Extended Warranties, Are They Worth It?

Retailers offer extended warranties on almost everything these days, but are they worth investing in?

For me, it depends on a combination of things; the deal being offered and the repair/replacement costs of the product. Black and Decker cordless screwdriver? No thanks, I’ll just buy a new one. It gets a little more complicated with higher end items, though.

It’s the devices that you’re likely to repair as opposed to replace that you might want the coverage on, especially if it covers you against accidental damage, e.g., dropping, spills, etc. and also covers consumables like battery replacement.

With TV’s, I usually balk. Most have a one year factory warranty, there’s no batteries or accessories to replace, and they’re not subject to a lot of wear and tear like a laptop or tablet, just mount them and forget them. Plus with the way the prices keep dropping, they’re more of a replace than repair device these days.

PC’s, laptops and tablets are similar in the fact that prices keep dropping; wait a year and you can buy twice the system for the same money, but they’re expensive to fix, and your first choice is always repair with this type of device. It’s a pain to move all your data to a new machine, near impossible if you haven’t been doing backups.

I purchased extended warranties on both my desktop and laptop, and both paid off big time. The power supply and motherboard on my desktop fried after taking a power jolt with only a couple of weeks left on the plan, and Best Buy fixed it with no questions asked, basically giving me back a brand new computer with my original hard drive.

I had purchased the same Best Buy extended warranty on my laptop, and once again with only weeks left on the plan I began having overheating issues with the video card. Because the video card was integrated with the motherboard, the laptop was deemed too costly to repair, so Best Buy gave me a gift card for the purchase price of a similar model plus tax, and I walked out of there with a brand new laptop. One with twice the processing power, memory and disk capacity, and a larger screen, no less. Nice.

I had also gotten a replacement battery for the laptop shortly before its demise, no questions asked. I just had to show my sales slip and warranty paperwork and they shipped a replacement to my house free of charge. Think about this; if a warranty covers battery replacement, you know you’re going to recoup most of the cost by ordering a battery before the warranty expires, they go for about $100, and what 2 or 3 year old laptop couldn’t use a new battery?

So, before saying yes or no to the extended warranty offer, here’s what I ask myself:

Would I want to get this product repaired?

Is it an “at risk” device, something that will see a lot of wear and tear like a laptop?

Does it cover things that are not covered by the factory warranty, e.g. power spikes, spills, drops?

Is the extended warranty for a longer period than the factory warranty, and is it a reasonable cost?

Consumer Reports warns against buying any extended warranties or purchase protection plans, saying that the odds are that most of the devices they are offered on will either never need repair, or the problems will surface during the original manufacturer’s warranty, however they do admit that the exception to the rule would be laptops, especially Macs, due to Apple’s skimpy warranty policies. They offer a chart (shown above) with average failure rates of products within the first 3 to 4 years that shows laptop failure rates at 43%, leading all electronics, appliances and yard equipment by a wide margin.

Personally, I think the Consumer Reports article is a little misleading. They come out so strongly against extended warranties, then halfway through the article backtrack when it comes to electronics. In my opinion, most people stop reading after the first few negative paragraphs and miss the important caveats. I do have to thank them for the failure rate chart, though. Very nice.

Bottom line, the choice is yours. Weigh your options and make the choice that’s right for you, and your budget.

That is all.

Bose SoundLink Wireless Mobile Speaker

I teased you in my last post that I’d been playing around with some pretty neat technology this summer, it’s time I got down to business. Let’s start off with my favorite new audio accessory, the Bose SoundLink Bluetooth Mobile Speaker.

Forget about docks and cords, wireless accessories are where it’s at these days, and the Bose SoundLink is my personal favorite in the wireless speaker category. It’s small and compact, with a solid feel and a sleek look, and it has pretty good overall volume and sound reproduction for a device of its size and portability.

It pairs with and remembers up to 6 Bluetooth devices. After 6, every new device you pair it with bumps an old one out of its memory. I currently have it paired with my laptop, iPod touch and my Smartphone, all were a snap to pair, and all reconnect to it instantly after initial setup. Its sound is warm and impressive with nice full bass, not sonically perfect, but nice, and it has enough volume and clarity to use outdoors.

