In laptop reliability survey, one brand trumps all

ZDNet ^ | December 2, 2015 | By Robin Harris

[Swordmaker]

Whatever brand you swear by (or at) there's good news, and bad, in the findings. But this Consumer Reports survey of 58,000 notebook owners finds one vendor has a huge edge in reliability and satisfaction - and it probably isn't yours.

Notebook computers can be one of the most maddening consumer devices ever - especially when they break. A survey of 58,000 Consumer Reports subscribers adds some welcome evidence into just how likely notebooks are to break - by brand.

Consumer Reports is the world's largest independent, nonprofit, consumer product testing organization. They buy the products they test, don't accept advertising, and don't allow their results to be used for promotion. I'm a fan of their work.

BIG PICTURE

In the survey, almost 20 percent of respondents reported a breakdown in the first 3 years of use, most of them seriously affecting system use.

Apple, as in year's past, has the most reliable notebooks by far - a 10 percent breakdown rate in the first 3 years - with Samsung and Gateway distant seconds at 16 percent, and the rest of the industry - including Acer, Lenovo, Toshiba, HP, Dell and Asus, at 18-19 percent.

Windows machines used more than 20 hours a week - average for Windows systems - have a higher break rate. Apple users report using their machines an average of 23 hours a week, 15 percent more. More hours, fewer breakdowns, what's not to like?

WHEN BREAKDOWNS OCCUR

Yet Apple buyers face problems too. While overall reliability is good, Apple notebooks have a consistent 3-4 percent annual breakdown rate, while Windows machines are much more likely to fail in the first year, often under warranty.

While Apple notebooks break less often, when they do they are often more expensive to fix. That's one reason why CR advises Apple buyers to consider the Apple Care extended warranty, especially since Apple's phone support is highly rated. On Windows machines, they advise you to save money by skipping add-on warranties.

However, Windows machines are more likely to be lemons: among those that broke, 55 percent did so multiple times. The figure for Apple was 42 percent.

CUSTOMER SAT

Psychologists have found that an early negative experience takes many positive experiences to overcome. A rational economic actor - if there was one! - might think that sure, Windows notebooks fail more often, but they cost less, so OK.

But people aren't rational.

High early failure rates may be a key factor in another of CR's findings: 71 percent of Apple notebook owners were completely satisfied with system reliability; only 38 percent of Windows notebook owners were. Ouch!

THE STORAGE BITS TAKE

The survey results - 58,000 is a big sample size by any measure - should end the argument over whether MacBook hardware is better or not. It is. Get over it.

But you - and probably the survey respondents - can buy a $400 Windows notebook, so I'd like the results better if they'd controlled for product price. Maybe a $850 Windows machine is just as reliable as an $850 MacBook Air.

One would hope!

[Swordmaker]

If you don’t mind being tethered to google then a Chromebook is a much better value than a Macbook. Chromebooks have very long battery life, are lightweight. Go for a 14” or 13.3” model.

You aren't up-to-date. Google (Alphabet) is being sued by Chromebook users for the theft of their privacy while using Chromebook despite telling them they weren't. . . So much for Google's "Don't be evil" Motto.

[Swordmaker]

Now beating my head on wood for good luck. Probably die tomorrow

LOL! Rest assured that there are bell curves on every product. Your's is probably on the ultimate sigma to the right. Also keep in mind that the plural of anecdote is not data.

[Swordmaker]

All have been plagued with problems ranging from the “dripping” display,

Dripping display? Never heard of such an issue on a Mac Display. . . There isn't one that I know of.

[Not gonna take it anymore]

I cut and paste from websites, word, my photos, etc to mail or text edit or another document.

Maybe you need to get your mac checked to see if you have a hardware problem.

[TruthWillWin]

Title says “laptop” but article only mentions notebooks?

[Svartalfiar]

Hmm.. I have had almost no issues with my laptops. Old Dell needed a new motherboard after a sibling spilled OJ on it, but otherwise that laptop is almost 10 years old and still working fine. My lenovo is about 3 years old, and only problem was a hard drive starting to fail a couple days after AMEX’s extended warranty was up (2 year mark). Cloned it, pasted onto a 500Gb SSD, and now my only problem is stupid Valve not being able to fix graphics issues

[zeugma]

But you - and probably the survey respondents - can buy a $400 Windows notebook, so I'd like the results better if they'd controlled for product price. Maybe a $850 Windows machine is just as reliable as an $850 MacBook Air.

With as many respondents as they had, they could probably do an apples to apples (sorry) comparison.

I'd be interested in that.

[SamAdams76]

In 2011, I finally decided to buy a MacBook Pro. I thought at the time they were way overpriced but many people swore by them and I wanted the best, so I splurged on one.

More than four years later, it still looks brand new despite hours of use daily. I need to clean the screen now and then and wipe the rest of it with a damp cloth once in a while but it pretty much looks as new as the day I bought it.

I only had one issue with it. A few months ago, the display started crapping out, forcing me to reboot. Eventually, I couldn't see the screen at all.

