Apple, with a leading ACSI score of 82, continues to reigns supreme in personal computer customer satisfaction, according to the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI).
Customer satisfaction with personal computers – including desktops, laptops, and tablets – reboots, inching up 1.3% to 79 (out of 100), according to the ACSI Household Appliance and Electronics Study 2020-2021.
Satisfaction with desktop computers dips for a third year, down 3% to an ACSI score of 78. This slip places desktops in a first-place tie with laptops (up 1%). Tablet users are now the least satisfied of the bunch after dropping 3% to 76.
“Historically, desktop computer users have been more satisfied than laptop and tablet users, but that’s no longer the case,” says David VanAmburg, Managing Director at the ACSI, in a statement. “Since 2018, satisfaction with desktops has been slowly slipping, and it’s allowed the competition to catch up. Laptop users are now equally satisfied with their devices. It’ll be intriguing to see if this trend continues as more and more businesses turn to hybrid work models that promote flexibility and mobility.”
ACSI: Personal Computer Customer Satisfaction
Following the Apple leader, as always, are a bunch of crappy Windows PC peddlers. HP moves into second place after rising 4% to 80. Samsung slides 2% to 79, tying Acer for third place. Just below the industry average, Dell and Lenovo score 78 apiece, with ASUS at 77.
The group of smaller PCs makers and Amazon – for the Kindle, which doesn’t offer the same functionality as a traditional PC – plummet 3% and 5%, respectively, placing them both in the industry cellar with scores of 74.
MacDailyNews Take: Obviously, each point carries a lot of weight, as anyone who’s used both an Apple Mac and a HP slab of Windows PC dreck can readily attest. There are miles of distance between each exit here.
I think that if the HP users had ever spent any time on a Mac, their satisfaction with the HP would be much lower. They’re only comparing their experience on an HP to other Windows PCs.
I have used an HP AIO and an iMac and PowerMac with their related OS and can say, at times, unsatisfactory experiences was had by all three!
I have used both a current windows laptop and a MacBook Pro. The quality of the Apple laptop is far superior, and the operating system is light years ahead of Microsoft.
But it looks like Apple is catching up. Today I was sitting watching a Big Sur progress bar for a file copy go back and forth at the beginning of the copy like some kind of toy Cylon’s eyes until it finally decided to go back to being a progress bar. I think while deleting a bunch of files it just kept going back and forth for the whole thing. There apparently isn’t anyone there to say “no” to CPU-eating eye-candy-crap like that anymore. I’m pretty sure stuff like this is a bullet point “improvement” on some list somewhere.
Don’t get overconfident Apple. You are actually slipping in a number of important ways. And 82-to-80 is hardly an insurmountable lead. Much of what is needed is the return of things you once had working well.
Hardware:
1. Front accessible ports for SD cards, USB sticks, and headphones. RCA output for connecting to a stereo. People use this stuff, and having to turn your computer is another risk for damaging wires or unplugging things unexpectedly.
2. HDMI input. You’ve got that wonderful 5k screen, why can’t we connect stuff to it? Cable TV, Playstation, live camcorder output, even a second computer. It’s a huge waste of space to need a TV right next to your iMac. (Also, a hardware button for switching inputs.)
3. Nobody cares about making desktops a millimeter thinner! Add an inch just to remind yourself that it doesn’t matter, and maybe allow for some heat dissipation.
4. Hard drive slot. If a Sony playstation can have this, there is no excuse for a Mac not having one. External drives with tangles of wires are inelegant and add failure potential.
5. Sliding lens cap for FaceTime camera. You told us once it was unhackable. It never will be.
6. Real keyboard and mouse. (See Naga hex, lights not necessary. Working drivers are.)
7. ATA connector. We know it is in there. Why can’t we use it? Anything Thunderbolt is just an ATA device in a box anyway.
Software:
X. Privacy.
8. Fix hopelessly neglected finder. It is a slow clumsy waste of space and the find command buries properly spelled results under hundreds of irrelevant “context” hits. Programs like Final Cut, Photoshop, and Music Player have been forced to build their own finder into their programs, as the real one is inadequate. Since these work very differently from each other, it makes the computer much harder to use.
9. Fix Disk spin-up bug. The whole computer locks up for 15 seconds while a hard drive spins up for no apparent reason. Concentration and work is disrupted.
10. Mac compatibility. Stop breaking our software.
11. Bring back Quicktime. I recently spend 2 hours stuck trying to figure out how to convert a Garageband song to MP3 because Garageband didn’t support any formats that were standard on Windows. One of the best things about the Mac USED TO BE that every program could input from and output to Quicktime, thus making a huge list of input/output formats available to any program.
12. Stop truncating file names and other info – this makes such displays useless. Instead make type size/thickness adjustable to fit in available space. If this isn’t possible, at least avoid truncating unique parts of file names and remove the common parts instead.
Well said and agreed…
I’d humbly suggest adding a hardware light on iPads next to the camera to know when it’s on. The software dot implementation is ridiculously stupid, it’s on the opposite side of the screen from the camera, is barely perceptible, and does nothing to help with the problem of eye contact with the off-center camera.
It’s obvious the idiots at ACSI never used Apple’s iCloud, especially the email part of it.
Was the new design of email done by Microsoft or is this idiocy all on Apple?
Smaller type.
Sub folders in main folder always open.
‘This message cannot be loaded at this time. Try again later.” I did try later and got the same message.
Or does iCloud not play nice on a 2016 PowerMac with Mojave OS 10.14.6?
Great points…please send to Cook, or his replacement.
Key; “Stop truncating.”
Per my perception, truncation is happening in numerous places, but in sum, it’s happening for the brain-dead_social-media sector that Apple has been amping up for yrs. Apple is truncating Pro for Pop.
Everything is being dumbed down for the masses. Excitement, and commitment to new emoji libraries is a prime example. Look at the marketing for more support of this idea.
Completely agree…2 points above one’s competitor is hardly definitive. Most would position this as a margin of error/variability.