“The November 2006 issue of Consumer Reports contains the electronics and computers ratings for the magazine, and Apple’s products came out on top yet another year,” Tobias Buckell reports for Blogging Stocks.
Buckell reports, “Apple Computer, Inc. laptops did the best in terms of value [and] Apple had top ratings for notebook and desktop computer tech support. Brand repair history of some 128,000 computers had Apple showing fewer repairs than any other PC brand. The Apple store also got top marks in all categories when compared to other computer stores.”
Full article here.
Related articles:
Apple Mac desktops, notebooks top PC Magazine’s Annual Reader Satisfaction survey – again – August 22, 2006
Apple far outscores all other PC makers in Consumer Reports Computer Tech Support Survey – May 05, 2006
Apple Mac desktops, portables top PC Magazine’s 2005 Reader Satisfaction survey – August 24, 2005
Apple Computer products top PC Magazine’s annual ‘Best of the Year’ survey – December 16, 2004
Apple Macs top PC Magazine’s ’17th Annual Reader Satisfaction Survey’ – August 10, 2004
Apple leads PC Magazine’s 16th annual Service and Reliability Survey – July 10, 2003
So our love/hate relationship with CR is back to love? This is emotionally draining. Time to DTMFA!
Impossible. Consumer Reports never has anything nice to say about Apple, especially Macs.
This is info they can’t distort. Just raw numbers of repairs per amount sold.
It’s when they review a Mac that they get biased and clueless.
The problem is they don’t run as many programs as PCs.
The problem is that the information is just about the responders and can’t be used to infer anything about all computers.
How can this be?!?!?! How can Macs come out on top in all categories?!?!? It must be that Mac users are manipulating the numbers….
Either that, or Macs are just that damn good.
Consumer Reports may not be very skilled at evaluating high-tech products, but they do know how to count beans. This is good since CR is read by an army of mostly PC users no doubt. Maybe the cloud of FUD is finally parting. Gotta happen sometime.
I have the CR article just came in the mail.
They claim Macs have no productivity software, and don’t even include a basic word processor!
“They claim Macs have no productivity software, and don’t even include a basic word processor!”
My MBPro came with no word processor; text edit only. So CR is not in error here if they reviewed the Pro line. Pages was only a demo, and AppleWorks isn’t supplied with Pro machines. I’m not sure if it still comes on the iMacs.
“The problem is they don’t run as many programs as PCs.”
Where have you been Dion? With Bootcamp Macs can run just about any program on the planet at native speeds! Get with the times man!
Dion um you sound ridiculous with that statement. I hope you are being sarcastic
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That repairs bit is shit. I started college a year ago. For school, 5 of my closest friends bought powerbooks. 4 of us had to have ours replaced within the first month. I just bought a macbook this summer, and so did a friend of mine… Both of us have already had them replaced. Apple is definitely great about honoring their 1 year warranty, but soooo many of their computers break down it is ridiculous. I honestly don’t see how they can be making money giving out so many free computers. They should get it together quality-control wise, because I can’t imagine that any other computer companies have this many issues.
Do all PCs come with a word processor? Is Office free on PCs now?
Macs and iPods won’t squirt music to Zunes. That’s it. Apple’s doomed.
Spark,
Well they said it in a negative sense, not comparitive, as though windows computers do have more.
So what “word processor” comes with Xp, Wordpad?
Macs have TextEdit.
What productivity software comes with XP?
Actually all mac come with iWork which has a word processor (trial version) but you can buy it a lot cheaper than Office, Just pay $79 and enter the code they give you.. Wow that was tough..
A few years ago my employer was doing a total desktop refresh, 38 servers and 1750 desktops and about 120 laptops. 100% were Dell. Dell finished up giving a 60% discount to keep the business because out of all the above more than 40% were DOA.
I have no doubt that every computer manufacturer has its nightmare stories, however Apple have never ever quibbled about supporting their warranty (in my experience of nearly 30 years) whereas every other manufacturer I have dealt with (most of the major players) has been embarrassed but reluctant. In all the years I have used Apple (since the Apple ][ ) I have only ever experienced one Apple DOA which was resolved by return of post.
“It must be that Mac users are manipulating the numbers….”
Well, they wouldn’t be asking PC users their thoughts on their Mac experience.
Very funny, Dion. You must be a gam3r
MDN thinks Consumer Reports is (stupid?)
What was the negative against Consumer Reports?
Perhaps MDN would like Consumer Reports not to even mention Macintosh?
I remmeber those days.
I would like to see Apple include OpenOffice or NeoOffice on their installer disk, so if someone would like to have a free office suite, they just need to go to the disk and install it as a custom install.
BTW, TextEdit can do a heck of a lot for free. MOre so than WordPad.
TextEdit can open DOC files, preview HTML files, edit Java, CSS and include files. It is pretty useful.
I subscribe to Consumer Reports and, in my opinion, the article did not give the strong, positive impression implied by the MDN title. If I were not familiar with Macs and CR, I would have come away with a somewhat negative impression in terms of cost, performance/ and expandability that was not offset by the positive nature of the tech support rating. For the most part (following the “difference of four points of less not being significant), the reliability data was a wash with the exception of a couple of PC/Windows outliers.
I use CR as part of my research process for some items. But not for computers and other high tech gear that changes on a frequent basis. For instance, the CR report used the Core Solo version of the Mac mini.
expandability?
What percentage of computer users does this really affect. Apart from ram and a bigger hard drive, most people don’t bother doing anything else to their computers.
I love Apple, we have hundreds in our school, we buy lots of Apple software but…..
AppleCare is appauling in the UK.
Not just bad, really, really awful.
45 minutes on the phone to India. No box arrives. Phone again, Ireland. “What repair request?”……..
If someone from Apple or AppleCare reads this, please email me because your UK repairs service is going to lose you money and customers.
However, until one breaks, they are the best computers out there and I wouldn’t want anything else.
Simon, I’ve had similar nighmare scenarios with AppleCare UK, it’s as if they are deliberately trying to annoy you when you call them!
AppleCare UK sucks. Best thing I did was take my PowerBook to an Authorised Reseller (MCC in Liverpool was where I took mine). Not only did they repair it within 5 days (would’ve been sooner if Apple sent the right part), but I also got a call from the engineer who had my PowerBook apart in front of him, asking me if I’d like it cleaned with iClean when the repair was complete!
Now that’s what I call service.