You own a laptop. Your friends own laptops. Chances are everyone in your family owns a laptop. They’re simply amazing devices and make everyone’s lives better. But at some point the inevitable act-of-god freak accident occurs where your beloved electronic goes whirling to the floor and cracks into pieces, and you instantly being to panic thinking of what critical information (or funny bookmarks) you just lost. Sounds dramatic? It is. But it’s also the most common way your laptop, or any electronic device for that matter, will fail.
Take a step back for a second and remember that these devices are designed for consumers. Electronics these days are built following tens of thousands of standards. Have to pass near-infinite amounts of reliability tests. Have to be checked, tested, retested, and finally certified. Everything is built for reliability. This is all important because reliability is one of the main competitive advantages, nobody wants to buy something that will break down, and no manufacturer wants to produce something that will be recalled by the millions. As a result, modern electronics are incredibly reliant and robust. If handled properly they can last many years if not decades.
This might sound strange, don’t electronics break down all the time? Sure they do. As hard as manufacturers try to make their devices immune to all sorts of shock, electrostatic discharge, and fluctuating temperatures, it’s unfortunately impossible to make them immune to people.
We humans seem find all sorts of creative ways to destroy our electronics. From dropping them onto ceramic tiles in the kitchen, to running over them with a car, to submerging them in all sorts of delicious tasty liquid. If it’s possible, we’ll eventually do it. And not just once. Many many times.
It’s for these reasons that the overwhelming majority of consumer electronics fail not because of “poor design” but rather because intense abuse by the consumer himself. The number 1 repair job for all repair shops is replacing cracked screens and LCD’s for all sorts of devices that have been dropped. Or replacing various plugs because someone ripped the cord out and broke them. Or drying out the device and hoping it turns back on after being covered in chocolate milk. Compared to these instances, it’s relatively rare to find an actual failure where the device was at fault. Most cell phones for instance almost never fail without being dropped and cracked.
Although this may sound ominous and depressing, there is good news. If you follow a few common-sense safety precautions, you can successfully keep your electronics alive for many years. Always carry your Laptop with both hands, or better yet keep it closed while being carried. Be extremely gentle with any mechanical plugging and unplugging, anything mechanical is most likely to break. And keep all liquids as far away from your device as possible. Don’t drink anything. You might get away with it for a year or two, but it will eventually come to bite you, which is might be in the worst possible moment. Keep your electronics safe and handle them properly, and there is no reason they won’t last you many many years.
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