What’s your beef with retail this Christmas?

Did you watch CTV news last night? Three of the top beefs of consumers this Christmas season was being mercilessly pitched on extended warranties, sales that weren’t really sales and coupons/price matches that excluded just about everything.

Extended warranties are a cash grab offered by a third party company. The goal is not to ensure you get good coverage. The goal is to provide a profit margin on the product sold and make the warranty company money. In fact, Best Buy and Future Shop, two well known examples of pressure “extended warranty” sales, have been listed on the Ontario Consumer Beware list for failure to honour the warranties.

When you face the pressure sales as the inevitable flier gets pulled out of the salesman’s back pocket, say no or simply walk away.

At Northern Protocol Inc. we’re proud to be “extended warranty” and “service plan” free. We simply give you reliable products and great service all the time with no charge warranty coverage, in house, for the first year on all our new computers. Before you buy your next computer come and see us and experience the difference.

Remember, after it crashes it’s too late to wish you bought a better computer.

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Who makes the most reliable laptop?

We get asked who makes the most reliable laptop daily. As more laptops fail, as the Future Shop special crashes and burns, people look to us for answers on what to replace it with. As we repair hundreds of laptops each year, we get to see which models end up on our work bench most often.

We’ve always told our clients that the Fujitsu and Asus product lines have proven to be the most reliable laptops. There is an advantage to manufacturing your own laptops. You get to have complete control over the process from start to finish.

Well, as it turns out we’re not the only on that thinks that Asus and Fujitsu laptops are the best laptops on the planet. A new study released by Square Trade that offers after market warranties shows a break down of failure rates on the laptops that are covered by their warranty.

Fujitsu isn’t in the list at all. And the number one manufacturer of the most reliable laptop on the planet? Asus. The least reliable laptop is made by Hewlett Packard (HP).

Another not-so-surprising statistic is the failure rate of netbooks. The Square Trade study shows that netbooks are 20% more unreliable than a regular laptop and more likely to require repair.

You can view the entire study in pdf format here.

UPDATE: PC Magazine has released their own study which mirrors the results of the Square Trade study. You can view the results here.

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Become a fan on Facebook!

If you’re one of our many satisfied clients and are a user of Facebook, become a fan of our Facebook page! There you will be kept up to date on all the latest happenings, such as events, promotions and giveaways. You can also have your say in the discussions.

Click here to be taken to our Facebook page.

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