Netbooks Have Higher Failure Rate Than Laptops 264
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."
Cheaper = Worse? (Score:5, Insightful)
Netbooks get handled a lot rougher . . . (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Cheaper = Worse? (Score:5, Insightful)
It depends though. Something with a smaller screen, no dvd drive, etc. should be possible to make cheaper for the same or less money.
Surprised but it makes sense (Score:5, Insightful)
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 no doubt this is true... (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:Cheaper = Worse? (Score:3, Insightful)
Value priced + Early in Life Cycle = Poor Quality
What "legendary reliability of Macs"? (Score:1, Insightful)
Practically everyone I've ever known with a Mac has had major hardware issues with it, especially laptops with things like weak power plugs breaking off at the motherboard requiring a full main board replacement.
Apple's service has always seemed outstanding, issues get resolved well and quickly, but the basic hardware... When there's a choice to be made between looks and function or reliability, Apple takes looks each and every time. Apple sells style, not quality.
Re:Hmmm (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm sure everyone's going to "fanboi" label me for this comment but here it is anyway. Apple tends to hang more on the bleeding edge, and is naturally going to run into more frequent hardware failures as a result. Things like mandatory cameras, backlit keyboards, ambient light sensors, 11N, drop-head-parking, DVI, etc. I suppose in that respect a lot of Apple buyers are comparable to other brands' "early adopters", and the tradeoffs that brings.
What's more important to most people is the support they get when they have a problem. (and then the tables turn, violently)
(I'd rather have my mobo go out twice and be covered both times, than for it to go out once and not be covered)
Re:What "legendary reliability of Macs"? (Score:2, Insightful)
Aren't netbooks more likely to get transported? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Cheaper = Worse? (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, given their size and portability, I'd expect netbooks to have harsher treatment than a laptop. Laptops are big enough you think 'expensive computer' when you are handling one, where netbooks are (intentionally) designed to feel like they are more of a 'mid-sized electronic device'.
It's not much, but it could well account for a 1% difference, IMHO.
Re:Failure rate? What about Support of failures? (Score:3, Insightful)
Just goes to show you, there's a sucker born every minute, and that company takes advantage of them.
Correlation != Causality (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Cheaper = Worse? (Score:2, Insightful)
That's right. If you pay 300% more, it will be 1.6% less likely to break in the first year. A bargain!
Re:Cheaper = Worse? (Score:3, Insightful)
Very often a less expensive product is indeed equal or even superior to the more expensive one. Whenever anyone says "you get what you pay for," hold on to your wallet. You usually pay for what you get, but you don't always get what you pay for.
Generic naproxen sodium costs 1/4 as much as Aleve, but they are identical except for price. Only fools waste their money on brand name drugs when there is a generic equivalent; naproxin is naproxin regardless of whose brand is on the bottle.
Re:What "legendary reliability of Macs"? (Score:3, Insightful)
Squaretrade claim to have only included new purchases in this survey.
Also thier definition of netbook is based on price alone, some very cheap craptops may sneak into the netbook category while the high end netbooks that have started appearing on the market would be lumped in with the low end notebooks.
Re:Netbooks get handled a lot rougher . . . (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Things that make you go, hmmm. (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:Aha! (Score:2, Insightful)
My current HP had its battery replaced twice because it had died within 3 months of the battery coming out of the box(both times) and the only reason I didn't replace it more is because it was just going to fail again(Why replace faulty parts with more faulty parts? In case you couldn't guess, it died a total of three times and I just didn't care anymore after the third. My laptop is now essentially a desktop). The second time they even brought the laptop in to see if it was causing the battery failures. It was but they couldn't fix it.
Even worse, they held my credit card number ransom. They said if I didn't send the old battery in after they sent me the replacement, they would charge me for a new one. Keep in mind that they logged onto my computer to check to see if my battery was indeed dead before confirming that it was covered under warranty, but they still didn't trust me enough to return a brick that they were just going to throw away/recycle. The doesn't even mention that they could have sent me an empty box and had me send them the dead battery first since it was dead and I couldn't use it anyway.
Whatever, this article only supports me in my hatred of HP products.
Re:Aha! (Score:3, Insightful)
Speaking as a former HP lead repair tech, the hardware is pretty much identical. Board configurations might be different, but just by a little bit, depending on whether it's intel or amd based. They all use the same Realtek audio, altec lansing speakers, most (business and consumer class) come with discrete graphics, which means you can upgrade that, they all use Intel wireless, the ethernet depends on intel or amd base again.
The motherboard failures were mostly caused by faulty die packaging around the GPU - nVidia's issue, not HPs.
I will say consumer HP laptops use an inferior plastic to the commercial line. My case near the cpu/hdd/power light is busted up just from opening the clamshell.