<p>I really have no intentions to upgrade in 2012, but in 2009 if something were to happen, it's nice to know that it's covered.</p>
<p>Disagree on the Dell warranty. Just be careful what you order. If you order the cheap 1 yr in factory, that is what will happen. For notebooks I highly recommend the Complete Care. If you get the Complete Care it covers everything. The person was at my house the next morning to repair it. No questions asked as to what had happened to it. Had a short on-line chat session with tech support first to diagnose so the right parts were there. No issues. BTW I also highly recommend the on-line chat vs phoning in the problem. It is faster and easier to understand. . </p>
<p>Another one of ours had hard drive issue and the new drive was there the next morning.</p>
<p>jym626,</p>
<p>as singersmom mentioned, Dell Complete Care is what it says. You drop it 9as my D did) and they fix it. </p>
<p>Early on in a model run, screens are expensive. That's when the warranty is of great value. I agree that later on you can buy a replacement screen on Ebay for a reasonable price but not for the first year or two, usually. And a bad MOBO will always cost you big $$$ until the machine is obsolete (at which time folks part them out and sell the stuff on ebay again...)</p>
<p>So, in short, yes, any failure is covered, whether due to college student wear and tear, carelessness, accident, etc. </p>
<p>While we're talking about "insurance", which is what these extended warranties are, you can often get similar coverage for cameras, video gear, musical instruments and such via personal property floaters - all risks coverage for scheduled items. Our D's violin and bow were covered under such a policy. When the bow broke, they paid for both the repair and the reduction in value of the bow.</p>
<p>These kind of policies go by different names, but are all risks coverage (except for the obvious deliberate loss or desctruction). They are limited to scheduled items, though: you must describe and often have a receipt for what is covered. For a camera, they'd want a serial number. But they are not expensive. </p>
<p>Interestingly, my home insurer offers a similar endorsement for computers, too.</p>
<p>Interesting that so many repairs are necessary with the Dells. I know they arent stupid enough to make an inferior product just to sell an extended warrantee (that would be corporate suicide) but I havent seen too many other complaints about other laptop brands here. And while Dell certainly sells a lot, I don't think they own the huge lions share of the market, do they?</p>
<p>jym,</p>
<p>Dells have a huge percentage of the academic student market. Also, two of the three repairs on D's machine were breakage due to accidents. The MOBO was not.</p>
<p>Interesting that Dell has such a lock on the student market, yet, as NJ113 mentioned, the Dells seem to be having their share of glitches. My s's Dell, bought refurbed (with a warantee) had problems within the warrantee period too (motherboard, I think- I dont recall for sure), and he had them ship him the replacement part. Are all laptops this riddled with issues, or is it moreso with the Dells? FWIW, he loves his Dell (though the battery now wont hold much of a charge, so he has to carry a wall adapter around with him), and when he goes to replace the laptop, it will probably be with another Dell. He likes the extra bells and whistles they offer. He is a tecchie, so want s all this extra stuff. Others , as EK mentioned, might not need all that "stuff".<br>
Has anyone converted over to the new Vista Windows operating system? How do you like it?</p>
<p>It is my understanding that laptop batteries lose there power after a while and need to be replaced. My husband just replaced his and he now can leave his laptop unplugged for hours without recharging. </p>
<p>Sometimes you can get a better battery for cheaper at stores like Batteries Plus. They don't have every battery online but can get one within a day or two. We have a store locally so I use them for all my batteries.</p>
<p>I have a Macbook and the people at Apple told me to make sure I let my battery get down to below 50% at least once a week before recharging. I have a habit of keeping the computer left charging all the time; I also put the cordless phones back on the charger after every use which I understand I shouldn't do.</p>
<p>Hi snowball!
We've usually found good deals on replacement batteries on line. The batteries plus place near us isn'at always such a good deal. I've also replaced cordless phone batteries with cheap batteries from Radio Shack. and gound this very inepensive battery place for my cellphone battery. They ship from Hong Kong but it comes REALLY fast, and they are VERY inexpensive. Plus, they send out lots iof additonal discount coupons on line. I am a sucker for on-line coupons!</p>