Netbooks less reliable than cheap laptops. Is this true?

Just came across a study from Electronista that talks about a recent rapport regarding laptop’s reliability.

The numbers in the rapport come from SquareTrade, a company specialized in selling extended warranty for portable devices and they say some interesting stories.

First, we can see that HP makes the crappiest products of all: 25% of them failed somehow after 3 years of use, while on the top sit Asus and Toshiba with just around 15% of their devices malfunctioning during warranty.

Acer and Gateway are at the bottom of this top too.

Asus on top, while HP is the big dissapointment of the list

Asus on top, while HP is the big disappointment of the list

Frankly, I’m not really surprised. I knew Acer products are not the best (but they are the cheapest though) and I never was a fan of Gateway but HP… well, my personal experience with their laptops is very little, so there’s nothing I can say there. On the other hand, i have an Asus laptop that has been working night and day for 3 years and is still OK. I should mention that its motherboard fried a year ago while it was still under warranty and got replaced. Everything seems to work just fine since then. As for the Toshiba, my little NB205 is doing just fine, thank you. So, i must congratulate myself for choosing the most reliable brands when buying my notebooks :P

There’s also another graph, that tells us how Netbooks are less reliable than cheap laptops. Not by much, just 6 percents. And frankly that’s not a surprise either: on netbooks you have to squeeze components in a compact body and temperature problems might cause that components to fail easier.

More netbooks fail after first year than cheap laptops

More netbooks fail after first year than cheap laptops

Still, there might be some contesting this top, because the source, SquareTrade, is not the most reliable one. I for one haven’t even heard of it before actually, but that’s another story. True or not, the graphs looks authentic to me and are somehow what i expected (maybe not with Asus on the first place of the podium though).

I’m curios what to you folks think? Based on your experience, do you consider these tops truthful or not?

Source: Electronista

Popularity: 6% [?]

Last updated: September 29, 2011 | Published: November 17th, 2009 | See the comments or add yours!

Author: Mike - wrote 636 posts - see all posts by

Andrei Girbea, aka "Mike", is the Owner and Editor in Chief at netbooklive.com . He's been dealing with gadgets and writing about them for years and now focuses more on portable computers, like netbooks, mini laptops and touchscreen tablets. You can follow him on Twitter.

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  • aaaa

    Truthfully dell has crappy laptops…
    not surprised about HP though

  • John

    The battery on my 2 year old Dell gave out. A friend of mine has a problem with the optical drive on the same model Dell (Inspiron 1501). Other Dells (the more expensive ones) I haven’t seen fail too often.
    Acer I’ve seen fail many a times. Folks, don’t buy Acer. Seriously.
    I’ve used Sony (2 laptops) and they were both good. Haven’t used them for too long, though.
    Not too familiar with Apple, Lenovo or Gateway (we don’t have this brand here in Romania).

  • http://www.netbooklive.com Mike

    Hi hi. What a small world. I’m from Romania too, John :) And i mainly agree on what you say about Acer.

    On the other hand, i have an Asus that is now nearly 3 years old and works pretty good. I had some problems with it during the warranty period and from then, things are running smoothly.

    So, in the end, i believe failure rate is also influenced by how you use your laptop and how much you look after it.

  • Asynca

    Interesting. I’m very loyal to HP, and have had ZERO problems with them. In fact, I ditched Toshiba laptops (which I’d used for 10 years, since the days of 386!) to stick solely to HP.

  • tom

    about netbooks, one thing i have noticed is they tend not to be carried around properly. they are often tossed loose into a backback where as larger laptops tend to be placed in special bags that help protect them. i also notice a lot of people just closing the lid and tossing their netbook into a bag without shutting it down.