I agree with both Brian and Joseph. I take the cheap approach to
buying hardware. I am a LAMP developer and do not play games nor do any
heavy duty graphics editing ETC. So I can get away with cheaper less
powerful hardware. That is not so much an issue any longer.
I bought my fist computer in 1986 and my first clone in 1987 - an
8088....
I have had one failure in all that time and it was a hard drive at work
in around 1997 or so.
I've gotten some really good deals on Black Friday and during back to
school sales.
For instance I was just at Walmart and they have a Dell laptop for $349.
It is an i3, 4GB RAM, and a 1GB HD.
I only buy when I find a really good deals.
Several months ago Staples was offering a Dell with an i3
w/visualization and threads... 4GB RAM, and a 500GB HD. It was $399.99.
It was a steal so I got it. It runs Mint and does visualization just
fine. Could probably add more RAM.
If you watch Staples, Ofc Depot, Dell... etc you can snag some really
good deals.
I was sitting with another developer a month or so ago and he had a MAC
Book that probably cost around $2000.00. I'd be afraid to take that out
of the house.
In a nutshell I do not buy the warranty because it would increase the
cost significantly.
On 2014-08-31 14:34, Brian Cluff wrote:
I was going to write a long reply to this message, but Joseph wrote
almost exactly what I was going to say.
If you treat your laptop well and carry it in a padded bag and don't
run it in harsh environments, you'll almost certainly not need it.
I tend to get the insurance for my cellphones because they are
essentially little laptops (without the clamshell design that protects
the screen) that are run in harsh environments and aren't kept in
little padded bags. I've had to cash in on my cell insurance 4 times,
but I've only once had a laptop get broken and that was because it got
put into the back of a truck with a bunch of other stuff put on top of
it and it crushed it. Now I just make sure my laptop is put in a good
place when transporting it and all is well, and the money I've saved
from not paying for the extended warranty would more than pay for a
couple of laptops.
Brian Cluff
On 08/31/2014 11:27 AM, Joseph Sinclair wrote:
I've never purchased an extended warranty for a computer.
It's a form of insurance, so you can guarantee that, statistically,
the cost is greater than the predictive (actuarial) cost of repair or
replacement.
given that gross margins on extended warranties for electronics
(particularly computers) run in the 80%-90% range (which is why sales
pushes them so hard), you can bet that your chances of needing that
coverage are slim indeed.
I currently have 4 desktop-like systems and 2 laptop-like systems.
The youngest is from 2012 (Chromebook with an ARM CPU), the oldest is
from 2009 (Desktop Atom CPU).
My nephew took my previous oldest machine, an AMD Athlon single-core
from 2004, and uses it to play minecraft.
Over the past 20 years I've only had one machine (out of 20 or so)
fail, and that was a cheap (Dell) chipset fan that failed after
running 24X365 for 8 years.
In my experience, the vast majority of laptop failures are because the
machine was dropped or mistreated in some way.
If you tend to toss machines around or drop them then I'd recommend
purchasing a less expensive system or a desktop (or a ruggedized
laptop if you must, but those are pricey).
If you buy a laptop and just take good care of it, the chances of a
failure due to parts or labor (for any tier-1 manufacturer) is
essentially 0 for the first 3 years.
BTW, one of the older machines I currently run is a System76 machine,
one of the first Atom(330) based "Meerkat" boxes from early 2009. The
CD failed (plastic spindle broke) about a year ago, but the box still
runs just fine (I rarely had use for the CD drive anyway).
I've run Windows in a VM on the Meerkat, but it's kind of painful to
run Windows in a VM when the real chip is a tiny Atom 330... I've run
Windows in a VM at work (but only when absolutely required to do so)
on a Core i5 chip, and it's a lot more tolerable there (about as
tolerable as Windows ever gets).
On 08/30/2014 04:47 PM, Mark Phillips wrote:
For all of you System 76 users, do you recommend the extended
warranty for
3 years? In other words, do you find you need this warranty, or is
the
standard 1 year warranty enough?
I have never purchased a System 76 machine, and I am in the market
for a
new laptop. The 17.3" Kudu Professional looks like a good fit.
Also, any issues running Windows in a virtual machine on these
beasts?
Thanks,
Mark
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