So I made an appointment with the Apple store to have it looked at with the full expectation that they would recommend I purchase a new one, which I was fully prepared to do. I figured four years was time. I don't think any of the other laptops I ever had lasted four years.

But the unexpected happened. They ran some diagnostics and informed me that the issue I had was a "known issue" and that their was an FOC (free of charge) program for it. They offered to take it and have it repaired and returned to me in a couple of days. Two or three days later, I went back and picked it up and it's been working great since. I could very well be using this laptop for another three or four years.

I've never experienced a computer product that was so durable. I use this machine as a server for home audio system so I have it on constantly and use it for most of my computer tasks at home. In fact, I just leave my work laptop in the car and rarely bother to bring it in so when I'm home, I get my work done on it also.

So yes, the laptop was expensive but the use I got out of it has actually made it cheaper in terms of utility. Since then, I've purchased an Apple Air 2 tablet and iPhone 5s (soon to upgrade to a 6). All these devices seamlessly tie together. I am certainly not leaving the Apple ecosystem anytime soon.

I also have a collection of iPods from the early days (when those were the only things I bought from Apple). All of them still functional. One iPod sits in my car, one is at the office for when I want to go take a walk and the other one is connected to a portable speaker that I use outside in the summertime. My earliest iPod dates back to 2003 and it's only 40MB (the one I use outside) but it just won't die.

[Swordmaker]

For some reason, the designers do not like cut-and-paste. Maybe they think it's safer to copy-and-paste and then go back and delete. It's NOT. I have lost more files because of this cumbersome, inefficient, maddening defect than I ever lost by cut-and-paste. If the designers consider copy-and-paste-and-go-back-and-delete to be safer than cut-and-paste, fine, but they should give the consumer the option--at least.

I assume you are referring to the Finder and moving files. How can you possibly "lose" files when the original is left in its original location until you have pasted it where you want it, then go back and delete the original? That is far safer than cutting it and then having a glitch occurring in the midst of finding a new location and attempting pasting it and having NOTHING happen, and going back and finding no original where you cut it from. Apple's method is far safer. Drag and drop is also safer because it leaves the original in place until the move is completed.

You want a Mac to behave like a Windows computer.

Also you cannot blend two files and keep the contents of both; you can replace one with the other, but the contents of the replaced file are lost.

What? If you try to copy a file into a folder where a file with the same name already exists, OS X will tell you that there is a conflict and offers to either replace the existing file, abort the copy, or continue and keep both, in which case you will have both, with a dash and a numerical designator following the later file to show its order of priority. If you are doing a batch process, you can give permission to do it for all such instances. Again, what are you talking about????

Furthermore, you cannot batch rename. If you have 30 photographs to name, you must click-and-rename each one--which is infuriating. You can't just click "rename" and type in "Paris, August 17, 2015" and have them all renamed-- Unless, of course, you have a wife with an inexpensive Toshiba.

BS, Beast. You just do not know how to do it. I do it all the time. It's simple and easy, available under the File menu. Again, you want the Mac to do it exactly like a Windows computers when it isn't a Windows Computer. It's a Mac. Here's proof that Macs can do it:

Batch File Renaming in Apple OS X finder

That does exactly what you claimed you cannot do in Apple OS X. . . and it is built in on the Finder. You just didn't look . . .

Also, in the new Mac, you cannot merely save-as and keep the document in its location. You must go through several steps to choose the location you want. This is not an improvement.

What????!!!! I do it every day working with revision documents. More of your mis-information, Beast. What in hell are you talking about????

Your complains boil down to, "It doesn't work like a Windows computer."

[dennisw]

Google will always be evil but Chromebooks are still great machines. You just have to realize it will be phoning home to the google-plex which is six miles away from the new Minister Farrakhan designed Apple mothership.

Or I just might buy a Chromebook and make it dual boot to Linux. That dual boot is all over the www and you can switch the OS on the fly.

• Google just made it easier to run Linux on your Chromebook …
  www.pcworld.comʉۼ Chromebooks

  Jan 23, 2015 Â· Have you ever installed a full desktop Linux system on your Chromebook? It isn’t all the hard, but it is a bit more complex than it should be.

[Swordmaker]

$850 MacBook Air.

HAHAHAHA....yeah right. Get Santa to bring you one.

You are right, it's not $850. . . you can get one with a new warranty for $849 direct from Apple. Perhaps, you don't have a clue what you are talking?

Apple 11" MacBook Air Released March 2015, Refurbished, Brand New Warrantee, Sold by Apple, $849

I've bought two of these for my office in the last two months.

$2500 for a Macbook Pro. I have one sitting on my bar.

Sure you do. . .

Again, you don't know what you are talking about, AppyPappy. You can buy a brand new MacBook Pro for as little as $1099 direct from Apple:

Brand New Apple MacBook Pro for $1099

Yes, you can buy a top-of-the-line, fully loaded, MacBook Pro for $2499, but there are about six models of MacBook Pro selling for various prices much lower than that price that are still quite powerful.

