Google extended warranty

[kstewart]

Anyone using the Google extended warranty??

 

[kstewart]

I just added their extended warranty.

 

[B. Diddy]

I used to purchase Google's Preferred Care for Pixel, which worked well when I needed it. For example, when my old Nexus 6P died, they sent me a new 1st gen Pixel XL (presumably because they had run out of Nexus devices, or were phasing them out due to known hardware issues). This was back when the plan was called Nexus Protect.

Nowadays, I subscribe to Best Buy's My Best Buy Total membership, which is $180/year. With the membership, any device purchased using that membership is covered by their plan for 2 years. $180 may sound like a lot, but that's $15/mo, which is comparable to most phone insurance/extended warranty plans. And since the one membership covers any device purchased, the more you buy through Best Buy, the less it costs to cover all of the devices. So my Pixel 7 Pro, Pixel Watch, Pixel Tablet, Galaxy Tab S9 FE+, my wife's Pixel 7, her Garmin Vivoactive 5, and more -- all covered.

Here are a couple of examples of the perks. My wife's Pixel 7 got a nasty crack on the screen, so we brought it to Best Buy. The guy took one look at it, grabbed a new Pixel 7, and did the data transfer right there. He was technically supposed to charge a $75 deductible (again, comparable to most insurance/extended warranty plans), but had some kind of glitch in his system, and said, "Ah, just take it." And then when my 1st gen Pixel Watch's battery went kaput after about 1.5 years, I brought it to them, and since they no longer sold the 1st gen, they gave me a gift card for the original sale price of the watch (about $330!).

I mentioned that the plan covers devices for up to 2 years -- after the 2 years are up, you can still pay a little extra per month to keep the device covered (for phones, it's an additional $8/mo). That can still be a good deal if you have a bunch of devices covered by the plan.

So the bottom line is that I think Google's Preferred Care is good peace of mind, but if you get a lot of techie stuff, you may want to consider Best Buy's program in the future.

 

[Grabber5.0]

I'll have to check into that.. then again I can't remember the last thing I bought at Best Buy after my Pebble Time Steel...