If I were doing a study on this I would need a list of breakdown causes and likelihoods. Off the top of my head I can think of:
fan failure/general overheat
Hard drive failure
Hinge failure
Screen/backlight failure
Keyboard failure
Power circuit failure
Port failure
DVD failure
Virus
OS craps out (hardware is still OK, but it's easier to buy a new computer than reinstall on the old)
Now compare the Mac vs PC on each and you can find the weak spots. Where is the Mac more reliable?
If I were doing a study on this I would need a list of breakdown causes and likelihoods. Off the top of my head I can think of: Let's look at the new 2015 MacBook in reference to this list.
- Fan failure/general overheat: No fan to fail. (see iFixit's Tear down) The entire machined aircraft aluminum case is the heat sink.
- Hard drive failure: Solid State Drives, highly reliable with no moving parts to fail.
- Hinge failure: Hinge design on MacBooks is a long term tested design with very low failure rate. MacBooks are known to survive falls from aircraft of over 1000 feet, being run over by automobiles, and even semi-tractors/trailers without breaking hinges.
- Screen/backlight failure; Normal rate for top quality IPS screens by top name makers.
- Keyboard failure: Possible but extremely rare. Don't clean keyboards with Windex. LOL!
- Power circuit failure: Powered by USB-C connector, ambidextrously double sided, very reliable. Power Brick is inexpensive and easily replaced. Never seen or heard of a power circuit failure on a MacBook.
- Port failure: Far fewer ports. MacBook 2015 has exactly two ports. USB -C and audio port.
- DVD failure: MacBooks have not had an optical drive since 2012. No drive to fail or repair.
- Virus: No actual computer viruses exist for OS X. There have been a total of seven true self-replicating, self-propagating, self-transmitting OS X virus candidates in the eighteen years since OS X has been in the wild as both a Server and desktop OS. All have failed in infecting a vulnerable Mac because of the same reason: lack of a viable vector. There are a total of 73 known Trojans in 8 Trojan families for OS X, all of which are identified by the operating system's own built-in protection system which will warn the user before permitting downloading, installation, or running of any infected Trojan program regardless of source. It takes an industrial strength stupid user to get hit with a Trojan on a Mac. There are a few browser hijackers and ransom ware websites that will appear to lock-up Safari and the other browsers for Macs, but they are easily gotten around by telling the user how to break out of the browser and how to restart the Browser without allowing the tabs to reload.
- OS craps out (hardware is still OK, but it's easier to buy a new computer than reinstall on the old): Never the case on a Mac. OS X reinstalls are easy and take little time. OS X can be booted from an external drive, even from a thumb drive, and also installed from the Internet. Reinstall from a TimeMachine back up to full functionality with all applications and data dead simple.
Ergo, KarlInOhio, there are far fewer points of failure in MacBooks. Add in that Apple provisions its equipment with components that are taken from the highest sigma, the top 5%, of reliability available from the suppliers, not commodity parts. I know that people who do not know claim Apple parts are "the same" as what is in the commodity PCs, but the simply are not. Apple is the "King Kong" in the room and can demand and get the best quality parts from the supplier. Drives, for example, are always tested for reliability.
Wester Digital for example makes drives in several tiers of reliability and the best are reserved for mission critical service such as servers or workstations. Look up Western Digital RED drives intended for high end desktops, RED Pro drives for Raids, and RE Gold drives for NAS purposes. Apple orders drives to their exacting specifications, and does NOT buy them off the shelf, and they are built with "Made for Apple" etched on them. They are tested to assure they meet those specifications. This was spoken about in an interview with Apple design and manufacturing executives a couple of months ago including Tim Cook, Jonny Ive, and Craig Federighi.
Apple designs many of their own chips. They design their own processors for the mobile processors. . . and these processors are better than any used in any other mobile phone or tablet on the market at this time, blowing others out of the water in independent bench mark tests even though the run at a lower clock speed (to keep heat down) and have fewer cores than the competition.
Apple frequently gets custom processors from Intel that are not available to other makers that have special features or cache sizes made to their specifications. Again, Apple gets the top 5% of the processor runs on standard processors.