According to a study released by SquareTrade, an independent warranty provider for consumer electronics and appliances, Sony and HP are among the most reliable laptops available on the market. In general, laptops have more than a 1 in 5 chance of failing within the first three years of ownership, but buyers can reduce their chances of ending up with broken devices by seeking out the more reliable brands and avoiding those that tend to fail more often.
“Our data shows that Sony and HP perform the best over time. They tend to have fewer issues than other brands,” says Devin Thomas, Program Manager at SquareTrade. The two brands have failure rates that are about 26 percent less than the other brands combined. At the bottom of the list were the brands Gateway, Apple, and Acer, with failure rates about 10-15 percent higher than average. Also included in the study were brands like Toshiba, Dell, and IBM.
“Of course, a savvy consumer will choose which laptop to buy based on a combination of reliability, features and price,” notes Thomas. “It’s important that your laptop be reliable, but you don’t want to sacrifice the rest of the package in the process.”
