My wife’s 4.5 years old iBook G3 died two weeks ago. Well, probably not like the flaming iBook, but it will not boot from the hard disk, and booting from the installation CD only results kernel panic with memory-related error messages. Sounds like it is time for a new computer! That iBook was actually the last computer I have bought (all my others are either scrapped junk or laptops provided by work which I have no choice what-so-ever) so you can pretty much see how excited I am! Going to the online store and building the new computer to exactly the way I wanted it!!

Oh wait. I am still limited by the budget. D’oh.

So I went to Dell Australia, picked the new Inspiron 1420, and tried to customise it for the best performance my budget allows me to have. (No, don’t ask me why I forsake Apple to go to Dell and Windows Vista). At the end I spec’ed one with

• 2GB DDR2 RAM
• Core 2 Duo 1.8GHz T7100
• 160GB Hard Disk
• 1440×900 14.1″ WXGA
• …

Certainly a good enough computer for my wife to surf the web, edit some documents and do her own tax return (she has been on the Mac for the last 4 years and have to use my PC to run eTax). All up for less than $1,700 (+ 3% cashback from MoneyBackCo). Then I realised something — hey what about extended warranty? I bought AppleCare when I purchased the iBook and I’ll say $400+ for it is actually worth it simply because the motherboard died a year and half down the track and the extended warranty totally covered it.

Then again I am on my 3^rd Dell laptop from work now, all insured with 3 year business care plans, but all have no trouble at all. Moreover if anything goes wrong with a Dell lappy, it should be relatively trivial to fix comparing to an Apple equivalent because (1) I have better knowledge on PC than Mac (2) Dell parts on eBay are cheap. It does make you wonder whether the extra money you pay for the extended warranty (up to $480 for 3 years on an Inspiron) is a good idea.

Well. Finger crossed, took the middle ground and ordered my wife’s new Inspiron with only 2 years warranty.

Do you buy extended warranty on laptops or other products?