The controls are simple, just a few buttons on the top of the device for power, volume, mute and Bluetooth pairing. No remote, but that’s fine with me. The paired device performs that function quite nicely. It also has a built in cover with a magnetic latch that does triple duty. It protects the speaker when it’s closed, acts as a stand when it’s open, and turns the unit off when you close it again.

Like most Bose music systems, speaker placement is key to maximizing its sound; you want to have a solid surface a few feet behind it to reflect the bass, especially when you’re using it outdoors or at a large party. The SoundLink’s range is at least 30’, which gives you a lot of options in the placement department.

I’ve actually had the device for a few months now, but have been holding off on a review until I’d really put it through its paces, and this baby passed my summer torture test with flying colors. The only problem is, I waited so long that Bose has just released a second generation device, the SoundLink II, and a software update for the original device. The SoundLink II has been sonically improved, and now comes in 2 flavors, Bluetooth or AirPlay (Apple’s proprietary Wi-Fi).

The sonic improvements come in the form of new transducers and better digital signal processing, and the addition of an AirPlay version gives the device even more flexibility when paired with an iOS device or iTunes.

The software update for the original model is easy to install, the SoundLink has a micro USB port on the back labeled service, and it’s great to know that the device is upgradeable, seeing as the electronic landscape seems to change every nanosecond these days.

Bottom line, there are other Bluetooth sound systems out there, and most are a lot cheaper than the SoundLink, but for my money the SoundLink has just the right mix of sound, portability, function and form. Small and sturdy enough to travel with, perfect as an add-on speaker for your laptop, iPod or Smartphone, powerful enough to use as a boom box at your next party, and it pulls it all off with style.

That is all.

Turn Your Laptop Into An HDTV

The Hauppauge WinTV- HVR 850 USB HDTV Adapter will turn your laptop into an HDTV with DVR functionality.

Back when my little 5” battery operated TV was rendered useless by the digital changeover, I started looking around for an alternative. There were very few digital portables on the market then, all in the 5 to 7” range. They started around $130 and went up from there, and that was more than I wanted to pay just for the security of having a way to catch the news in the event of a power outage. Then I found this bad boy that allows me to turn my 14” widescreen laptop into an HDTV with a 4 hour rechargeable battery, all for around $50. I jumped on it.

The Win-TV-HVR 850 receives both NTSC analog and ATSC HD digital over-the-air broadcasts, and also has an optional A/V input, and it comes with a USB extender cable and a remote antenna. The extender cable is great because you really don’t want a USB device that has a cable attached to it plugged directly into your laptop, it’s too easy to hit the cable and cause the USB adaptor to damage the port.

Setup was a breeze. It comes with its own tuner and DVR software, but it also will integrate seamlessly with the Windows Media Center application. Note: if your laptop has the Media Center app, don’t install the drivers that come on the included CD. Instead, go here and click on the Windows Media Center Install tab for the correct driver installation package.

Once the install is complete, reboot and then fire up Media Center. It will ask you if you want to scan for available signals, which you do, but before you do, you want to be sure you’re connected to a really decent set of rabbit ears, preferably powered, instead of the included remote antenna. The reason for this is so that Media Center will find and store the bulk of available channels. In my area it found about 20, as most stations broadcast multiple digital signals, ie: 7-1, 7-2. Once it’s found and stored the channels, the included antenna or a non powered set of bunny ears will work fine, although will need to be fiddled with on a channel by channel basis. That isn’t a big deal in the event of a power outage, but if you’re using it as a supplemental TV, say pool side for instance, or if your cable goes out, you’ll want to stick with the powered antenna. It’s much less work, as you can usually find a position and power setting that allows you to receive most of the channels without fiddling and diddling.

