Promethean extended warranty: worth it or not?

[AngryTechnician]

OK, so I'm 2 weeks into my new NM position and have just been passed a warranty renewal quote for the Promethean boards at the school. Normally I would dismiss this without much hesitation; at my last school we used all Promethean and the only hardware faults we ever had were the PSUs. However, I'm making a point of revisiting my own past policies in my new role to ensure my own thinking is sound and not just force of habit. Therefore, I'd love to know what other people's thoughts on this are.

The quote for 2 years extended warranty is £225 per board. I'm not convinced that the average failure rate is going to make this cost effective. In addition, I'm actually not very fond of Promethean boards and prefer the SMART ones we have, so if one packed up completely (which I've personally never seen happen) I'd be quite happy to replace it with a new SMARTBoard.

Your comments and experiences gratefully received!

[dyoung5]

We had 18 run out of warrenty last year, and decided that with the money we could potentially buy 2 complete replacement systems and we wouldn't need installation as once the cables and fittings are in place, replacing the board is really easy.

Sometimes the boards do dodgy things like the cursor jumping all over the place, but most of the time we found these problems corrected themselves! We haven't had to replace a board yet.

We have had to replace projectors, and I can't remember if these are included in the extended warrenty, but the sanyo ones that they are now supplying are only about £350 now, so not much more!

Anyway my 2p.

David

[broc]

We have 45 Promethean boards, most were installed 3-5 years ago. We have never had a board fail; we have had plenty of PSUs go but even at the inflated price Promethean charge to replace these you could buy quite a few for the cost of 1 board warranty.

Projectors are another matter; we replace around 20%-25% per year because they get 'toasted', nobody can be bothered to switch them off & I have given up complaining. As for pens, I am convinced staff eat them. We gave up supplying replacements for free, now they have to buy them from our Finance Office in the same way as they buy other consumables.

[sparkeh]

I agree that its probably not cost effective.

My old school is still running the same boards that were installed 5+ years ago without issues. Well issues with the boards, the pens were always breaking. Not really seen one of these boards go wrong in a spectacular way.

I also prefer Smartboards so would replace any faulty boards with Smart.

[apoth0r]

Promethean aren't bad, a little more resiliant then the Smartboards due to its differing technology but certainly wouldn't pay those prices for warranties.
I'm a huge fan of the SMARTboard stuff, the software and resources are brilliant, always try to push primary schools for these because they do just work!

[Jamman960]

We've only had 1 problem with ours so far which was caused by a faulty controller board which also blew 2 PSU's before being identified as faulty(it went from blowing PSU's to spiking)

They're fairly simple devices when it comes to it, it might be worth finding out how much a new controller board would cost if one were to fail... other than that and PSU's there really isnt much to go wrong except in the case of physical damage to the membrane. If a board survives the initial warranty period I'd expect it to last until its old enough to be replaced anyway.

James

[Sylv3r]

No, things like this just tend to be put straight in the bin. If their product is as good as they say it is it shouldn't require an extended warranty after the first year.

[AngryTechnician]

Thanks all for your input; the consensus certainly seems to be that it isn't worth it, which tallies with my original thinking.

Cheers!

[Marc-Engineer]

After the first year? they carry a 3 year warrenty, but anyway, most of the faults we see are PSUs replacement £30 the electronics pack (if you get the dredded spiking) is around £400 and no you cant fit it yourself !

On smart mostly broken VGA sockets and damaged boards from objects banged in to them as they are not very robust by comparasen. Price for a bare plastic VGA face plate £50 (yes fifty pounds), promethian one £5 (five pounds).

Clever boards????? hmmm never seen a broken one built like a tank.

A projector should last 5 to 7 years if serviced properly and lamps changed at the correct times and not left in till they pop.

If you need independant professional advice just ask.
or ring me no i am not trying to sell you anything.

Marc
Projector Engineer
0871 597 0097

[Michael]

I'm not sure what Promethean's standard warranty is, but I know Smart's is 3 years. The only requirement is you register your board and serial number (which is fair enough).

Chances are the boards were bought in batches by your school and not all in one year, so the probability of them all failing at once is highly unlikely. If you look at replacements costs, such as the USB cable AC adapter, even bought together they're not £225. I think you can tell what I voted for

[Jobos]

After the first year? they carry a 3 year warrenty, but anyway, most of the faults we see are PSUs replacement £30 the electronics pack (if you get the dredded spiking) is around £400 and no you cant fit it yourself !

If when you say 'the electronics pack' you mean the small circuit board fixed on to rear of the board then they are replaceable in less than five minutes.

[Marc-Engineer]

Yes thats the one, its comonly called the electronics pack and not normally supplied to none engineers, no dont ask me i dont know why?

But if you fit it and it doesnt cure the fault you just spent £400, if an engineer fits it and it dont work he will remove it again and continue with the fault finding.

Marc Engineer

[apoth0r]

lol, does this engineer happen to be on this forum per chance?