“Apple is the computer brand which buyers find most reliable, according to a survey by consumer magazine Which? It found that consumers were more likely to recommend Apple computers to their friends than any other brand, closely followed by Dell and Sony,” Bobbie Johnson reports for The Guardian.
Full article here.
Related MacDailyNews articles:
Apple Mac desktops, portables top PC Magazine’s 2005 Reader Satisfaction survey – August 24, 2005
Apple continues to lead in customer satisfaction, Dell loses more ground – August 16, 2005
Apple Computer products top PC Magazine’s annual ‘Best of the Year’ survey – December 16, 2004
Apple Macintosh leads in personal computer customer satisfaction – August 24, 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
The “closely followed by Dell” immediately negates the value of this poll in my mind.
First post!
Good observation, Rob. The only people Dell are closely following are the likes of Gateway, Comcrap, and Hewlett Crapard the way of the dinosaur…
MW charge, as in “how can they charge for that.”
Absolutely,
I have a copy of the article in the latest edition of Which? and having read it twice or more becuase it makes me feel so good to be a Mac user.
I can’t remember if I did take part in the survey, quite possible as I do visit their website and you all can read the article here:
http://www.which.co.uk/news/computersandinternet/05/oct/recommend-computers.html
I tend to agree about the Dell results negating the poll.
At the same time, if I had to recommend a Windows PC to someone, Dell would be the top of my list. Years ago, that would have been Gateway.
MDN word: went
i would never recommend any oem PC to anyone. the first thing i’d do is recommend a mac (unless they’re big gamers), and if they insisted upon a PC i’d tell them i would build it for them myself and give them (not free!) tech support. hm, maybe i should stop recommending macs – i could get rich!
ha – MW is “problems”.
Tell me something I don’t know!!!
I can’t believe this is true at all… We Apple Fans are just blinded most of the time… heres an example, though I still continue to buy…
TiBook – frail structure, more cracks and dings than any other model laptop i’ve ever had… though still running, is that a good thing? Still need to trade in my batteries.
iBook G3 – besides the having to repair the logic board twice, holds up like a champ.
MacMini – dying cd-rom, need to bring it in
Airport Extreme – Over priced AP with limited range even with external antenna, especially compared to how much better the express works…
Airport Express – two of three are flaky, need a recycle from time to time
Mighty Mouse – works, but not worth the price
iPod – original, still holding up… battery weaker
IPod Shuffle – no complaint, cheap and works (though every once a while a file doesnt actually copy over and you get a chirp instead.
MAC OSX – dear Apple g*ds, please bring back 10.2.8
In comparision… not one of Toshiba (4) latops and 1 Dell laptop have given me a hardware issue… ever.
Macs are more reliable. D’uh!
The sky is blue.
The Ocean deep.
Windows has viruses.
I agree with RobR7 about all the little niggling issues with Macs these days. There’s a quality control problem that’s grown over the last few years, probably having something to do with making them cheaper. They’re using the same Mainland Chinese and Taiwanese manufacturers the beige box people use and some of it doesn’t hold up like it used to. At one time, you NEVER had to fix any hardware on a Mac. Not quite so these days.
Still, I’ll put up with the little problems and fix them in exchange for how the Mac pays you back in daily operation. True, the OS has its little issues but when I work on a PC, I’m frustrated within an hour with it. I really think “how can anyone stand for this?”. Lots of folks have no issues with how a PC works – until they switch. They may hate it at first but it’s fun to watch the light come on – slowly… slowly… then one day they “get it” big time.
I seeded about 35 new Macs at our business and had two of them with problems. One was a motherboard on a G5 (lightning hit) and the other was a power manager issue on an iBook (wouldn’t charge a battery – fixed under warranty). Most of these 35 machines are laptops and half are now over two years old with no other hardware issues. The iBooks hold up well because, I swear, it looks like some of these people pound nails with them.
Compare that to our closet full of Thinkpads and Dell laptops that lasted between 8 and 18 months, or the last two Toshiba laptops still running that are 2+ years old, one you have to bend the frame before it powers up – or leave it plugged in for two hours (uneconomically repairable) and the other which is in pretty good shape because it’s only used as a desktop system.
Still, Macs have been better in the past and I hope those days return.
I would not bother to put much import on this. Having subscribed to ‘Which’ myself at various times I found myself disagreeing with their assumptions, methods, facts and results on most subjects where I had some knowledge. They are in reality an amateurish organisation. Don’t bother…
I’ve been using Macs since 1987. I’ve owned about 25. I have only ever had one go wrong on me, and that was a motherboard getting fried due to a faulty power supply – in 1987. Currently using an old upgraded PowerMac 8500 (remember those!), a TiBook 400, an AiBook 1.25ghz 15″, and an iMac 20″ G5 – all still working perfectly with no faults. I know computers go wrong, but all of my Macs – old and new – have proved exceptionally reliable, unlike the two Sony Vaio laptops I’ve owned, both of which have developed terminal faults.
Maybe I’m just lucky, but the odds are against that. 24/25 Macs can’t be wrong.
In comparision… not one of Toshiba (4) latops and 1 Dell laptop have given me a hardware issue… ever
—
Okay dumbass.. you decide to attack macs by saying.. uh, you don’t like Tiger …
and then you go on to say you don’t have any problem with PC Hardware.
a)you didn’t really have anything to say about Mac hardware, so I guess it’s top notch?
b)since you slagged Tiger, then you really should discuss PC operating systems.. like.. uh, the most disastrous infestation of bugs on Earth.. Windows..