[KC Burke]

I had a couple of IBM ThinkPad later Lenovo Think Pads for about a dozen years — they performed bulletproof for me.

Business work kept me on Windows but I did not like the home usage for my wife. Systems needed updating etc plus browsing problems. Bought two MacAirs and never looked back for home usage.

You have to almost abuse them to get the slightest hiccup and even then a re-boot solves anything I can do to it. As I am now retired, I will probably only buy Apple.

[Swordmaker]

Yup, and there are folks posting links to psych-pop record albums from the '60s, and posts about archeological finds on a regular basis, and medical breakthroughs in diabetes, and threads about "The Man in the High Castle" and this week's NFL football, and much, much more.

I thought about going through the day's threads and grabbing links to all the non-conservative and non-political threads that JohnBrowdie had NOT posted his irate and irrational complaint about those threads being posted during a terrorist attack on our homeland-- which of course, about which he had not posted a single complaint-- but then I decided it was not worth the effort since there were so many of them and he would not get the obvious point even when plastered in front of his face or nailed on his forehead.

Thanks for pointing out the obvious, Doc.

I still refuse to allow the terrorists to seize the agenda of everyone's life to the extent that everything we do must be filtered through consideration of the terrorists' agenda and adjusted to allow for fear of what they may be going to do. I will make only minimal changes such as carrying my handgun to blow them away should they attempt an attack in my presence, but I will NOT change my enjoyment of life because the terrorists don't like it.

I include the aggressive intolerance of the Anti-Apple Hate brigade and their drive-by attacks in peaceful Apple tech threads with their throwing of hate bombs and personal assault insult weapons. Yes, there is an infinitely wide gulf of difference between actual killing people and what they do, but the spirit of their thread invasions has its roots from the same source: irrational hate, resulting in inappropriate incivility and unwarranted disruption of the polite social discussion of ideas with which they disagree.

[Swordmaker]

Can’t see how anyone can argue with you there ... you did notice how SM never answers the “paid advertising social media troll” question...

I've answered that questions hundreds of times in the negative. . . including to you, dozens of times, and you know it. That makes your statement here an obvious lie, Neidermeyer.

[AppyPappy]

Ooooh...refurbished.

[Swordmaker]

if there are 700 people in your ping list, 680 of them must be dead or banned. it’s the same 12 to 15 devotees that are hyperactive in your threads . . . over, and over, and over.

No, the list is updated regularly. It is one of the larger ping lists on FR. . . and I've added members regularly and removed them when they request to be removed or are no longer on FR. You really don't have a clue. I frequently get thanks from members. . . and about 3-5 new members every month. Very few Apple people have gotten banned.

There are only about a dozen of you Anti-Apple Hate brigade members, though. You are the delusional one. Quite a few of them have been banished for mis-behavior on Apple threads in the past.

You can ask dayglored and Thundersleeps how fast their ping lists are growing. . . and I've been managing the Apple List for over 12 years. . . and when I was first asked to do it and agreed, I wound up with over 150 members in less than a week of announcing it. It's been growing steadily ever since. The number of active readers (mostly lurkers) is accurate.

I manage three other ping lists as well, none nearly as large as the Apple ping list. . . but approximately 14% of the computer users in the United States are Apple Mac users. In some states, it is as high as 25% so there is a good reason the Apple special interest group is large. The closest in size is the Shroud of Turin Ping list with more than 250 members.

[Swordmaker]

You can cut-and-past text in a typed document, but you can't cut-and-paste a photograph or document from one place to another.

More BS. Again, you are lying. You can cut-and-paste anything in a Mac from any kind of document or application to any other document or application. I do it regularly. The Clipboard handles all kind of files. Hell, I just cut-and-pasted a selection of photographs from a folder into an email. You also can copy-and-paste from almost any source. You can even copy a photo from a locked Internet source that prevents copying photos or text, if you know how. . . using built-in utility functions of OS X. They are not even hard to find. . . and they're the same in any application. Where DO you get your completely ignorant mis-information, Beast????

[Swordmaker]

Title says “laptop” but article only mentions notebooks?

These days, those terms have become synonyms. A difference without a distinction. . .

[Swordmaker]

With as many respondents as they had, they could probably do an apples to apples (sorry) comparison.

I'd be interested in that.

I don't subscribe, so I haven't seen what is behind the paywall.

[Swordmaker]

Ooooh...refurbished.

Did you ignore the information that Apple sells the BRAND NEW MacBook Air for $899 . . . apparently you did. . . .

Apple MacBook Airs $899 and $1099, BRAND NEW!

MacMall had these on sale for $50 off at the time the article was written. . . or $849 and $1049. They are even less expensive now. . .

MacMall Apple MacBook Air 11" Brand New $835

Are you still dripping idiotic derision about the prices that you thought were completely wrong and not deliverable for Christmas??????? Look at the shipping by dates. Try being intelligent instead of a fool.