Guest DigDoug Posted November 28, 2004 Posted November 28, 2004 Hi all, I approached Black Friday with a "buy now, ask questions later" attitude. I got one of the $500 laptops and when I was purchasing it, I was told to get the $99.99 extended 2 year warrenty because it would cover the batteries as their life died. He also said the price of a new battery was $250 so I picked up the warrenty. Was this guy full of crap or is it a good idea to get this coverage? I have 14 days to return the policy. Thanks! Keith
RossMAN Posted November 28, 2004 Posted November 28, 2004 That's tough to say because $99 is 1/5th the laptop's value! However $99 for 2 years coverage seems to be a good deal, that's only $4.13 per month. Laptops are not cheap nor easy to fix. So if something were to happen you will be covered. I believe after 3 repairs in 1 year they give you a new laptop if they cannot fix it. If you decide to keep the extended warranty remember to claim your free replacement battery (maybe eBay it?) after the 1st and 2nd year :)
Guest DigDoug Posted November 28, 2004 Posted November 28, 2004 So I could request a new battery without having to return the old one?? well.... that seems to make the warrenty worth it. :)
RossMAN Posted November 28, 2004 Posted November 28, 2004 I'm not sure, I would ask your local Best Buy before the 14 day return window closes. That would be nice though wouldn't it?
Guest DigDoug Posted November 28, 2004 Posted November 28, 2004 1-888-Best-Buy, but I have the number of the store I bought it from. Do you have a suggestion?
RossMAN Posted November 28, 2004 Posted November 28, 2004 According to Chris at that Best Buy you have to turn in the old battery in order to get a new battery. There goes that idea!
Guest DigDoug Posted November 28, 2004 Posted November 28, 2004 Thanks a bunch! I am going to google the price of the battery. I have a hard time buying they go for $250. The $99 protection plan may be worth it anyway, but it's actually only covering one additonal year that the manufacturer is not. Hrmmm..
RossMAN Posted November 28, 2004 Posted November 28, 2004 Did you pay for your laptop with a Visa, MasterCard or Amex credit card? Which one?
Guest DigDoug Posted November 28, 2004 Posted November 28, 2004 Best Buy credit card - to get the 12 month no interest financing.
RossMAN Posted November 28, 2004 Posted November 28, 2004 Ok if you had purchased with a credit card they usually offer a FREE 1 year extended warranty :)
Fireflyfrommi Posted November 29, 2004 Posted November 29, 2004 The guy at Best Buy told me that they will replace the battery every six months for two years. That's four batteries. I bought it too! Lisa
liane66 Posted November 29, 2004 Posted November 29, 2004 Well you guys got a better deal than I did. I paid 199 for 3 years extended warranty, but was also told the battery would be replaced when they died & I would get a new laptop if the screen went bad (which apparently they tend to do) or if I accidentally dropped it. Does anyone know if this hooey?
warlock110 Posted November 29, 2004 Posted November 29, 2004 laptop screen do poof out once it a while, i'm thinking of about 3 or 4 years average, some got their laptop for years without any problem, as for other stuff it's just like computer, the easiest thing to go out is the dam HDD because it get acess too much, other than that, i can't think of anything that can go out easily, the 2 years waranty is very "unusable" because the battery average life is 2 years, not 1. And it depends how you use it too, the battery usually holds about 1000 charge, so no matter how you think about it, it should last 2 years. Now if you wanna make money go on ebay and by old batteries :) and go back to BB make them give you the new ones (trade in) and sale the new ones on ebay for extra cash hahaha.
RossMAN Posted November 29, 2004 Posted November 29, 2004 liane66, I think it's "hooey". BB employees are pressured into selling these extended warranties and have quota's to meet. It covers defective parts but if you were to accidentally spill coffee or drop the laptop, it will NOT be covered. Dell does offer these types of warranties but AFAIK BB does not. You should have up to 14 days to decide if you want to return the warranty or not.
liane66 Posted November 29, 2004 Posted November 29, 2004 Thanks for the info. I may still keep the warranty, but its good to know I have a choice --the salesman was so pushy -- said no one had walked out of the store w/o an extended warranty on the laptop (I did decline all the others though--for the 200 emachine PC (not worth it) & the 18 DVD player. Think I will read my warranty. thanks again everyone. This is the best site!
