Don’t Get More Than 3 Years of Warranty

From Business Mirror:

Enterprises that extend service life of notebooks beyond the prescribed optimum performance of three years will pay more in the long-run than buying new computers, according to a recent study conducted by market research firm J. Gold Associates.

In its report entitled Keeping Notebooks Past Their Prime: A Study of Failures and Costs, J. Gold said adding two more years in the laptops’ prime usage may cost a company $1,050 per device as older, slower and less reliable machines result in productivity loss.

While the study focuses on the corporate situation, not on your Every Joe gadget user, it’s still a warning: I know that manufacturers are less enthusiastic with their support for consumers, so it’s likely multi-year warranties are totally useless for non-corporate customers. At least, that was my experience with my first Dell laptop.

What do you think?