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Filed under: Hardware, Portables, Surveys and Polls, Macbook Pro, MacBook, MacBook Air

Consumer Reports still hearts Macs

Consumer Reports continues to shower praise on all things Apple it seems. In a report in the June issue, the Magazine says Apple won the top three places in the 13 inch laptop derby. The unibody MacBook was in first place, followed by the MacBook Air, with the white plastic MacBook in a solid third place.

CR also named the 15-inch MacBook Pro as top laptop in the 14- to 16-inch group, and the 17-inch MacBook Pro walked off with the honors in the 17- to 18-inch category. The HP Pavilion publicized in the first Laptop Hunters ad from Microsoft came in 4th in the category behind Dell and Lenovo laptops. The Sony VAIO FW370 that was the star of the 3rd Microsoft ad came in 5th in the 14- to 16-inch category.

Apple also took the honors for best in tech support.

This won't bring smiles to the folks in Redmond, who are going all out to convince people that Apple computers are not a good value. It should be noted that none of the Apple laptops were rated a best buy, but they all scored the highest in each category and were recommended by the magazine. Of course Apple has repeatedly said they are not trying to win on price, but on quality, and Consumer Reports seems to accept that as the case.

I generally don't put a lot of stock in CR for some of its testing, but these high ratings for Apple laptops are just one of a continuing chorus of approval from the press and generally happy Mac owners.

Filed under: Apple

A is for AppleCare

Laptop Magazine has run their Tech Support Showdown once again, testing the quality of tech support from various notebook computer vendors. And once again, Apple take the top spot with A's across the board. Gateway (surprisingly?) joins Apple as the only other vendor with an overall A. Apple maintained its A grade from the previous Showdown (while Lenovo, the only other A in the last survey, dropped off).

Apparently Apple phone techs went above and beyond, even answering questions beyond Apple's 90-day phone support limit. Strangely, Apple was alone in having an automated wait time annoucement on their phone system.

In any case, A is for AppleCare yet again this year.

[via Engadget]

Filed under: Accessories, iPod Family

Belkin replaces defective iPod remotes

After some Canadian customers reported technical issues with the remote control packaged with their Belkin TuneCommand AV units, Belkin started marking affected packages with information stickers and set up this page for Canadian customers to request a free replacement. If you purchased an affected product, use this form to submit your shipping information.

Contrary to some rumors floating around the Internet, this is not a general offer for a free remote. It's meant only for Canadian customers affected by specific technical concerns.

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Apple

Working in AppleCare

Ever wonder what the AppleCare rep you're talking to really thinks about you and your problem? Well, after reading this you might not want to know. Adam Knight has recently left his job in AppleCare for greener pastures and he has written a lengthy post about what it was like. It seem that there was little room for advancement (though I think this isn't a slight of Apple's, rather a common Tech support dilemma).

Adam still likes Apple, he just doesn't want to work for them anymore.

Filed under: Internet Tools, Apple

Apple tech support chat live

Jan wrote about this the other day, but it looks like Apple has made tech support via chat live for the whole Mac community. Simply sign in with your Apple ID, and you are  presented with a list of products Apple knows you have (you do register your Apple products, right?), a list of possible issues, and a box into which you have to provide the serial number of said product.

After filling out the form you are whisked away to a chat with an Apple representative. Neat.

Thanks, hongkongtechkid.

Update: It looks like, at the moment, they are only supporting iMacs and iPods.  Since I have an iMac and an iPod (both registered with Apple) I was under the mistaken impression that the website had magically populated the list for me. Nope, those are just the two products they are supporting via chat for the moment.

Tip of the Day

Holding the Command key (aka the Apple key) and pressing Tab will cycle through your open applications. It's easier to Cmd-Tab if you are Copy (Cmd-C) and Pasting (Cmd-V) to and from various applications.


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