Study Finds One in Three Laptops Fail Within Three Years

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Are you planning to get a laptop or netbook this holiday season? Our team has been collecting data on over 30,000 new laptops and netbooks. As laptops have historically been among the most popular electronics gifts, SquareTrade publicly released its findings to consumers, examining the different aspects of laptop and netbook reliability.

Highlights are below but be sure to check out the full study. Update: For further coverage of the report and discussion, check out Gizmodo, Engadget, PCWorld, Electronista or ComputerWorld and see the "Thoughts on this Study?" section below.

Netbooks projected to fail at a 20% higher rate than traditional laptops The study begins with an overview of laptop hardware failure rates, as well as failures caused by accidents. We then compare netbook failure rates to more expensive laptops and evaluate the relative reliability of several leading laptop brands.

Manufacturers: Vast Differences in Reliability

When excluding accidental damage and examining hardware malfunctions by manufacturer, Asus and Toshiba come out on top. Apple and Dell both fall in the middle with approximately an 18 percent failure rate; while industry leader HP has the highest failure rate. Over one in four HP laptops in the study experienced a hardware malfunction during the first three years of ownership.

Other highlights of the study include:

Asus and Toshiba were the most reliable manufacturers, with fewer than 16 percent having a hardware malfunction over three years. Netbooks are projected to have a 20 percent higher failure rate from hardware malfunctions than more expensive laptop computers. Manufacturers proved to be a more reliable determinant of reliability than the type of laptop and should be a greater factor in making a purchase decision.

Thoughts on this study?

The report has people talking! Find this data useful? Sound off below or join the conversation on twitter. For further coverage of the report, you can also check out: the Apple Blog, The Business Journals, Laptop Magazine, 9 to 5 Mac, Tom's Hardware Guide, Mac Blorge, TechSpot, Ubergizmo, Digital Trends, Hard OCP, Tech Radar, Netbook Choice, Gadget Republic, T3, Mobile Computer, Channel Reliability, TG Daily, ITP, or liliputing.