I'm a college student looking trying to buy a laptop. Is an accidental damage plan worth it? Can the plan replace your laptop for free in 3-4 years? And which store's plan is better, Best Buy's or Circuit City's?

It depends on how likely it is that the laptop will be damaged, and whether you can afford to replace it. If you live in a dorm or or some other situation where you can't control the idiots that might be near your laptop, then you should absolutely get the accidental damage warranty.

So far I haven't needed it. When I got my Dell, I got the 3 year next business day repair which covered normal wear and tear. It was a great investment; my screen died. Since then I've beat the keyboard to death and just about killed the trackpad buttons.

P.S. Buy the machine from the manufacturer, not a retail store. I have heard a bunch of horror stories about both stores. I like Dell, but others are good.

Nate gives good advice. It really is different for each case. I would probably get the warranty from the manufacturer though instead of a store if I was buying. I know HP/Compaq offers their own, including some that cover accidental damage. AFAIK Best Buy's will not cover accidental damage. Don't trust the person selling it to you, be sure & read what it covers.

BTW, if you want Dell Best Buy sells them now.

For a laptop for a student - absolutely. Laptops get damaged, a lot.. and repair costs are generally very, very high (and your local tech geek can't generally help you much.)

That being said... order from the manufacturer, do not buy from Best Buy, etc. The employees lie their butts off and don't have a clue what they're doing.

Also.... at this point, Gateway is probably better than Dell (unless you're willing to get a Mac - which I'd certainly suggest :grins:) but Dell has had so many recalls and do such a horrible job anymore. If someone asked me 6 years ago which company to go with, I'd say Dell... but these days it just seems to be crap.

The Gateway convertible tablets are very nice, however. My brother's had one for about 3 years now... And my old Dell (9 yrs ago) lasted 7 years... But the dell my brother had before the gateway had to be sent back 4 times, and then died one last time the day after the warranty expired.

It's really a crapshoot. But whatever you do, I'd avoid buying them at a retail store if you can. The last time I bought one I was lied to regarding about 4 different things that ended up costing me about $400. Also, you can generally get some nice educational discounts buying from the big companies.

It might be worth checking what's covered in any existing insurance policies you may have.

I know someone who works in insurance, and he says a lot of people don't realise what they can claim for and miss out.

http://www.fool.co.uk/news/your-money/2007/12/17/the-classic-christmas-con.aspx discusses some of the issues.

My stepson has a laptop and he lives in the UK. He took out an insurance policy on his laptop. he has a replacement value policy. So he gets the value he paid for it if it breaks. He's already taken advantage of the policy twice already and has a nice laptop now due to the policy.

I'll second (third?) the advise to check with your insurance agent. As a college student, if you're still under your parent's coverage, you may score some discounts due to car/home/life/etc. insurances you/they already have.

Usually going thru your insurance is cheaper and you break the payments into monthly installments instead of all at once plus you can often tailor the coverage to exactly what you want.

You should also check with your school. Both my kids were "suggested" to purchase from the school in order to get the school's software packages installed (Matlab, Solidworks, Photoshop, etc.). At the end it was cheaper to purchase that way than from outside. In the case of my daughter, they use Novell to gateway onto the school's network. Without that she can't connect to the campus network to submit their work. In many cases, the school provides 3-4 year warranty. Of course, the quality of the computer center people may be a bit low.

Gary