No Windows vendor can touch the favorable
scores Apple received across the board. The Mac maker's scores are
similar to those it received last year in our survey, albeit with a
slightly reduced tech-support score for desktops (from 8.4 down to
8.1). Apple's major improvements came in desktops less than a year old,
where the overall score was up to 9.4 (from 9.2 last year) and the
percentage needing repair was down to 4 percent (from 9 percent last
year).
Due to a decrease in the number of respondents reporting on desktop
systems, we lost a few vendors from the list this year, including
Velocity Micro (last year's Readers' Choice for Windows PCs),
CyberPower, and MPC. Systemax managed to hang on by the barest of
threads with 51 responses; but it scored only 7.6 overall, quite a drop
from its respectable 8.2 overall score last year. That's the biggest
hit taken by any company's overall score this year.
Losing those vendors left Sony in the high spot for Windows PC
makers, making it Readers' Choice this year—but with only a 7.9 overall
score, the same score it had last year. Sony did not make the list of
Business desktops, nor the list of desktops less than a year old—this
is likely because Sony has concentrated on media-centric PCs for
entertainment, not standard desktop systems, for the past couple of
years. To give Sony its due, readers do like these living-room PCs:
Sony tied Lenovo with an 8.0 overall in the Home PC section, and it
also had a very nice 5 percent drop since last year in the percentage
of PCs needing repair.
When it comes to Windows PCs in general, our readers are not feeling
the love: Even the average overall score for all Windows PCs is down to
7.6 from 7.8 last year. It's beyond high time that PC makers took a
long, hard look at what Apple is doing right with its customers.
Other vendors with increased overall scores include HP (7.6) and
Lenovo (7.4). As usual, big names like HP and Dell manage to get very
decent recommendation scores despite average ratings; we call that the
power of the brand name. Of Windows vendors, only Dell, Gateway, and HP
got enough responses to make the list of desktops less than a year old,
all with very close overall scores around 8.0. New Apples get a 9.4, up
from 9.2 last year.
For Windows, our tech-savvy readers still prefer their self-built
computers. DIY systems got the second highest number of respondents
(second only to Dell, just like last year) and readers rated those
home-brew PCs an 8.4 overall, plus an 8.6 for their likelihood to
recommend—second only to Apple in both categories. Not surprisingly,
self-built computers receive the lowest rating for their ease of setup
out of the box (58 percent; not shown), since, of course, it's all
about the setup. Compare that with 90 percent for an Apple desktop's
out-of-the-box ease of setup. The takeaway: DIY may be fun, but it's a
challenge if you don't know what you're doing. Macs are easy even for
the less-technical user.
Readers' Choice
Apple
Are you a Mac or a PC? Apparently a Mac, as the
systems continue to dominate in all areas of desktop reliability and
technical support.
Sony
It didn't change much from last year, but Sony gets the top spot for Windows PCs, mostly niche media-centric units these days.
From : http://www.pcmag.com
