Common Laptop/Tablet Failures/Flaws

[NviGate_Systems]

I've been in the industry for quite a few years and have noticed some trends and thought I would share them, if you have something to add, please share. Note that some of these flaws may apply only to consumer, others apply to both, but in today's market the lines can be thin when it comes to purchasing equipment that serves the educational markets.

 

Some observations in recent years (based on units returned for service)

 

AMD, higher temps and if vendor's design is bad, leads to early death due to SB/NB failure (Mainly HP Consumer G Series )

 

Typically these units only have a thin aluminum extrusion over the secondary AMD chip which reaches tempatures hot enough to burn your finger if kept there. The chip is located under the palmrest.

 

2 in 1 detachable units first point of failure will be docking pins/PCB (Acer's melted)

 

Acer Switch 10's had an issue with PCB short circuit and would render dock dead.

 

2 in 1 detachable units are top heavy meaning they often fall over backwards

 

Basically, the keyboards are so light they don't have the weight to stabilize the unit if you open it farther back as far as the hinges allow you.

 

 

Tablets tend to be very picky about battery levels and can often drain and no longer charge unless reset

 

Acer Switch Series, often the battery will discharge to a point where it won't turn on. You have to reset the power circuit and let it charge slowly. Power + Vol Up 30 seconds

 

 

Ultrabooks that use epoxy for LCD construction (Samsung) can fail if epoxy bond weakens or simply never bonded properly, no screws to tighten

 

Have had many a Samsung Ultrabook where the LCD is coming apart from the frame. It's all held in by adhesives. So unlike other units there is no screws to tighten or even if you wanted to replace the plastics you can't as removing the LCD would damage it.

 

Ultrabooks and Thin n' Light with hinges (HP) often have hinge failure where the hinge rips right through the lower chassis

 

HP is famous for this. Very common on M Series, the hinges start to fail, often the hinges "jump" as you open/close. Eventually it will rip through the chassis. Not pretty.

 

 

320GB, 640GB, 750GB hard disks have high failure rates, especially 640GB

 

Acer had many problems with 640GB drives. It's rare to see a 640GB drive that isn't failing.

 

Toshiba laptops suffer from poor DC Jack construction, held only by plastic and once broken jack is recessed in chassis.

You can fix this once the unit is taken apart, a splash of hot glue around the DC Jack so it doesn't move. Fixed for good.

 

ASUS T Series 2 - 1 Broken wires in Micro USB Cable, prevents unit from charging/powering on.

 

I'll edit as I go over my full list, but these I had at the top of my head.

 

Feel free to add.

[maark]

useful post - what make laptop would you recommend in general or definitely avoid?

We used to be 100 percent Dell but made the mistake of buying some vostros which were awful and lasted less than 2 years with a variety of faults.

[zebulunn]

I'm praying to the elders of the internet that our department is not asked to order pretty ultrabooks for our next set of student laptops. Going to double the workbench time for repairs on simple jobs like missing keys.

 

While I rate TOSHIBA pretty good, I'm a bit annoyed with our Tecra R840s. The hinge is attached to the lid by very tiny plastic 'blobs' and doesn't take much welly to break them.

 

Lenovo is on my wish list, I was very impressed with the demo units we got sent last year. All about those hinges baby.

[NviGate_Systems]

Therein lies the problem, a few years ago I would say Lenovo T400 Series or HP Elite/Pro however, even the big names have been cutting back on quality. ASUS used to offer 3 year warranty on select laptops and they were built well, even had drainage for liquid spills. However, fast forward a few years and now those units are 1 year only.

 

Lenovo still has good offerings but you have to check the warranty. There are Carbon X1 units that have 3 Year Warranty, and others that have 1 Year. So the landscape for units has changed.

 

Acer Travelmates used to be business class hardware with removable batteries and decent body design using a much better material than ABS. I can't think of the name of it ATM, but it had a darker, rougher feel to the chassis than ABS does. Now, the Travelmate series is nothing more than a Aspire rebrand with non removable battery, very difficult RAM/HDD Upgrades (think teardown). Yes it's got a 2 Year Warranty, but that really doesn't cover the sudden shift in design and quality.

 

Dell uses chip technology in AC Adapters/Battery to identify genuine Dell Products, so obtaining third party replacements can be a fruitless endeavour. Note not all products have this, but the majority I've seen has it, and using a generic charger often shows the dreaded message that your adapter may not allow you to do "blah blah blah" until you go into BIOS and disable the warning messages.

 

Right now for clients I am always having them look at what service options the machines come with. Lenovo has units that ship with 3 Year on site service. Though, this may vary from region to region. HP still has some good offerings but I always encourage clients to supplement warranty and coverage using HP Care Packs.

 

I use to work for Best Buy and it always amazed me the garbage people purchased retail for schools and businesses! If you must buy retail, make sure you research warranty programs from the OEM/Vendor, don't get warranty from a third party. As an example, Best Buy would always claim "physical damage, not covered" for HP M6 under extended warranty, but exact same symptom units sent to HP were repaired no questions asked.

 

Many times OEM's have "internal recalls" where if a known issue is found, it's replaced without issue. But these recalls are not public awareness like public recalls when safety organizations are involved. That's the beauty of having a service term with an OEM, it will catch those ugly issues. As an example, Toshiba often submits errata information about models to ASP Support pages. Same goes for Apple, there are many Apple TS documents which outline replacements for items that are not under any specific repair program.

 

As a general rule, I avoid AMD, and stick to Intel. Same applies to GPU, stick to Intel. If you have users that need more power, you can research a unit for them, but most faculty members won't ever use the power of an AMD or Nvidia GPU.

 

If you can get business/corporate class laptops with 3 year support options, those are your best bet. Yes they are expensive, but that extra support will pay for itself. I haven't crunched numbers in a while, but I once did a cost savings analysis for a client where over a 3 year period there would be significant savings based on a 25% failure rate. That 25% failure rate is based on second/third year of operation costs such as HDD, AC, Battery and occasional full system. Plus each failure has associated labour costs which have to be factored into your annual budget.

 

If you do decide to buy retail, here are some tips to help:

 

Always get a unit with user serviceable battery, HDD and RAM. If you are going to support users, you want quick access to these key areas.

 

That's it for tonight, it's 2AM and 7:30 comes really early lol.