I pay HP about 100 Euro per year for a next business day support and whenever something breaks in my laptop they either send me a technician or mail me the spare parts. In the last 8 years I remember the technician coming here to replace a worn out keyboard (5 years) and a screen which was developing some whitish pixels. The shipped me a couple of hard disks, one of them just in case the problem I had was related to the disk, and two new power units. No complaints ever.
If you pay for business level support it's usually much better. Panasonic only really deals with Business, so I had the best experience with them, though I still had to fight through initial wall of incompetence. Apple also has a business program which is very good, on par with Panasonic in my experience, but with Apple I think you have to buy in volume to get into that program. Nowadays, though, I make it a point to only buy lightly used hardware and fix it my self if a problem arises. So far it's been cheaper than buying warranty and hell of a lot less aggravating. Fingers crossed, of course.
