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Comment by longtom | Hacker News Reader

I also moved to Windows 10 and X1 Carbon (6th Gen) after using Apple products all my life and I've never looked back. That being said, my X1 also went three times to repair. I guess people have simply unlearnt how to manufacture reliable products due to the immense complexity that is involved by now, combined with a planned obsolescence mentality. It is shitty wherever you go; it's just a bit more shitty with Apple currently IMO, and Apple deserves some flak for their provocative product policy, e.g. selling the MacBook Air with the same crappy low-res screen up until 2017 which is still available in some stores.

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IMO, if you're buying a higher end laptop it's worth shelling out for the on site warranty/accident protection. They'll send a technician to your location (typically within the week) and replace whatever parts needed for free. So you'll have essentially 0 time without your laptop.

It's been excellent (used it twice: fixed a broken keycap, and a spilled drink), and gives me a ton of peace of mind.

Huge +1 for this. On-site support has saved my XPS (and by extension me) a few times now. If you’re going to go for a Dell laptop I’d get ProSupport or better.

Lenovo lets you buy up to 5 years of onsite support for less than the cost of applecare. I am in my 4th year on my T460p. Had to use it once, a few months ago when the SSD died. I found out then that whether someone actually comes out the next business day depends on the technician assigned and the region. In my case they sent me a replacement drive (arrived next business day) and expected me to install it myself. Not a problem, T series thinkpads are designed to be easy to get into, but still slightly disappointing. Still, I got the cost of the onsite back with just that one incident, so I was satisfied with the service.

I am very satisfied with that thinkpad. Excellent linux support, good performance, quiet under sustained load, best laptop keyboard I’ve ever used, and extremely durable.

> They'll send a technician to your location (typically within the week) and replace whatever parts needed for free.

My Dell Latitude had included "next business day" 3 years warranty. I used it twice (to get motherboard and display replaced) and they sent technician next working day. There were a bit more failures then I would expect, but warranty was great and I happily bought 2 more years (5 years total) for equivalent of about 200 USD plus tax.

This is interesting, if an Apple laptop failed that often then passive aggressive posts would be made on HN explaining how it’s needed repair too much and the owner would like to switch to something else and would like recommendations on what to buy.

The second "failure" was about small flaws on display (mostly visible on white background). I didn't actually expect them to replace it, but they did.

I've also heard from friends that E7*70 had a bit higher failure rate than usual. It still seems (subjectively) to be much lower than Apple's issue with keyboard. Most importantly, they fixed it almost immediately.

Today, I don't expect things to not break. I'm still annoyed when they do, but more important is what happens after failure, how long (and how much effort) does it take to get things working again.

Overall, I love my X1, but I have had so many problems that they finally replaced it with a brand new machine. Premier support is mandatory for Lenovo IMO, in spite of the problems, I never once had an issue getting someone onsite to repair it and they assigned a local case manager to sort out the replacement. On the Lenovo forum I read a lot of stories from people with similar problems, but with basic warranty they reported getting a run around, being without a machine for weeks at a time with it went back and forth to the depot. A YMMV..

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