold last month for £170. When deprecation is taken into account only the most expensive laptops are really worth the warranties. Apple being the possible exception because of their crazy repair charges combined with the low depreciation.

my warranty is up this monthand you can pick them up for £649 now....i paid a grand but even so, given the choice id do it again. i cant fault the laptop at all. it's under-powered gpu-wise but everything else is still right up there and im sure it will be in another years time

 

[Energize]

If your smart you don't take the warranty out till they send you the reminder around 10months after the sale, I repair laptops for a living and some of the newer LED screens and sata blueray rewriters not to mention mainboards justify the cost alone.

Which companies offer pay per month warranties? All I've ever seen is a one off payment for 2-3 years extra warranty. The pay per month was for insurance.

Most people that buy expensive laptops ie desktop replacements hope to keep them for around 3-4 years, buying another £1k laptop after 2 years because its died and could cost £500 to repair is not something you want to be landed with financially out the blue, a warranty for £10 pm is nothing for piece of mind.

Well you wouldn't buy a £1k laptop if it only cost £500 to repair, you'd have it repaired leaving you only £250 worse off than if you hadn't bought a warranty.

 

[Begbie]

Went with a mate, to get him a new TV. They managed to sell him a £50 hdmi cable! After saying to him, watch they don't try and rob you with a HDMI cable. Some people.

 

[SexyGreyFox]

No offence dude, but do you have to mention your super amazing uber job in about 90% of your posts?

You now have to provide the evidence or STFU - *** No direct insults ***
You read through a post and decided to pick one line out you *** No direct insults ***.

 

[Amp34]

No it's causation. The purple shirts shop has a dumbification ray over the entrance that lowers the IQ of anyone walking through it by 30 points.

That explains why most of the staff haven't a clue, they walk through it daily...

 

[beermonster]

Which companies offer pay per month warranties? All I've ever seen is a one off payment for 2-3 years extra warranty. The pay per month was for insurance.

The company this thread is about.

Well you wouldn't buy a £1k laptop if it only cost £500 to repair, you'd have it repaired leaving you only £250 worse off than if you hadn't bought a warranty.

What A single component could cost £500 to repair worse case scenario such as the mainboard.

£250 worse off is a gamble I would take on an expensive laptop, plus you can have it repaired indefinately, say if several components fail over the period.

 

[[TW]Fox]

What A single component could cost £500 to repair worse case scenario such as the mainboard.

On what planet does a laptop mainboard cost £500?

 

[beermonster]

On what planet does a laptop mainboard cost £500?

Plenty of high end laptops with intergrated Nvidia graphics chipsets come close inc fitting, I can print a list out tomorrow if you so wish, some of the ultra portable Sonys with onboard cpu and graphics are astronomical.

 

[SexyGreyFox]

That explains why most of the staff haven't a clue, they walk through it daily...

One of the ex managers at the Stoke shop (for 4 years) who is also the leader of a local bike gang, doesn't even own his own computer because he knows bugger all about them however he could sell.

 

[james.miller]

Plenty of high end laptops with intergrated Nvidia graphics chipsets come close inc fitting, I can print a list out tomorrow if you so wish, some of the ultra portable Sonys with onboard cpu and graphics are astronomical.

oooh please do, that'd be an interesting read

 

[beermonster]

oooh please do, that'd be an interesting read

In hindsight its probably more than my jobs worth to publish any info, but bear in mind all the generic parts in a laptop such as cpu, memory, LCD, HD, DVD drives which are all the same generic parts bar size/speed are pretty low cost due to mass production, most of the cost involved is the mainboard due to it being made in smaller numbers and usually only a 6-12 month life span.

Plus its not like you can simply by a mainboard of the shelf to replace like you can with a desktop, you have to buy from the manufacturers.

 

[Energize]

The company this thread is about.

You have to weigh that against the higher prices they charge though, £14 a month may be good value but factor in the increased price and it loses value, may be good for the more expensive laptops where they are offering a bargain price though.

