We’ve heard the stories — the four-year-old laptop hanging on by a screw; the hard drive that failed once a week; the battery that lasts only six seconds before releasing the ear-shattering beep of death; the senior who poured beer on his computer to get a new one two weeks before graduation.

There are a lot of complaints about the Carolina Computing Initiative. So we asked the question: Are CCI computers really that bad?

The short answer is no. By nature, laptops get a lot of use and a lot of wear, particularly from college students. And in the constantly evolving technology world, four years is a long time. Repair data suggest that failure rates increase significantly after the first year or two of a computer’s use.

But the University community still needs computers, and needs them to work. We examined the most frequently quoted problems with CCI computers to find the fact and the fiction.

Hard drives fail often

There’s no evidence that Lenovos experience hard drive failure more than other laptops. They may even experience it less.

“Any laptop is going to see a lot of hard drive failures. Lenovo itself is one of the industry leaders as far as reliability and quality and our numbers here at the University track with that,” said Matt Howell, Manager of Walk-in Services at Information Technology Services.

Because hard disks have sensitive moving parts, the motion laptops endure on a daily basis increases the risk they’ll fail at some point in their service life.

Batteries die quickly

Battery life is perhaps the most frequent complaint about all laptops. “As an industry, the PC industry has not been very good about giving realistic battery times,” said David Eckert, CCI Program Manager at ITS..

According to Eckert, most laptop manufacturers don’t warranty their batteries past the first year, which is when the chemicals in the battery usually begin to decay.

Battery life in laptops is difficult to predict, but the service life of the battery is usually related to the number of “cycles” it goes through—how often it is charged and depleted and charged again.

They’re too expensive

Laptops are getting cheaper, but full-size, quality laptops often still price at about $1,000. The biggest perk of CCI computers’ cost is the four-year warranty, compared with standard one- to two-year warranties, and accidental damage coverage.

“All those different types of coverage cost money, but what we’re able to do by negotiating on behalf of a large number of students is to get those much cheaper,” said Eckert.

The verdict

Based on available data, reviews and input from students and ITS staff, there’s little evidence that CCI computers perform any worse than other laptops, considering how far we take them and how often they are attacked by coffee, textbooks and clumsy friends.

Contact the University Editor at udesk@unc.edu.