Consumer Reports – Sweet Apple Computers?
Saturday, February 12, 2005
Apple ibooks and Powerbooks are reknowned for having style and beauty, now they are garnering praise for build quality and after sales support. Consumer Reports Magazine stated in their March issue that, when compared with Toshiba, Sony and Gateway, Apple offered the best technical support and, with only 16% of laptop repairs, held the lowest ranking for repairs in the laptop line.
Their Apple iBook and PowerBook portables beat the competition, hands down, among 57,000 Consumers Union members.
In the area of technical support, Apple notebooks also tipped the scales when they received a readers’ score of 84 – the highest score of any PC manufacturer – leaving the next closest competitor (IBM) in the dust with an overall score of 69.
Among the services which were included in the rating were phone support, lag time, knowledge of staff and web-based support. In addition to its reliability and first-rate support, Apple products were noted to be far less vulnerable to malicious viruses and spyware than those models which utilize Windows.
Though both the Apple iBook and the PowerBook received excellent ratings, the former was rated higher in the ability to provide expansion, as well as in the area of energy-saving capabilities. The latter, however, was rated higher in the areas of warranty and display quality.
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