The picture quality is awesome, and over-the-air digital broadcasts include a wealth of program information which rivals the guide info available on cable. Both the included software and Media Center also have easy to use DVR features, which is pretty cool. Remember, it is a graphics and CPU intensive application, so for optimal usage you don't want to be doing too much else on your PC. Recommended minimum requirements are a 2.2 GHz Intel® P4 or 1.8 GHz Centrino processor or equivalent, with at least 64 MB of graphics memory. I’ve found that I can perform most functions on my laptop while having a small TV window open without problem, but if you’ve got an older laptop that only marginally meets the requirements, then you might have some trouble multitasking.

It also comes in both a 950Q and 1500 model for around $99. The only major difference with the 950 is that it comes with a remote. My desktop came with a Media Center remote that works on my laptop, plus if I’m using it, I’m usually pretty close to the laptop, so it’s not an issue for me. The 1500 however, has a twist; it docks to the laptop via an Expresscard/54 slot. While not all laptops have them, it is a pretty good option from a performance standpoint. Lastly, there’s the 1950 model, which retails for around $150. It’s a standalone unit about the size of an iPod dock that connects via USB, and it has an on-board MPEG-2 encoder, which allows your PC to run smoother while recording. All nice choices, but for my intended usage, and because of the $49 price point, I went with the 850.

Bottom line; the Hauppauge WinTV - HVR 850 USB HDTV is a great performer at a great value, and a much better solution for life's little emergencies than buying an overpriced handheld digital TV.


That is all.

Compaq Presario CQ60-615DX Notebook PC

The CQ60-615DX is a very serviceable laptop at a rock bottom price.

I love doing my personal shopper thing, it’s one of my favorite parts of being the family’s go to guy in the technology department. It gives me the opportunity to test drive a lot of different devices and it’s certainly got it all over spending the weekend at their house cleaning viruses off of their machine. Plus, when I do the initial setup on a device it makes the inevitable future cleanup and recovery go a little easier…

The CQ60-615DX is the perfect machine for someone who only uses their PC for mail, word processing and surfing. It has a 15.6” screen, an almost full sized keyboard (with numeric keypad) and pretty impressive sound for a laptop in this price range ($349). It’s powered by a Celeron processor (2.2 GHz), has 2GB of RAM (upgradeable to 4), a 250GB hard drive, wireless b/g/n, 8X CD/DVD±R/RW drive and runs Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit. The only thing it lacks is a media card reader, but standalone readers are a dime a dozen these days, and at this price you can definitely afford one.

Having a decent sized hard drive for storing your pics, a DVD player/burner for sharing/archiving said pics, and a keyboard that’s actually usable make this system a much better alternative then a comparably priced Netbook for those non-power users in your life.

VAIO CW Series Notebook PC

The Sony VAIO VPCCW21FX/W is a sweet little mid-priced laptop chock full of both processing power and bells and whistles.



When shopping for a laptop, it’s very hard find one that’s a good performer and has all of the features that you want without spending a ton of cash. There are lots of lower end systems out there at great prices ($360 to $599), but they don’t have a lot of features or horsepower. There’s also a great selection of top of the line systems ($899 and up), but the midrange systems always force you to make trade offs. This one has a better processor and more memory and disk space, but no video card. That one has a serviceable processor, less memory and disk space, but it’s got a video card, stereo Bluetooth and a webcam. I don’t know about you, but I want it all, and I don’t want to pay a premium for it, so I’m constantly comparing and contrasting them looking for the best value for my buck.

The Sony VPCCW21FX/W has all that and a side of fries. It sports an Intel i3 quad core processor (2.13GHz), 4GB of DDR3 RAM (with room for 8GB), a 500GB hard drive, an NVIDIA GeForce graphics card with 256MB of dedicated video RAM, Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit OS, a 14” HD quality widescreen, A2DP Bluetooth, Wireless b/g/n, Gigabit Ethernet port, CD/DVD player/burner, Multimedia card reader, ExpressCard /34 media slot, high quality webcam with motion and face tracking technology, HDMI and VGA video outputs, IEEE 1394 firewire input and 3 USB 2.0 inputs.

