<p>I'm going to be an incoming freshman in engineering, and am planning to buy either a Lenovo Thinkpad T420 or an Asus U46e-Bal5 this week. </p>
<p>It sounds like the tech store will fix these computers but doing so will void the warranty.</p>
<p>I was just wondering if it would be a better idea to just have the default 1 year warranty on the computer and then have DoIT fix it afterwards since it isn't under warranty anymore. Or would it be a better idea to buy an extended warranty? (I'd probably get a three-year one with accidental damage protection)</p>
<p>If I bought the extended warranty, I would presumably have to mail it to Asus/Lenovo to have it fixed, which would take a long time. How long does it take DoIT to fix computers?</p>
<p>If I didn't, I have the risk of the computer dying after the year is up.</p>
<p>Any other comments/suggestions would be appreciated.</p>
<p>Laptops are tricky in that regard. The problem with laptops lies in the fact that if something hardware wise goes wrong with them it usually requires replacing the motherboard, which for a laptop is essentially the whole computer itself and typically costs $200-300. If something like the keyboard gets nicked up though that’s not very expensive to fix (new keyboards are only about $25).</p>
<p>All that being said, if extending the warranty is a reasonable amount (like $100) I would go ahead and do that. If your laptop has a severe hardware problem that requires you to mail it out there are enough computers on campus to hold you over while you wait for it.</p>
<p>a three year basic warranty extension for the lenovo is $79. Four years is $250, not doing that. </p>
<p>Adding Accidental Damage Protection to the basic warranty is $170 for two years, $210 for three, $350 for four. I’d get three if I got that, but paying a quarter or a third of the purchase price for a warranty seems too expensive. </p>
<p>It says that its a 7 to 10 day turnaround, which isn’t a problem.</p>