Best Buy Service Plan?

Student Lounge College Life
1

<p>I am interested in buying an $800 laptop from best buy and their 2-year advanced protection plan is $280. To me, that seems rather expensive to pay for only two years worth of protection. Also, I've been looking on few forums and have heard some very dissatisfied responses with the protection plan. </p>

<p>So my two questions are:
1) Is it actually quality service? Since a lot of forums have been saying otherwise...
2) Even if it is quality service, is it still worth the price? As a protection plan that is 40% the price of the actual product, and only good for two years, is still pretty steep.</p>

2

<p>Squaretrade is cheaper and supposedly better rated. I’ve just heard horror stories about service plans from BB and other chain stores.</p>

3

<p>Worthless since you have a cheap laptop. By the time you need it (in over a year) your laptop will be outdated and it probably would cost $300-400 to buy a new laptop with similar features.</p>

4

<p>Most manufacturers offer at least a one year warranty on their laptops. What laptop are you looking at?</p>

<p>Additionally, I think the whole plan is a waste of money. It’s extremely simple to keep your computer in good shape:
-Don’t rock/shake your laptop while it’s on
-Don’t drop your laptop
-Practice safe online practices to minimize the risk of getting a virus
-Do maintenance every two months (delete offline folders, defrag harddrive, virus scan, etc)</p>

5

<p>Yeah, my main concern was, not only is there a large chance I won’t even use the service, but I might be paying for service that won’t do anything or treat me like crap IF the opportunity comes. </p>

<p>@r31ncarnat3d There is a one year warranty for any problems the laptop has (not including accidents). It’s [this</a> one](<a href=“http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Dell+-+Inspiron+Laptop+/+Intel%26%23174%3B+Core%26%23153%3B+i5+Processor+/+14"+Display+/+4GB+Memory+/+500GB+Hard+Drive+-+Mars+Black/9934151.p?id=1218197356458&skuId=9934151"]this”>http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Dell+-+Inspiron+Laptop+/+Intel%26%23174%3B+Core%26%23153%3B+i5+Processor+/+14"+Display+/+4GB+Memory+/+500GB+Hard+Drive+-+Mars+Black/9934151.p?id=1218197356458&skuId=9934151)</p>

6

<p>Well, the way I look at it is, if your laptop already has a one year warranty, you’re not paying $280 for a two year warranty, but $280 to tack on one year to your existing warranty =/</p>

7

<p>Best Buy warranties are a scam. Also, a laptop similar to that was on sale for $500 last week.</p>

8

<p>Eddie, if you don’t use it when the two years is up, you do get a portion of the price you paid for the plan back. I’m not sure of the amount, but it’s a decent chunk, if I remember correctly. </p>

<p>I’m not going to pretend to know jack about computers, not to the extent that most people in this forum do, but I’ll give you my experience, because I bought that plan.</p>

<p>July 2008 I bought laptop from Best Buy for $700, and I purchased the plan for it, which was around $250. </p>

<p>March 2010, my laptop had it’s fifth repair, and it qualified for the no-lemon replacement policy (one repair didn’t qualify, since I cracked the screen while in transit, although the repair was paid for by the policy). I was offered a $550 laptop replacement. I’m skimping a lot of details here, but to me, it was so worth it. I was able to get a new laptop (albeit from Best Buy again), that I wanted, for $150 since it was $700, and all the repairs I had were covered. </p>

<p>The biggest downfall, I think, to the Best Buy protection plan is that for a lot of the repairs they have to ship out the laptop. They just don’t do them in-store, and it takes a lot of time sometimes. When my screen broke, and then I needed a second screen replacement and the power button replaced, they had to send it out. The first time, it happened at the worst time, January, so it took about 3 weeks for me to get the laptop back, which is a long time. The last time my laptop went in to them (I’m not even sure what happened), they had to send it out because it was the fourth qualifying repair for the no-lemon replacement, and to verify what was wrong, it had to be shipped. They also couldn’t fix it in-store, but it would have had to been shipped anyway.</p>

<p>I have access to laptop rentals while at school, and a desktop while at home, so going without my laptop isn’t that terrible, but it could be difficult. </p>

<p>When I had to get the harddrive replaced (twice. Don’t be stupid and put your laptop on your bed, less you like things overheating), they did it in-store and it took about an hour. Quick and painless process (which most people could figure out how to do anyway, but still).</p>

<p>I got the protection plan again, and I had a pretty decent experience with the Geek Squad, but I don’t think it’s for everyone, and there are definitely drawbacks to the service, one being time when they have to ship things out. At school, will you even be close to a Best Buy? I am, so when anything happens, I could hop on the bus and get there fast. Your school might have a service that does repairs, and some even do warranty work, so check that out, too. The best option is to take care of your laptop. $280 is a lot of money to front for a protection policy, and it can pay off (I honestly think it was so worth it), but it might not be right for you. </p>

<p>From what I see, a lot of bad reviews come from people who don’t understand the policy. Some are legit, but some aren’t. I didn’t trust them, and it worked for me.</p>

9

<p>I’m pretty sure consumer report says service plans are not a good idea, in general.</p>

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<p>rebuttal of a rebuttal</p>

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10

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<p>Don’t out your laptop on your bed, period. Beds tend to bounce. Bouncing causes shock. Shock kills harddrives.</p>

<p>It’s not that hard to take care of your laptop. Most people who are in need of repairs are the ones causing the damage themselves, either directly or indirectly (i.e. through neglect). While I have a pretty good laptop now, my old laptop (five year old Compaq laptop) was the lowest of the low end laptops HP offered. However, I always made sure never to jostle my laptop while the harddrive was on, cleaned the exhaust ports, did monthly maintenance on it, and it still runs perfectly fine for my brother to this day. It never needed repairs, parts exchanged, or any sort of fixing.</p>

<p>In short, take care of your laptop and it’ll take care of you. It’s the best insurance policy you can get.</p>

11

<p>While I’m thinking of it, is this computer good for comp sci and math double major (there’s a link to it in my second post here)? I thought it was pretty good (graphics aren’t really a problem because I am not a hardcore gamer), but salesmen are trying to get me to get a different processor and more ram. Now I don’t know too much about computers, but are there any significant differences between an i5 and an i7 processor and what could I do that would warrant using 8 GB ram?</p>

12

<p>Ignore the salesmen, 4GB of RAM and an i5 is definitely enough power. Truthfully, it might be more than you need. Definitely no reason I can see to go for an i7 and 8GB of RAM.</p>