Acer, Asus, MSI or Dell for warranty, reliability and overall goodness?

Scrutinize · 19 Jun 2011 at 09:14

Well, there a few sales on at the moment so it seems the ideal time to sell my Lenovo G555, which has been flawless for the last year, and get a more powerful laptop which will do reasonable gaming etc. Prices are £400-£600 and I can get up to an Phenom N950 or Intel i3/i5 with Nvidia 325/425/540M or Ati 5650 and Bluray drive.

I know I can get decent warranties on Acer and Dell esp Acer with the accidental damage cover. Does Asus (N53SV series) have a 2 year warranty in the UK (some sites indicate it does) and is it any good? The MSI (FX600) comes in at the cheapest system but as far as I can see offers no warranty bar the shop one which then puts the price right over the other options.

I really want this to last so would ideally want a 3 year warranty so help appreciated.

Cheers.

Bubba · 19 Jun 2011 at 10:17

I would pick Dell or Acer, acer you will get better spec for the price but dell gives you the option of on site next day warranty which no one else can even come close to. Acers extended warranty is very cheap, i think for me to extend from 1 year to 3 years it was an extra £50, it is 4 years on now and I have never had to use the warranty, acer laptops are very reliable.

One of the major causes of faults on laptops is people using them on a soft surface like their bed, sofa or on their knee, this will cause the laptop to run very warm and components will fail.

Flare · 19 Jun 2011 at 15:10

I started a "spec me a laptop thread" and was considering an Acer but everything said about Acer was bad and I was told to stay well away from them and after having a quick google it seems that a lot of people advice against them.

Scrutinize · 19 Jun 2011 at 17:21

To update I have been doing some research into sales and reliability today

To give you an idea of worldwide sales here is the Gartner data for this year. Ship this many and no wonder there are pleanty of people posting problems. The MSI does indeed look good but lack of info about reliability and warranty worries me for the UK market.

Reliability charts here from an internet source so could be accurate as supposed to be based on a 30,000 study sample

Fallen god · 19 Jun 2011 at 19:20

Well I have a dell XPS so comes with the on site warranty and I have to say its great, after having my laptop for a few days my dad messed up my boot sector and the next day someone came and put a new HDD and installed windows and left me the old one to keep my files.

Django x2 · 19 Jun 2011 at 22:01

An internet source using Excel to knock up a bar chart? Lol, no thanks

Scrutinize · 20 Jun 2011 at 05:45

Was produced by squaretrade.

Django x2 · 20 Jun 2011 at 09:11

In 2009, so from 2006 to 2009. Data that's 3-6 years old, and literally incorrect. My 3 year old HP laptop has never malfunctioned once. It's current uptime is 471 days since it's last reboot.

ShortWarning · 20 Jun 2011 at 11:18

I've had an acer for a year and a half. It was shipped with a bios version which caused random restarts, which is pretty poor from. However, since updating the bios (few days after buying the laptop) I have not had any problems at all.

So good and bad there.

RevBillyG · 20 Jun 2011 at 13:24

The MSI (FX600) = 2 years RMA warranty. Free pick up and return service

http://uk.msi.com/service/warranty/

Scrutinize · 20 Jun 2011 at 14:28

RevBillyG said:
The MSI (FX600) = 2 years RMA warranty. Free pick up and return service

http://uk.msi.com/service/warranty/

Cheers,

krooton · 20 Jun 2011 at 16:04

Lucero said:
In 2009, so from 2006 to 2009. Data that's 3-6 years old, and literally incorrect. My 3 year old HP laptop has never malfunctioned once. It's current uptime is 471 days since it's last reboot.

The chart states that 1 in 4 HPs will fail within 3 years, so yours being fine doesn't make it 'literally' incorrect. (Is there such a thing as figuratively incorrect?)

Django x2 · 20 Jun 2011 at 16:25

literally incorrect, meaning, it could be deemed unfair to take information which is 3 years old. Where is the data for 2008 to 2011 for instance?

Steeps · 21 Jun 2011 at 01:35

Had no end of trouble with Acer warranties on 3 different laptops, one of them did 10 trips to plymouth and it was never repaired properly, in the end they wrote to me saying they would no longer accept it and wouldn't replace it as they no longer made the model.

krooton · 21 Jun 2011 at 07:12

Lucero said:
literally incorrect, meaning, it could be deemed unfair to take information which is 3 years old. Where is the data for 2008 to 2011 for instance?

There isn't any. This is as much data as there currently is to go on. Just because it's older doesn't mean it is worthless, it's the most up to date reference I can find.

Fallen god · 21 Jun 2011 at 18:13

Lucero said:
In 2009, so from 2006 to 2009. Data that's 3-6 years old, and literally incorrect. My 3 year old HP laptop has never malfunctioned once. It's current uptime is 471 days since it's last reboot.

My friends HP was just the worse, so many things went wrong and this was only after having it for 1 month. Battery died, then it wouldn't charge anymore, the screen was about to fall off, bit we falling of all the time. And ever time my mate returned it they would take 2 weeks and return it without 1 fault fixed, it was just the worse customer services Ive ever seen and after 2 months he had to just sell it on ebay as they refused to give him a new one or fix any problem and kept saying it was prefect.

Django x2 · 21 Jun 2011 at 18:35

That's because HP don't like home users. It's not really their market or speciality

Flare · 21 Jun 2011 at 20:39

RevBillyG said:
The MSI (FX600) = 2 years RMA warranty. Free pick up and return service

http://uk.msi.com/service/warranty/

Awesome. I ordered that on Monday, it was meant to come today but no

nightmare99 · 21 Jun 2011 at 21:15

The MSI (FX600) = 2 years RMA warranty. Free pick up and return service

http://uk.msi.com/service/warranty/

Be careful not all MSI laptops are 24 months some are only 12 months, also if you buy one from a store that you can "find it, get it, ***** it" then the warranty is with thier own service agent and not MSI.