<p>When I bought my laptop I got a 5 year warranty on it. Having seen my sister’s screen go bad, it is definitely nice to have for $200. She ended up paying like $600 to get hers fixed after two years.</p>
<p>We took the plunge and bought an IMAC and two Apple laptops for the kids. They love theirs, and we’re getting used to the IMAC, different keypad from old IBM but GREAT BIG monitor. I find it quirky, and a bit complicated to use. I’m not good at all this, so not a very reliable person to ask. It does all kinds of fancy things that I would never use (H will) but simple things like e-mail are very sensitive sometimes. I’m on the phone with applecare ALOT.</p>
<p>Notebooks don’t seem to last as long as desktops (I’ve probably had 15 over the years). A 2-year-old notebook is starting to get old, and a 3-year-old is a senior citizen. YMMV.</p>
<p>dke, it’s all in what you get used to or learned on. I’m a computer idiot–learned on a Mac and get very flustered when forced to use a PC which I find very cumbersome.</p>
<p>Getting used to new things is difficult for us old dogs–I have to use firefox some now and I absolutely cannot get used to it --always revert back to my old search engine when I can.</p>