How Good is that PC under the Tree? Front Page

Like several Christmases before, technology was some of the most given gifts this holiday season. With the popularity of inexpensive netbooks and new notebooks, many people spent Christmas morning setting up their new laptop and getting it online. Technology has come a long way and has significantly dropped in price over the years. The fact that you can give a laptop for Christmas for about the same price as a game console is saying a lot. But, how reliable are laptops these days. As manufacturers keep cutting costs to increase margins, how is this affecting the lifespan of your gift?

Apparently, I wasn’t the only one curious about this question. After a quick search on the Internet machine, I found an article from Ziff Davis Enterprise’s Channel Insider with the list of the 2009 Top 9 Most Reliable Notebook Computer Manufacturers. Channel Insider worked with SquareTrade, a provider of PC extended warranty services, who studied the failure rates of the most widely used notebook computers pretty much confirming the ‘ol adage that you get what you pay for. I was however, a little surprised to find that one in three notebooks will have some kind of catastrophic failure within three years of use even among the top brands. So what are the top manufacturers?

1. Asus
2. Toshiba
3. Sony
4. Apple
5. Dell
6. Lenovo
7. Acer
8. Gateway
9. HP

source: http://bit.ly/7Tg6Pw

This list actually confirmed some of my already preconceived stereotypes. I assumed Dell was better than Lenovo, Acer, Gateway, and even HP; but I was kind of shocked to see that Sony and Toshiba were as high as they were. They even beat out Apple who has a dramatically smaller market share than Sony or Toshiba which should’ve swayed the results in their favor. Asus was the top manufacturer with only about a 15% failure rate over three years. I try to use Asus components for my home built machines because of their high reliability rate and support so I was pretty pleased to see their outcome.

What does this mean for you? Well, not much unfortunately. Most people today select their laptops based on style and performance more than reliability. Generally, we associate reliability of technology based on brand recognition rather than hard numbers. So, chances are you unwrapped an Apple instead of an Asus this Christmas. Not to worry though, since this study proves that premium priced notebooks generally had a lower malfunction and failure rate than lower-priced notebooks, let’s hope the person giving you this gift sprung for the more expensive model.