Apple tops Consumer Reports' tech support survey, second place not even close

I no longer take Consumer Reports very seriously because I bought a Honda CRV and not the Toyota Rav two years ago because they was no comparison after a test drive! So I what they say no longer is important to me. But I do own an Apple Macbook Pro and love it. It has never failed me yet in two years. So I have to agree with all those Apple owners out there!

Actually, my first thought from that is that I'm impressed with how high Lenovo is, especially compared to the giants of the industry. In many ways they are relatively new, and yet they are top of the list. I do have to say, I've always gotten excellent service from them. :)

[disregard prior comment; accident!]

Owen... LOL! I both love the survey results and acknowledge your point. However, you have to realize that customer satisfaction has a lot to do -- perhaps EVERYTHING to do -- with how a company treats its customers when something does go wrong.

I say this as a decades-long B2B journalist and the owner of a MacBook that has has higher-than-average needs for repair. Apple has lost money on me by covering even silly things like replacing the entire top-cover assembly because of dirty white plastic (which I later found is easily cleaned using electric cooktop cleaner), and replacing the entire power brick when one of the LEDs on my MagSafe connector going out (despite not affecting power transmission).

So yeah, I love Apple's quality, because the company stands behinds its products very well when things aren't perfect.

Interesting choice.

At first brain-swipe I reflexively thought, "of course, take the MacBook!" But I'd expect the life of the iPad to be easily double that of the 'book.

"An apple loyal customer gets a macbook pro with dead pixels, warped case and 2gig memory instead of the 4gig they ordered, they take the same survey and give apple a 98."

You know, that's pretty much true. I was in a co-worker's room when while checking his email, the "gray shade of death" came up on his Mac, and his response was "I wonder what I did wrong." Given that if this was a PC, he'd be all over how bad windows is, but when the Mac crashes on his end, it's HIS fault; much like the guy who Cheney shot in the face apologize for getting shot.

So I don't know, computers are complicated machines, they sometimes go buggy. Given that Apple controls the software AND the hardware, they better go bad less often. Even though, strangely enough, my boot-camped XP Mac crashes less than my co-worker running straight OSX, for some reason.

a Dell customer gets a laptop that has dead pixels, returns for exchange. They take this survey and blast DELL quality control and rate it 50. An apple loyal customer gets a macbook pro with dead pixels, warped case and 2gig memory instead of the 4gig they ordered, they take the same survey and give apple a 98.

These numbers don't necessarily say what you think they say. There is not enough information. For example, what if people with Apple hardware are more likely than average to subscribe to consumer reports? Without a completely random sample non-random results are more likely.

"Of course, fanboys like you and me are convinced of Apple quality."

Welp you said it right there buddy. This data means nothing about the quality of the PRODUCT, just of the support.

I won't debate the quality of Apple's products. Regarding tech support though, it's a pretty easy win considering all of the tech world's outsource call centered, filled with folks who barely speak English. And that goes for when you call pretty much any other tech company (not even just manufacturers for desktops/laptops); even down to Sandisk about its memory cards.

Luckily, Apple's smart enough to realize that folks genuinely have a hard time with language/accent barriers, and is smart enough to hire folks without these linguistic issues. Kudos, but again, it doesn't speak about the products themselves.