 Best Buy Service Plan-worth it? |
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Welcome to Bleeping Computer, a free community where people like yourself come together to discuss and learn how to use their computers. Using the site is easy and fun. As a guest, you can browse and view the various discussions in the forums, but can not create a new topic or reply to an existing one unless you are logged in. Other benefits of registering an account are subscribing to topics and forums, creating a blog, and having no ads shown anywhere on the site.| Important Announcement: We have a terrific contest still running on the site that I wanted all our members and guests to know about. The chance to win two Seagate FreeAgent external hard drives. More information about this contest can be found here. I suggest everyone submit an entry for them. - BleepingComputer Management |
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 May 6 2005, 07:15 PM
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New Member  Group: Members Posts: 6 Joined: 6-January 05 Member No.: 8,884  |
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May 6 2005, 09:24 PM
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 Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 407 Joined: 7-December 04 From: Northern California Member No.: 6,604 |
Hi CFG and welcome to BC.
 Here's my personal opinion. Computers, like most electronic devices tend to fail quickly if they are going to fail at all. The term in the industry is "infant mortality", an unfortunate choice of words perhaps, but descriptive. So given that, I would ask you what is the standard warranty (included in the purchase price) provided by Best Buy? If it gives you a window of at least 30 days (the more the better) for no cost/no hassle repairs, I would recommend you take the extra $120 and put it in the bank, saving it for possible future upgrades or software. Then after you get your new computer, use it. Use it a lot. Use all the hardware items (drives, printers, etc.) to ensure there are no defects, and play with all of the software provided, even those that you may not think you are interested in. Don't abuse it of course, but make it work hard to see if any initial or early defects show up. And of course, spend time here at BC learning about computers and post questions about anything that concerns you about your new computer. And if Best Buy (or anyone else) won't give you a solid "no hassle" initial warranty period as a standard feature, I think I would look elsewhere, as many manufacturers (Dell for one) and retailers (Costco for one) do provide such a warranty. And finally here's a link to a great BC Tutorial about steps to take to protect your new computer before you first connect it to the internet. Good luck. Post back whenever you have information, that way we all can learn. -------------------- "Love to eat them mousies, mousies what I like to eat; bite they little heads off, nibble on they tiny feet". B. Kliban
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May 6 2005, 09:54 PM
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New Member Group: Members Posts: 6 Joined: 6-January 05 Member No.: 8,884 |
I will check on the included warranty period. I am going to have them (the Geek Squad) install antivirus software, they will install all the updates to it and also they will install all the updates to Windows.
Thanks for the answer! |
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May 6 2005, 09:55 PM
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 407 Joined: 7-December 04 From: Northern California Member No.: 6,604 |
CFG: One other thought....have you tried Google? Searching under "Best Buy problems" I found this about trouble with the 3-year warranty on a laptop, among lots of other complaints. Might be worth your time to do some more due diligence before committing your money.
-------------------- "Love to eat them mousies, mousies what I like to eat; bite they little heads off, nibble on they tiny feet". B. Kliban
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May 6 2005, 10:16 PM
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 Learning Daily Group: Members Posts: 4,543 Joined: 9-July 04 From: Washington State, USA Member No.: 1,322 |
I did a stint selling 'maintenance agreements" for a large corporation.
Frankly, I'd recommend learning what all you can by using it for a year & checking bleepingcomputers topic threads during the same period and see if you don't pay yourself more in the long run. Take the time to question the parties involved with the warrenties during that time to determine what if any problems develop between you both when communicating. Make it a plan to free up your PC for a short period of time to allow for the real-world posssibility of having to give it up should service be needed. Pay attention to what you can consider "normal operation" and document it in some way. A brief statement of boot times, sequences, whatever comes to mind that is "typical", can be typed to note or wordpad. Should a deviation in that norm develop, print your document and detail the change(s). Save all receipts, and scan them in to that document for easy reference. Include dates. Consider the investment worth a small percentage of your time spent administering to the things that for YOU are what you bought it for. Something happens, and most folks tend to get involved in the problem, not the probablity of remedy. Details of how effective the remedy is (time involved, any expenses and was it complete) tend to be issues in retrospect. Of course, it might go unused ... that time spent might simply be the records kept on a great PC performer. 
-------------------- patiently patrolling, plenty of persisant pests n' problems ...
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May 6 2005, 11:56 PM
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 Forum Addict Group: Global Moderator Posts: 20,643 Joined: 11-April 04 From: Chicago, Il. Member No.: 113 |
The last time I bought a computer at BB, and this was several years ago, they ran some checks on it before I was allowed to leave the store. For the most part, computers will fail within the first few weeks if there is a hardware problem. So unless you are clumsy, or have a lot of wild children running about, or are buying a laptop (which is subject to more accidents), I would advise not spending the money for an extended contract.
Regards, John -------------------- Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one should be silent.
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May 7 2005, 07:42 AM
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 407 Joined: 7-December 04 From: Northern California Member No.: 6,604 |
CFG:
QUOTE So unless you are clumsy, or have a lot of wild children running about, or are buying a laptop (which is subject to more accidents), I would advise not spending the money for an extended contract. Jgweed nailed a point that I forgot....if you are considering a laptop, an extended warranty might make much more sense. But then it is much more important to Google about Best Buy as that link I provided above referred to unhappiness about an extended warranty on a laptop. Whereever you decide to buy your computer, ask (and try to get in writing) what is their policy regarding early failures, say within the first 90 days. Do they do their repairs in-house, or will your unit need to be shipped to a remote location? If the failure is major, will they immediately replace your unit with a new one? Kind of similar questions you'd ask when purchasing a vehicle. -------------------- "Love to eat them mousies, mousies what I like to eat; bite they little heads off, nibble on they tiny feet". B. Kliban
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