SquareTrade has 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. Asus and Toshiba were the most reliable laptops over a period of three years followed by Sony and Apple with both performing better than average. Dell was in the fifth place followed by Lenovo, Acer and Gateway respectively. HP was the worst performer in SquareTrade study.

The website concluded “Given the high overall failure rates of laptops and sizeable difference in reliability by brand, reliability should be a concern for consumers shopping around for the best holiday deals. While our study found netbook malfunction rates to be trending 20 percent higher than more expensive laptops, the variance between manufacturers is far greater and should be a bigger factor in making a buying decision. Asus and Toshiba laptops failed just over half as frequently as HP, which makes them a solid bet in terms of reliability.”

You can read the complete PDF of the laptop reliability study here.