PC Magazine readers rated 46,434 products and services to share which companies they trust and adore and, in some cases, which to actively avoid.
Apple, once again, topped them all in the following product areas:
• Desktop Service & Reliability Survey 2009: When it comes to the overall satisfaction users have with their computers, Apple once again reigns supreme. The company’s Macintosh PCs—which we can all state unequivocally are actually Windows PCs too, if you want them to be—have consistently proven to be favorites among PCMag.com readers. Apple’s significantly better than average overall score (9.1 out of 10) marks it as a clear Readers’ Choice… In the world of Windows vendors, not much has changed since 2008, when the average overall score was 7.6. Same this year.
• Portable Media Players Service & Reliability Survey: Call them MP3 players or portable media players (a term we use to distinguish them from the still-burgeoning market for set-top box media players), these gizmos have captivated us since the first days of MP3s and Napster. Now, they not only do music but also play movies and games. Well, at least the Apple iPod touch does. That’s probably why Apple is once again the leader in yet another product category of this survey. Cupertino received significantly better than average (SBA) scores not only overall but also for both solid-state and hard-drive based devices, across categories such as sound quality, ease of use, overall reliability, and the likelihood of purchasing another one in the future.
• Laptop & Notebook Service & Reliability Survey: Are you sick of seeing Apple as the PCMag Readers’ Choice vendor for notebooks year after year? Tough. Jobs & Co. are back on top again, with the same significantly better than average (SBA) score of 9.2 out of 10 that the company received had last year… Notebooks less than a year old, just like desktops of that vintage, always get higher marks. This year is no different, and, in fact, brings us to the highest numbers among computers: Apple’s SBA 9.5 overall rating for one-year-old MacBooks. Its youthful laptops received a 9.6 in reliability and likelihood to recommend, too.
• Cell Phones Service & Reliability Survey: Like the dude, our readers’ love affair with the Apple iPhone abides, as it was the only phone brand they rated significantly better than average, making it the clear Readers’ Choice with a SBA 9.0 out of 10. The iPhone didn’t rate spectacularly as a phone [Thanks, AT&T], but it received great scores as a messaging device, music player, video player, and gaming device.
• Routers Service & Reliability Survey:That reliability and ease of use that Mac users expect bleeds over into Apple’s Airport routers, putting the company once again in the Readers’ Choice seat with their standalone network routers, with significantly better than average (SBA) overall scores. Apple’s 8.9 score is a full seven-tenths higher than Linksys’ 8.2 which is fully in keeping with how our readers typically feel about Apple products, whether computers, media players, or routers.
Full article here.
Related articles:
Apple Mac desktops, notebooks top PC Magazine’s Annual Reader Satisfaction survey – again – July 29, 2008
Apple Mac desktops, notebooks top PC Magazine’s Annual Reader Satisfaction survey – again – September 18, 2007
Apple Mac desktops, notebooks top PC Magazine’s Annual Reader Satisfaction survey – again – August 22, 2006
Apple Mac desktops, portables top PC Magazine’s 2005 Reader Satisfaction survey – August 24, 2005
Apple Macs top PC Magazine’s ‘17th Annual Reader Satisfaction Survey’ – August 10, 2004
How many years in a row has Apple trounced everyone into any Market that they choose to seriously play in. Apple dominates customer satisfaction. Why because everyone else just plain sucks donkey Zune off the grass.
If you build a better product the customers will buy it. Even when it comes to the PC Market.
Today’s forecast – bright and smuggy with a chance of hubris.
The PC Mag Apple-hating-WinDOS-fanbois must be incredulous.
Ha Hah!
The folks at PC Magazine sure understands the handwriting on the walls these days… they write more and more favorable of Macs and less and less favorable of PC!
Good for them!
Every single freakin’ category for which Apple makes a product they absolutely killed the competition in PC Mag’s survey. Even Apple’s Airport took top spot for routers. I guess that’s what happens when your objective is to make the best product possible rather than make the most money possible.
Outside of the Apple universe, the ratings on game machines are interesting. MS’s Xbox finished last. I’m shocked. With a 54% failure rate who wouild have ever thought PC Mag readers would vote them last. I thought PCers loved pain and agony, why else would they continue to use Windows.
Isn’t it amazing? Yet Windows Storm Troopers will keep saying, oh yeah, why is it we have 90% market share? Apple still single digit even after 10 years of Jobs reign?
Where is Zune Tang when you need him?
@Troy
Busy complaining to PC Magazine or whoever else is on his or her nerves (presumably for promoting the MAC, as he or she spells it, not realising it isn’t an acronym as PC is for Pathetic Computer).
On another note, why did MDN not pick up on the oxymoronic words “Macintosh PC”? Are they ill? :p
so, what else is new?
Why would anyone be surprised, given that Microsoft has decided to position the whole Win PC category based solely on low price? That’s a strategy that’s sure to give you a high market share and low customer satisfaction scores.
Funny, the article is not in the front page of PC magazine. I wonder why?
Doesn’t surprise me at all. When I use a mac, I feel like I am using a computer, accomplishing something. When I use a Windows PC, I feel like I am at war with the machine, where it dictates to me how I should work. That’s not the fault of the PC, it’s the OS and software on it.
Good on you, Cubert, you made me smile!
What’s this?
“Microsoft Zunes less than a year old also had a somewhat staggering 15 percent requiring repairs.”
No comment.