I think that  $400+ for a 5-year extended warranty would not be
a good investment.

My best guess is that the average user keeps his/her new system
for only 2-2.5 years nowadaze. Is your friend different?

What's the Sony warranty? 1 year? 2 years?? I would test the
system extensively as suggested by other respondents. If the
solid-state stuff (everything but disk drives) doesn't fail
in a year it'll likely last the life of the computer easily.
If, say, the hard drive fails, there would be no warranty on
the lost data anyway.  Replacing a diskette or CD drive
shouldn't be a big deal.

Hope this helps a bit ...

  David


**********************************************************************
** David Nasser                     **     [log in to unmask]  **
** Univ. Mo. St. Louis              **                              **
**********************************************************************;

"Mother died and left me reckless,
 daddy died and left me wild, wild, wild.
 No, I'm not good looking,
 but I'm some sweet woman's angel chile'."
     from "Statesboro Blues", Blind Willy McTell, maybe 1928.

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