It’s truly in the portable category, weighing in at a scant 5.3 lbs, and it’s truly in the midrange system category, with a price that weighs in at between $809-$849 (Best Buy had it for $809 last week).

The only 2 drawbacks to this system are the less than stellar audio (decent but tiny speakers) and the choice of colors (Blue or Ice White are the only colors available off the shelves in the retail stores), but both are things that I can live with.

As I said, there are plenty of systems out there that offer more, but as an all around standout performer at a great price point, this VAIO is the pick of the litter.

My PC is Gone, Baby, Gone.

I’m a pretty careful guy when it comes to caring for my systems and preserving my data. I’ve seen enough “data disasters” to last a lifetime.

You know the drill. You get the call from a relative or friend who has been dumping digital pictures onto their PC for the last 2 years and has never backed it up. Their hard drive is clanking, the PC won’t boot, and they’re frantic. “Oh my God, little Nell’s first communion pictures are on there!” they wail.

Usually you can recover some or all of their stuff but it’s always a pain in the butt and your friend or relative always stands behind you the whole time, wringing their hands and asking “How’s it lookin’?” every 5 minutes. Such a fun time! Once I even had to resort to a trick I learned from one of my coworkers to rescue data, freezing the hard drive. If you pop a bad drive in the freezer overnight sometimes it will work for about an hour after you take it out. It worked, but just barely. The drive started clanking again about halfway through the copy and died for good right after I finished.

I actually think there was divine intervention on that one. The drive belonged to a loved one who was particularly distraught and close to tears as I left for the evening with the dead drive in hand. I was flying home the next morning and although her computer was working, she had no hope of ever seeing her pictures again. Man, would I have loved to have seen her face when the FedEx guy delivered the DVD’s I created a few days later. That would have been priceless.

Anyway, we all say “I’ll never be that guy!” but it’s almost impossible not to be that guy.

I have a laptop, an iMac and a honkin’ Media Center PC at home. Any digital pictures and videos we take get loaded onto both the PC and the iMac, and they all get copied to a portable hard drive also. In addition, once every couple of weeks I burn a copy of the My Pictures folder onto a DVD. Same with the My Videos and the My Music folders and just because I’m totally anal, I also run the iTunes backup routine once a month and rip all purchased tracks to CD.

So, you would think that with all this preparation a machine meltdown wouldn’t be such a big deal for me. Well guess what? Even when you’re prepared it still sucks.

The other night, right after I finished the previous post, my PC went into a coma from which it still hasn’t recovered. It froze and that was it. I couldn’t even get it to POST, let alone reboot. Fried motherboard. Gone, Baby, Gone.

Luckily it’s still under warranty so we made a copy of the hard drive (told you I was anal) and off I went to Buy More. The store was great. They popped the hood, confirmed my original diagnosis, then packed it up and shipped it off on its long trip home to the manufacturer.

Beautiful, right?

Not exactly.

Now I’ve got to wait for its return, which could take up to a month, and when I do get it back there’s a good chance I’ll have to reload everything. A small price to pay, especially if I end up with a brand new system, but a time consuming hassle nonetheless.

In the meantime although I’ve still got my laptop and iMac, I’m out of business on a lot of fronts. My laptop isn’t powerful enough to process video and doesn’t have a video capture card and PVR software like my desktop. The iMac can process the video, but the video projects that I had already started on the PC will need to be restarted from the raw video files on the Mac, or they’ll just have to wait. Also a lot of the software I use regularly on the PC isn’t on the laptop or iMac, which means I’ve been busy loading software.

The coup de grace is that my iTunes library is on the PC and my wife’s is on the iMac. Both are radically different and if you’re familiar with iTunes you know the hassle of transferring to another computer.

On the plus side, this will force me to do some things I’ve been putting off. I’ll probably run all my music through a leveling program and then re-import it into iTunes with sound check off. As you may know, the iTunes sound check software really sucks. My levels are all over the place.

And then there’s…

and…

Ah nuts, there is no plus side. A PC meltdown is just no fun at all.