We’re pretty sure Steve has more reason to smile these days; Apple’s range of desktops and portables have scorched the competition. In this year’s PC magazine survey for desktops and portables, Apple wins hands down in both categories.
“Once again, Apple achieves scores that are far and away the highest for all vendors in our survey, earning Readers’ Choices in both desktops and notebooks. For Apple, in both the desktop and notebook sections of the survey, every single score is significantly better than the industry average for Windows machines. No exceptions. Apple’s overall score for desktops is 9.2, and the closest competing score, Alienware’s, is 8.8. Apple’s overall score for notebooks, 9.2, is just as high, and the rest are even further behind: IBM and Fujitsu are the closest, at 8.4”
Even though Apple desktops and portables ranked the lowest in likelihood of requiring service, the feedback and numbers indicate that Apple has some ways to go to garner the attention and loyalty of the masses which have yet to be infected by Jobsian-ism. At press time, Apple only provides 90 days toll-free telephone assistance, in contrast to the lifetime toll-free telephone support commonly offered by other vendors. Added to that, more often than not, Apple units requiring attention, must be carried into an Apple Store or Apple Service Provider.