Budget 0-20k Should I buy Extended warranty for ThinkPad?

xkcd0137

xkcd0137

Adept
I have a 8 months old ThinkPad E14 Ryzen 4500u. I couldn't buy extended warranty for cheap within first 30 days. Luckily, there has been no issues till now and I am mighty impressed by Lenovo's build quality that I have bought another Flex 5 Ryzen 5500u laptop with 3 year EW + ADP.

Now, I can buy EW from Lenovo for ₹4034 for 1 year or ₹8069 for 2 years. Do you guys recommend it?

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PS - there is an offer of 10% discount on buying EW atm.
 
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Extended warranties offer hassle-free support in most cases. I do not know the build of the latest ThinkPads, but ThinkPads of the past used to be built like tanks. And getting spare parts and self maintenance was very easy. I used to use a T420 back in the day.
 
I've used an office provided ThinkPad in past. They are built very well with quality parts, never faced any issue.
Now if something is build that well, then I personally wouldn't worry about extended warranty.
 
It's about peace of mind. In my years of experience with laptops what's supposed to go wrong generally goes wrong within the warranty period.

Now that said, I've used Thinkpad L420 (new provided by company) for 2.5 years and initially it had a manufacturing defect when keyboard was pressed with some pressure screen used to go all blur and weird artifacts would pop up and system would freeze (I assume it was a short circuit). The top housing was replaced by the lenovo guy who came to visit in the company. After that 2.5 years later I found that battery had died because I used to use it always on charging mostly and that's bad for the battery. So this was user's fault, it used to work fine initially.

Now I switched company and again I got a Thinkpad T14, also new, pretty similar build and no issues thus far. I'm charging this upto 85% and using on battery till 25% and charging again. This way my battery life lasts a lot longer (6-7hrs).

So, my conclusion is if it works fine initially it's upto you if you want that peace of mind of extended warranty or not. I wouldn't spend that much on warranties.
 
There is clearly a difference in build quality across ThinkPad and Flex series. ThinkPads' were built strong, but not anymore. I have L480 from office, the area on the left side of touch pad developed 2 cracks. The cracks are the result of me resting my elbow during a meeting. I'm not that huge to break it, but even with slight pressure, it caved in.

My wife uses Flex 4, where I noticed the panel around power plug broke, and there are some hinge issues too.

And with electronics inside (component selection/sourcing/assembly etc) the problem can creep anywhere. It is not limited to Lenovo. Considering the several ctricalities involved, I would take Extended Warranty option if given. IMO it is just like insurance. We take it hoping that we will never use it.
 
diy-maniac said:
And with electronics inside (component selection/sourcing/assembly etc) the problem can creep anywhere. It is not limited to Lenovo. Considering the several ctricalities involved, I would take Extended Warranty option if given. IMO it is just like insurance. We take it hoping that we will never use it.
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I have already availed 3 years extended warranty + accidental damage protection for Flex 5 due to probable hinge issues.

Regarding ThinkPad, mine is an E14 which is a segment below L480 imo. So I'd consider getting the EW as you suggested.
 
The low end thinkpads are built to cost . Sometimes they have the same motherboards from the other series . Thinkpads , latitudes were supposed to be business laptops with magnesium chassis and metal bodies . Not any more . While the latitudes are still made that way , the thinkpad quality has taken a downhill . Sometimes they have weird configs like 1.8 inch drives . The one that you have is an E series one . Full plastic Chassis with low end parts I am guessing .
The extended warranty that you speak of is around 9k . What was the cost of the laptop to begin with ? After 2 years what would be the worth of the laptop ?
 
xkcd0137 said:
Yup, I think that it's just a rebranded Slim 3 in Black color.

I got it for 46k - 2k cashback.
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On sunday I was shopping for a M.2 wifi card . Found a broken lenovo laptop at a dealer . I was shocked to see the motherboard quality and plastic parts . Of course the Laptop was meant for school kids through govt distribution .
The E series track pad , hinges , plastic body are a little too weak . After 2 years the approx value of the laptop would be 10k at the max . why spend 9k trying to maintain it under warranty ?
 
yugaaa said:
The E series track pad , hinges , plastic body are a little too weak.
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I don't know if you've seen an E14 in person but things aren't that bleak either. It obviously isn't in leagues of magnesium or aluminium build T series, but it's not at Dell Vostro level either.

I have an Asus Vivobook S14 at home too, and I found E14's build to be better than the Asus'. The weight is well balanced and I find the hinge to be quite good. I think it's one of the better built Plastic laptop.

And regarding resale value, I can get ₹10k as exchange value from Amazon for my 10 year old Core i5 Dell Inspiron, so a Ryzen 4500u ThinkPad should fetch much more than that.
 
xkcd0137 said:
I don't know if you've seen an E14 in person but things aren't that bleak either. It obviously isn't in leagues of magnesium or aluminium build T series, but it's not at Dell Vostro level either.

I have an Asus Vivobook S14 at home too, and I found E14's build to be better than the Asus'. The weight is well balanced and I find the hinge to be quite good. I think it's one of the better built Plastic laptop.

And regarding resale value, I can get ₹10k as exchange value from Amazon for my 10 year old Core i5 Dell Inspiron, so a Ryzen 4500u ThinkPad should fetch much more than that.
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I have been seeing the E series for many years now , but haven't seen the latest ones . Business laptops are not only magnesium chassis builds but they also have lesser no. of screws for easy access to ram or HDD . Usually it is 1-2 screws and the whole back cover is off .
With regard to the exchange value from Amazon one is forced to do business with amazon to get such prices or even flipkart . I am not talking about exchange value but the intrinsic value in the market .
A similar 2-3 year Latitude or the T series laptops are sold at 18-20k in the open market which originally cost around 80-1.1 lakh in the used market . A lot of companies have it their policy to replace desktops or laptops in 2-3 years time and it is sometimes possible to get a current or just over EOL specs .
While the prices have shot up due to covid demand and shortages and a Ryzen 4500 might be valuable today , down the line in a year there are going to be other CPU , GPU combinations that the current line might not be so valuable after all .
 
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