Smartphone Warranty: Possible Drawbacks to Consider

In part one of this two-part blog series, we went over some of the basics on extended warranties for smartphones. Generally offered by your carrier as you complete the purchase of a new phone, this warranty tends to cover only manufacturer defects and device malfunctions – but does so for a longer period than the normal manufacturer warranty, allowing you to catch certain kinds of rare defects that may not show up during the normal warranty period. At FixIT Mobile, our phone repair services often involve situations where we help our clients deal with extended warranties, phone insurance or other types of phone coverage. Today’s part two of our series will go into some of the potential downsides of cell phone extended warranties, plus what you should be considering as you decide whether or not to purchase this coverage.

Limited Coverage

As we went over during part one, cell phone extended warranties are still fairly limited in their scope. While they do extend the period of time that certain areas of the phone are covered for, often by at least a year or even longer in certain cases, these areas do not cover all forms of specific damage.

To get particular, there’s almost no type of user-inflicted damage to a phone that will be covered by your warranty. Likewise, issues of theft or loss of the phone will generally not be covered – for these kinds of things, phone insurance or a protection plan are required. Only issues that can be traced back to manufacturer or hardware defects will be covered.

Infrequent Issues

And while, as we noted, such manufacturer issues do still take place from time to time, they’re not common at all. Modern technology has allowed smartphone companies like Apple, Samsung and others to put enormous amounts of care into their manufacturing processes, and quality control methods are more precise and robust than ever before. There’s simply a very strong chance you will never have to use your extended warranty, though you never know for sure.

Worth It?

When assessing whether or not to purchase an extended warranty, it really comes down to your level of risk tolerance – and whether or not you’ve purchased other coverage, like phone insurance or a protection plan, which will usually include all the same things the extended warranty does. We do recommend purchasing this coverage if you won’t have any other support, as you’ll be saving yourself a major expense if something does go wrong. But for those who want to be truly protected from all risks, including accidents, the extended warranty usually won’t be enough.

For more on phone extended warranties and whether to purchase one for your new smartphone, or to learn about any of our tablet repair, laptop repair or other device repair services, speak to the staff at FixIT Mobile today.