Laptop failure rates

“As most laptops are essentially commodity products comprised of the same stock list of components and parts, one might assume that all laptop brands are the same, at least as far as the general reliability of the hardware itself.

Warranty firm SquareTrade has just released a research paper analyzing the failure rate for 30,000 laptops comparing brands and hardware categories–and the results might surprise you.”

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10400447-1.html?tag=newsEditorsPicksArea.0

I had always wondered how long the average laptop lasted.  According to a recent study, conducted through a survey involving 30,000 laptops, one third of the laptops purchased today will completely fail within three years.  Notebooks in particular are more likely to fail, followed by entry-level laptops.  Premium laptops are only slightly less likely to fail, they are only separated by a 0.5 percent lower risk of failing than their cheaper counterparts.  The most durable laptops, which have the lowest failure rate are produced by Asus and Toshiba, while Hp laptops are the most likely to malfunction.

Perhaps the most interesting conclusion that can be made by this study is that laptops today are far to pron too failure.  In an age where groundbreaking new technologies are being produced almost daily it seems odd that laptops, which are now practically household items, are so fragile.  Surely it would not be too difficult to produce more resilient models.  Laptops are not cheap, even the lower end models can cost hundreds of dollars.  Maybe the short lifespan inherent in laptops is left unaltered for a reason; once a customers laptop has failed, after a couple of years, they will most likely return to buy a new one.