Netbook failure rate 20 percent higher than laptops
November 17, 2009 at 12:24 pm
SquareTrade, a large independent warranty provider, has analysed the failure rates for over 30,000 laptops and netbooks covered by its warranty plans with some revealing insights. It found that just under a third of laptops will fail within three years and that netbooks are 20 percent more likely to fail.
Breaking down the results, SquareTrade found that 20.4 percent of laptop failures were due to hardware malfunctions and 10.4 percent were from accidental damage. Whilst one would expect netbooks to suffer a higher rate of accidental damage to their portability, apparently netbook hardware malfunctions were 20 percent higher than laptops.
They found that 5.8 percent of netbooks to have a malfunction in the first 12 months of ownership, over 20 percent higher than entry-level laptops and nearly 40 percent higher than premium laptops. They also project that netbooks will have a 25.1 percent malfunction rate over a three-year period. This compares to laptops at 20.6 percent and premium laptops at 18.1 percent.
Good news if you own an Asus Eee PC or Toshiba laptop/netbook, these brands were found to be the most reliable. Fewer than 16 percent reported having a hardware malfunction over three years. The brands that had higher than average failure rates include Acer, Gateway & HP.
I’d take these results with a pinch of salt personally, netbooks have only existed for the last two years and the company itself admits to a “lack of data on netbooks over a year old.” I’d be interested to see the results a year from now to get a better sense of netbook reliability.
Via Gizmodo.
November 17th, 2009 2:51 PM
Nah,
This is not a proper insite. We cannot make a judgement taking into considerations of only 30,000 netbooks.
November 17th, 2009 4:05 PM
I have dropped my Nokia phone ‘n’ no. of times but it still works perfectly .. We need to wait for two more years to see the malfunction rates in netbooks.
Conspiracy Theory: I hope these charts aren’t a ploy to get consumers to pay up for extra warranty period beyond the normal one year warranty ??? Anyway, Samsung netbooks don’t figure in the charts … I own one and I guess am lucky !!
November 17th, 2009 4:42 PM
Lame use of stats imo. Compare the number of units sold in that time. A ton more netbooks were sold, therefore it only makes sense to see their failure rates higher. More were purchased! The failure needs to be based on the % of units sold over the same time. Most people won’t get beyond the headline which is a bit sad really.
November 18th, 2009 8:32 PM
Hmm, I wonder who would be the best party to run an independent study like this… somehow a company that makes money out of selling extended/upgraded warranty contracts is LAST in my list. How do they have the guts to call this “independent” is beyond belief.