SquareTrade analyzed failure rates for over 30,000 new laptop computers covered by SquareTrade Laptop Warranty plans and found that one-third of all laptops will fail within 3 years.

In terms of reliability, ASUS and Toshiba came out on top with 3 year malfunction rates forecasted to be under 16%. Laptops from these two manufacturers are nearly 40% more reliable than Hewlett-Packard, who performed the worst. Sony and Apple also performed better than the average.

The industry leader HP shipped nearly 16 million laptops last year but ranked dead last in reliability study with over one-fourth of laptops expected to malfunction in 3 years. Gateway and Acer, the #2 maker of laptops, were also nearly as unreliable as HP, with an expected malfunction rate of over 23%.

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