Thinkpads Forum

I would like to ask for your opinions on warranty services. I'm a college student with 2 more years to go and I'm debating whether I should get On site warranty service upgrade or depot Protection Service or On site Protection Service. I'm going to purchase a x61t with american express, which is going to up the warranty by an additional year so I think I'm gonna go with a 1 year service and have Amex up it to 2.

Also, do you think I should buy a spare stylus?

Thanks.

are you near a depot? if not, on site. you can look on the lenovo website, put in your zipcode and find the nearest depot. any major city will have several.

do you lose your keys a lot? Do you lose writing pens a lot? (not because people borrow them and don't return them) if so, get another digi pen.

I've used depot service, and in my experience, they tend to break things just as often as they fix them. I could be alone in this experience, but it hasn't always been a good one. One time, they "lost" the DVD drive in the laptop. One time, they fixed the problem I had had, but broke something else. Because I'm far from a depot, I now go with on-site service, and it has been nearly perfect for me. You call, a person comes out with a part, and fixes it. I've used the on-site service several times over the past three years, and in every case, I've said "Gee, I'm glad I purchased this!" Of course, I just purchased a X61t and the on-site service was 10% of the total purchase price. But I still think it's worth it. -- Ken

kengetz wrote:But I still think it's worth it. -- Ken

I agree with Ken.

gongo, could you post a link to the page that allows me to find the nearest depots?

Thanks

I've been debating whether to get on-site or depot service too... and I'm leaning towards depot service.

Based on the problems with my T42p, it seems as if most problems I have are either minor (keyboard replacement) or major (motherboard replacement--twice!)--I'd either be able to perform the replacement myself or would have to send in the laptop.

Does the onsite service repair things like broken motherboards, cracked screens, etc onsite?

Onsite service has replaced both my motherboard, and the screen. In addition, when a fan went out, they sent it to me and I did the repair myself, rather than wait a few days for the repair guy, who got lost and didn't find the place. That's the only negative experience I've had, and doing it manually took maybe 5 minutes. -- Ken

Would have to agree with Ken here. I've had overwhelmingly good experiences with on-site repair for my X31 fleet (2 Motherboard swaps, a bezel swap and an LCD swap) here in NYC to the point where I purchase IBM onsite service extensions for the machines until 2009. The ONLY depot repair I had so far ended up with me getting a dead machine in a box and cost me more than 3 workdays of productovity. Draw your own conclusions.

If the price difference is not enough to cost you more than a few rounds @ the local watering hole, I say you buy on-site.