Why are laptops so expensive to repair?

In the last couple of years I have made the transition from a desktop to a laptop. When my Laptop broke the other day the cost of repairing it was more expensive than what it is worth. This wasn't the case with my old desktop. Why are laptops and notebooks so much more expensive to repair?

Lana, New Lambton

Hi Lana,

There are a couple of reasons for what you are observing.

The first is that in the last 5 to 10 years the price of computers has dropped dramatically. No longer are you looking at spending at least one thousand dollars on a new computer you can now pick them up for a few hundred dollars.

Combined with the price of computers dropping the cost of labour has gone up. This is the first reason that computer and laptop repairs appear more expensive.

The second reason is laptops pack a lot in a little device. While this is good for you for everyday use this creates issues when they need to be repaired.

Generally a laptop has everything combined on the motherboard. There is no separate video card or network card. This means a failure of a single part requires the replacement of the entire motherboard. The replacement motherboard is rarely cheap and nearly always requires every component of the laptop being taken out of the case.

Of course the cost of repair will depend on the make and model. Older laptops generally aren’t too bad to work with, they are bigger and therefore less compacted. The newer laptops especially ultralights such as the MacBook air often sacrifice serviceability to make the laptop smaller. This dramatically adds to the cost of repairing these laptops.

When talking to customers we do often recommend taking out an extended warranty for them. Simple faults can turn into costly repairs rather quickly and having the extended warranty reduces your exposure to have to fork out to fix a broken laptop.