"This Plan does not cover repairs caused by accidental or intentional physical damage... "
Let's think about that statement from my extended 3 year service plan on my Sony Vaio purchased from Best Buy. [P]hysical damage, what other kind of damage can be done to a laptop? Emotional damage? Not that I wouldn't be surprised given what I subject this machine to. So good, we know that Best Buy will pay for a psychologist for my laptop, but not for anything that's broken. And what's with the accidental or intentional part? How could damage possibly not be either one of those? You either meant to break it or you didn't. Maybe if I was temporarily insane and broke it, it wouldn't be an accident but I didn't mean to either, then they would cover it. So we're back to the therapy again. Good to know that a Best Buy warranty will pay for a shrink, but they will not repair anything that's broken, except if some internal part seized up spontaneously, they might think about fixing it.
So yeah, Best Buy won't fix the latch on my monitor, or the little kick-stand foot thing on the bottom. But to their credit they will replace the battery, but only because the warranty specifically states that it will cover that, though not anything else as far as I can tell.
And they wouldn't help the poor lady in line next to me who had popped her N key off. She hadn't even lost the little horseshoes, they could've just popped it back on. I could have too (I've switched my whole keyboard to DVORAK) but it really wasn't my place to barge in, and I didn't want to break it in front of everyone, they're delicate little pieces.
Moral of the story: buy a Dell. The only reason I purchased from Best Buy was for the warranty because Sony only offered a 30 day guarantee, which is a total joke. I went with the Sony because I'm an interface guy, and Sony has the best monitors, keyboard layout and touchpad feel. But this total lack of customer care is the price that I pay. If you want the piece of mind that somebody will actually fix your machine then buy a Dell, and stear clear of Best Buy's fake $220 warranty, because that's too much to pay for a 3 year battery replacement plan unless you're getting a new one every year (which I probably should have, mine's been dead for a couple years).
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