RossMAN Posted November 29, 2004 Posted November 29, 2004 Still $199 for an extended warranty is EXPENSIVE considering that is 40% of the cost of your laptop! Ask yourself, would you pay $6,000 for an extended warranty on a new $15,000 car? I would hope not.
Rebirth Posted November 29, 2004 Posted November 29, 2004 There's still the manufacturer's warranty. Maybe next year, BF. There will be a $400 laptop. Save your $200, and add another $200 for a brand new laptop. lol
Guest DigDoug Posted November 29, 2004 Posted November 29, 2004 I think I am going to read up on the manufacturer's warrenty and decide whether or not to return mine. Basically, you only get 1 year extra coverage and the "priviledge" of dealing with Best Buy during the first year instead of the manufacturer.
floridasun5 Posted November 29, 2004 Posted November 29, 2004 I bought Best Buy's so-called warranty when I bought my Compaq there about a year and a half ago. After a few months, I sent them a letter and told them to cancel and send my money back. First, I've never had an issue with the battery...if I did, I'm positive I could find one online for cheaper than $250. Secondly, I had an issue when my hard drive crashed a few months after purchasing my laptop and had to restore it but which also meant I was going to lose all my data. Since I work at home my computer is essential to my paycheck and my side business. The only thing I needed was for someone to back up my hard drive for me as the last backup I had was about a month old onto a cd or something, something that would only take an hour or two as I have done it before myself. I called Best Buy and told them of my situation, of which they replied that I would have to leave the laptop for I think it was 3 days at that time and would have to pay for the backup. I understand that warranties cannot cover everything, but I was more upset about having to leave it for 3 days as I wouldnt be able to work. I think that Best Buy should have some kind of priority service for those who purchase these warranties. So, I promptly cancelled that warranty and will never buy another one from Best Buy again.
warlock110 Posted November 30, 2004 Posted November 30, 2004 Thanks for the info. I may still keep the warranty, but its good to know I have a choice --the salesman was so pushy -- said no one had walked out of the store w/o an extended warranty on the laptop (I did decline all the others though--for the 200 emachine PC (not worth it) & the 18 DVD player. Think I will read my warranty. thanks again everyone. This is the best site!any sales man see me and ask me to buy warranty like that, i'll just tell him "there's a 1st time for everything isn't it".
warlock110 Posted November 30, 2004 Posted November 30, 2004 oh yeah, and do have some luck when you wanna BB to replace anything on the laptop, it sounded so great when the sale you the warranty, when something actually breaks, see how they gonna weasel their way out of not paying you. it's just the way it is. if some thing break, buy the same thing from the same store and swap it, all the store gonna do is send it back to the manufacter for repair, it works for my friend's PS 2, he bought it like a month and the lazer stop reading, he lost the reciet, so that's what he did, they happily took it back.
CrayZMama80 Posted November 30, 2004 Posted November 30, 2004 From experience with warranty's and BB. I am on a brand new laptop right as we speak. Well it's a few months old now, however, I had purchased one of those warranty's through them on my original laptop. They had their trials on fixing the old one. Mostly had something to do with the fan burning out. I did go back a few times. Finally talked to a manager and told him I'm sick of being without my computer. The hard part about that is they have to send laptops out to be worked on. Well to make a longer story shorter..I ended up getting my purchase price to apply it to a new laptop or pc of my choice. Which for that laptop I paid 1900. I ended up getting that 1900 off of this one and I also got the rebates on this one. (was shocked I was able to get those too) Plus I purchased another warranty for the one I'm on now. To me it was worth it. All in all I after rebates I think this one cost me a total of 50 bucks outta pocket. The old laptop I had was btw 3 yrs old.. and was on last months of the warranty. So I guess it's a matter of choice for the warranty. I purchased one for 3 yrs. on that laptop. We also purchased one of those laptops for our daughter on BF. She's gonna be happy with it. It's a good starter for her work for college.
