BUSINESSES are increasingly replacing desktop PCs with notebooks, but they should be aware that portable products have a higher failure rate, with as many as 15% failing in the first year.
A report from market research group Gartner found reliability had improved for desktops and notebooks but that, even so, laptops had a significantly higher failure rate than PCs. Only 5% of desktops failed in their first year, rising to 12% in the fourth year.
Computer manufacturers said the higher failure rate of laptops was not surprising. “Notebooks endure far more wear and tear,” said Kevin Nolan, PSG category manager for HP Ireland. He said HP had introduced technologies to protect hard drives from shocks caused by knocks and drops.
Liam Halpin, channel sales director at Fujitsu-Siemens Ireland, agreed the life expectancy of a laptop was lower than for a PC and that the risk of damage was higher “because of the fact it gets moved around”.
But he argued that laptops allowed executives to deliver “significantly more productivity to their company than those using only deskbound systems.” In the main, he concluded, “the return on investment is higher on a laptop than a PC.”
The main requirement for businesses was to ensure they had a service and support package that covered life expectancy and damage risks.
Gartner said the main source of failure in notebooks had changed from screen breakages to motherboard and hard drive failures, which account for nearly 50% of all failures.
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