The study, produced by SquareTrade, an online vendor of extended warranties, found evidence that netbooks fail at a higher rate, 5.4% in the first year of use compared with 4.2% for a premium-level laptop.
The study also says the accident rate for laptops is another 10%, so the total failure rate over three years is closer to 30%.
What’s most fascinating is that different manufacturers have compiled startlingly different failure rates.
SquareTrade concluded that Asus and Toshiba laptops fail about 15% of the time. At the other end of the scale is Hewlett-Packard, with a failure rate of more than 25% (my first laptop was one of those statistics - right out of the gate).
How sad is it that the report concludes, “In some cases, it would appear that failure is not only an option, but the expectation.”
We need higher manufacturing standards. Yes, price points are competitive, but the failure rate is just too high.
The big U.S. hardware brands should recall what happened to Detroit in the 1970s when foreign carmakers got the unique idea to focus on quality.
Learn from the past, or forfeit the future.
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