Guest DigDoug Posted December 3, 2004 Posted December 3, 2004 Has anyone found a price and place for a new battery for these laptops?
RossMAN Posted December 5, 2004 Posted December 5, 2004 For an extra $150 (and no waiting in line 4 hours) I would have bought this $649 laptop instead: 15.4" WXGA TFT active-matrix widescreen display with 1280 x 800 resolution>> Will this screen size match your needs? 60.0GB EIDE hard drive (4200 rpm) Integrated Intel® 855GME graphics with 16MB shared video memory; SRS TruSurround XT technology; S-video TV-out IEEE 1394 (FireWire) interface and 3 high-speed USB 2.0 ports for fast digital video, audio and data transfer Built-in Wi-Fi-compliant high-speed Atheros wireless LAN (802.11b/g); 10/100Base-TX Ethernet LAN with RJ-45 connector; V.92 high-speed modem Weighs about 6.6 lbs. and measures just 1.5" thin for easy portability; lithium-ion battery and AC adapter Windows XP Home Edition operating system preinstalled; software package included with Microsoft Office OneNote 2003, InterVideo DVD 5, RecordNow! and more Warranty Terms - Parts 1 year limited Warranty Terms - Labour 1 year limited Product Height 1.5" Product Width 14.4" Product Weight 6.6 lbs. Product Length 10.8" Processor Brand Intel® Celeron® M Processor Speed 1.5GHz Display Type WXGA TFT active-matrix widescreen (1280 x 800) Screen Size 15.4" System Bus 400MHz Cache Memory 1MB on die Level 2 System Memory (RAM) 256MB System Memory (RAM) Expandable To 2.0GB Type of Memory (RAM) PC2700 DDR SDRAM Hard Drive Type EIDE Hard Drive Size 60.0GB (4200 rpm) Optical Drive DVD-ROM/CD-RW Optical Drive Speeds Drive speeds not available Diskette Drive Optional Diskette Drive Type USB external 3.5" 1.44MB floppy (optional) Graphics Integrated Intel® 855GME Video Memory 16MB (shared) MPEG Yes Modem 56 Kbps* ITU V.92 *Capable of receiving 56 Kbps downloads. However, current regulations limit download speed to 53 Kbps. Networking Built-in Wi-Fi-compliant Atheros wireless LAN (802.11b/g); 10/100Base-TX Ethernet (RJ-45 connector) Audio 16-bit stereo; SRS TruSurround XT technology; Direct 3D Sound Speakers Built-in stereo speakers PCMCIA Slots 1 Type II USB Ports 3 USB 2.0 IEEE 1394 FireWire Ports 1 Parallel Ports None Serial Ports None Game Ports None Battery Type Lithium-ion Pointing Device Touchpad Operating System Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition Included Software Toshiba Notebook Maximizer, Speech System, ConfigFree, Custom Utilities, Touch and Launch; Microsoft Works, Office OneNote 2003; InterVideo WinDVD 5; Quicken New User Edition 2004; RealOne Player; Sonic RecordNow!; ArcSoft ShowBiz DVD 1.3 and more
liane66 Posted December 7, 2004 Posted December 7, 2004 Just wanted to say thanks. After reading the replies in this forum and thinking about it I decided to cancel my 200 warranty. The salesman (a different one) really tried to talk me out of it, but I refused to give-in. If and when my laptop breaks, I'll probably be able to upgrade to a nicer one. Again thanks for the feedback.
Guest DigDoug Posted December 7, 2004 Posted December 7, 2004 Good deal! I canceled my warrenty last night as well. They didn't hassle me about it. I returned one of the 19" monitors I bought on BF and the guy tried to get me to buy something else. I was like "No, I want my money back".
RossMAN Posted December 7, 2004 Posted December 7, 2004 Nice to see you two made the right decision. $499 is a killer price for this laptop, if the extended warranty was $99 for 3 years I would recommend it. Otherwise no.
Recommended Posts