Oh well, when you’re ripping your hair out, talking to a PC tech in India, at least you’ll be able to tell yourself “The hardware’s great, but this computer is driving me crazy.. er.. on the software side..”
I have to agree with RobR7 and SHW.
While I would never use a Windows PC myself, I believe Apple has a definite quality control problem. And worse than any other major PC manufacturer at that. My brand new iBook has a very bright right side of screen, dark center and not so bright left side. My iPod mini was defective out of the box. Add to this the constant horror stories of Apple hardware suddenly malfunctioning or being DOA, and it makes a problem.
Come on Apple, what gives?
©
Remember the hoopla MDN posted concerning the so called “first automated vehicle powered by OSX” fiasco some months ago?
http://macdailynews.com/index.php/weblog/comments/6334/
Where’s the hoopla now that Dora failed? LOL.
FWIW,
I have one of the first AirPort Expresses, and I’ve never had any trouble with it. It just sits there, serving the USB printer and extending my network (I don’t do AirTunes).
It’s completely forgettable. Which is <bold>exactly</bold> what I want from network components.
“Where’s the hoopla now that Dora failed?” – Did MDN forget to post this?
Actually, it’s quite an accomplishment that Team Banzai made it as far as they did. Their team was one of 40 selected for the race. A great many teams never even made it to the semi-finals.
In its failure, Dora certainly had a lot of company – no surprise there. In the previous autonomous race, no team even came close to winning, most of them struggling to make it across the starting line. There are plenty of things that could have gone wrong for the team – many of which had absolutely nothing to do with the choice of computer(s) or operating system.
I see no shame with the results of Team Banzai and have great respect for ALL the people on EVERY team that contributed their talent to this race. Over the years, all of us will benefit from the efforts of these people.
There are 2 universal truths:
1. Apple computers are NOT perfect.
2. Apple computers only appear perfect when compared to everything else.
Where’s the hoopla now that Dora failed? LOL
Dora was the only Mac OS X vehicle entered into the competition, it’s really not a OS designed for this sort of thing (neither is Windows for that matter), but it was nice of them to try.
Dora had a sensor problem that fed bogus info to the programming, the OS wasn’t the problem.
Dora was among 15 semi-finalists that failed to go on to the finals. The finals had only 8 contestants with Stanford winning three places so far.
Stanford is the highest subsidized university in the US and attracts the vey brightest people.
In a contest like this, a lot of trial and error coupled with a large budget and plenty of bright minds is the keys to success.
It’s amazing with the very difficult requirements to pass this challenge (driving along a cliff edge? going through tunnels with no GPS?) that anyone made it at all.
Given the religious belief that most Mac owners have in all things Apple, this poll seems about as relevant as one stating “Christians state their God is better than all others” or, equivalently, “Muslims claim Allah is more forgiving than all other Gods”. Meaningless poll. Let’s see the return/repair rates for each manufacturer and then judge.
Dumbass Maczealots are would rather get castrated than admitting that their overpriced crap is the same as any PC made in the same Chinese factories.
Reality Check:
Our overpriced crap may be assembled in the same Chinese factories as any other PC, but OSX was written, coded and assembled in the good ol’ US of A.
Go pound Iraqi sand, troll.
Mac Daddy & Doraman,
You’re both absolutely correct. Team Banzai, along with all the other teams, were examples of technological innovation excellence regardless of their standings. The operating system was not a major contributing factor, as others would like to believe. We may very well see better improvements from the losing teams rather than the sole 3 that finished the course, the kind of competition the Department of Defense is exactly looking for to reach their goal of a fleet of reliable unmanned vehicles for logistical, surveillance, and combat operations by 2015.
My post was aimed at people who failed to see the long term intent of the darpa challenge and concentrated on trivial biased matters (which includes MDN itself in its original headline), like this post:
“….a win by Dora would probably make a lot of heads in the DOD turn and maybe cause the teams behind the Windows-powered vehicles to do some serious soul-searching.” and “Mac OS X multi-tasks better than Windows. The last thing you would want is Windows VM grinding the machine to a halt, which happens quite a lot when you push the limits..
Which is quite amusing… a few folks tried so hard to insinuate windows powered machines would likely “crash”, as they do in every other thread concerning Windows because of bias. Reality showed none of the unmanned vehicles failed due to any reason of the operating system, or that one operating system was more advantageous than another, as some perpetuated would occur.
I gotta stand up for Apple quality.
I run a Mac graphics lab in a high school—have since ’92. We’ve had Mac SE’s; SE’30’s; LC 520’s; beige G3’s; Blue & White G-3’s; Sawtooth G 4’s; Quicksilvers; Mirrored Doors; iMac G 4’s and iMac G 5’s. In 13 and a half years, we’ve had these hardware failures: Ready? 1 LC 520 floppy drive fail, (stuffed with gum) 1 clock battery die, Radio Shack $15.00. One beige G3 CD drive fail, don’t know why? That’s it—Not a single monitor failure, not a single dead pixel. Of course, I’d like to think it’s just my superior tech skills that make it happen, but I’m not that foolish.
To Paraphrase Lee I.: “If you can find a better computer at any price, buy it!”
For me, my family, my students and any friends I can persuade, it’ll always be Mac’s!
Oops! Forgot, We had one dead mouse, the cord frayed where it goes into the mouse body. Bought a new one.
Hilarious.
Do you even know where China is?