What A single component could cost £500 to repair worse case scenario such as the mainboard.

Yes and you would be £157 worse off if that happened two years after the warranty ran out on a £1000+ laptop if you hadn't been paying the monthly warranty charge and decided to get it repaired. Personally though I'd rather take the risk of losing £157 for the potential saving of £343 on warranty costs + interest. I don't know what % of laptops catastrophically fail between 1-3 years, but assuming it's less than 50% you'd be better off generally not taking out the warranty as you'd often save money rather than losing it.

 

["andy"]

ignore

 

[SexyGreyFox]

bugger it, what's the point?

 

[Stolly]

To be fair to the purple shirts, they do carry some fairly decent big name laptops, at the same price as the big name website but without the wait.

So whats the problem ?

I did have to put up with the attentions of a very enthusiastic young salesperson who really did want to help bless her. Didn't know what resolution the screen was, or how to find out. Had to show her. Tried to sell me Word. Told her i would be taking Windows off it so she kinda left me there.

Heard her go to another purple shirt and say "said he's going to take Windows off it 1!!11! whats he think he's going to do with it ?" which made me chuckle.

Seriously though, people need to realise that this forum is not in the least bit representative of the overall user population. Most people neither know nor care about the inner workings of PC's and why should they ? They are mainly a tool to do a job.

 

[mac1st3]

I know people who take out the fixed term insurance (3-5 years) and then when the product is nearing the end of it's warranty, break it, claim on the insurance, get a brand new model and warranty to continue it all,,bought an mp3 player 6 years ago, and has never had to buy another, just keeps smashing theirs and claiming it as "accidental damage" under the insurance

 

[SexyGreyFox]

Seriously though, people need to realise that this forum is not in the least bit representative of the overall user population. Most people neither know nor care about the inner workings of PC's and why should they ? They are mainly a tool to do a job.

I was taught a valuable lesson about 15 years ago when my mate had his first PC, he had a problem, I fixed it and then went on for 10 minutes telling him what I did.
He turned round and said "Dave, I'm not being funny but I don't give a **** about what the problem is, all I want to do is turn it on and work with it. I have no interest in how it works".
Most of the people I know have this attitude.

 

[Dr Who]

Think of it this way, if he had sold them that insurance, it would have saved you really annoying phonecalls in the middle of the night to solve really inane problems.

Gratz, you saved them money and earned yourself a life of free pc repairs

 

[JonJ678]

Interesting read.

I think it is difficult to assess whether the warranty is worthwhile or not without research. Some vaio screens cost staggering amounts. A significant fraction of PS3s shipped with a blue ray diode that dies about 18 months in, and which sony have now stopped making. That's a very large number of ps3s which are essentially beyond repair by anyone other than sony, who in fairness have corrected the issue with newer consoles. I suspect they replace a large fraction of the console, as the new diode assembly doesn't seem at all compatible with the broken systems. Xbox 360s drop like flies, a 3 year warranty on one is very likely to pay for itself.

The ideal approach is to research the components in the device you're considering buying, and get estimates for replacing the big ones. An Inspiron 1525 motherboard is pretty cheap since there's thousands of the things, but finding one for a Medion would be maddening. With the exception of Apple, I think a good idea is to visit a local computer repair shop and ask their advice. You want a common one which they never see, or failing that estimates for a new screen/inverter/motherboard/optical bay for whatever you're looking at.

If a new board is £300 and the laptop famously dies from gpu overheating, the extended warranty may just be worthwhile.

I wonder how many people on these boards can repair motherboards. I certainly can't, while I'm sure I can replace components if I source identical ones I definitely can't take a soldering iron to a motherboard. I guess this is the position most of us are in.

Too true dmpoole. I genuinely don't get it, but people really don't seem to care.

 

[z0mbi3]

(or at the very least purchase a high quality one from somebody like OCUK)