Your Experiences

[Laura]

In lieu of a thread posting a problematic meltdown, I thought it would be nice if we shared a nice discussion. It is somewhat in follow-up of the thread I posted about two years ago about the defective Dells I received, if anyone cares to remember. :P

 

PCWorld recently published a survey that has aimed to find the best and worst tech corporations - at least, in terms of consumer satisfaction. If you would like to read the full article (three pages worth), you can find it here.

 

• Put simply, products made by Apple, Asus, Brother, and Canon are typically reliable and well supported.
   
  
• Products made by Dell and Hewlett-Packard often aren't, especially if you're a home user.
   
  
• Laptops are slightly more reliable than before, and have fewer serious problems than desktops.
   
  
• Business PC customers are generally more satisfied than their consumer counterparts.
  

 

Winners and Losers

Apple once again smoked the competition in the desktop, notebook, and smartphone categories, winning high praise from customers in all reliability and service categories. The Macintosh and iPhone maker did so well that virtually all its scores were above average. Apple's only average scores were related to the company's deftness at replacing failed notebook components, and in two areas pertaining to serious problems with the iPhone, the latter perhaps stemming from the iPhone 4's well-publicized antenna issue that resulted in dropped calls for some users.

 

Asus did well in ratings among both desktop and laptop owners, though it is best known in North America for its low-cost netbooks. These mini-notebooks have often been the target of derision over the past two years, with critics calling them cheaply made and hard to use. While some netbooks may fit that description, our readers say that Asus portables are, in general, highly reliable.

 

Canon, which like Apple, is a perennial favorite of PCWorld readers, again rocked the printer and camera categories. It's not alone at the top, however. In our survey, Panasonic has surpassed Canon in camera reliability, and Brother is gaining popularity among printer users.

 

Panasonic, the biggest proponent of plasma HDTVs in a market increasingly dominated by LCD models, has a slight edge over LG and Sony. And smartphone users, in addition to praising the iPhone, are particularly happy with Verizon Wireless cell service and with handsets built by HTC. Research In Motion's BlackBerry phones, however, get low marks for ease of use.

 

Dell and HP, two of the tech industry's largest hardware manufacturers, disappointed us this year, particularly in desktops and laptops for home use and (in HP's case) printers. (We address these two companies' dismal showings below.)

 

Overall, it's clear that many reliability and service problems persist, including defective components that fail out of the box, as well as poorly trained customer service representatives who are incapable of departing from a script.

 

 

Interestingly, the perennial grumblings of Dell and HP customers haven't adversely impacted either company's bottom line. The assumption may be that because Dell and HP sell PCs at low margins in a tough market, they must minimize spending on support operations; yet HP's and Dell's revenue numbers from sales of PCs remain enviable.

 

Keep in mind that this survey only represents readers from PCWorld and not from the mass population. So I guess I should ask, what are your experiences?

[tripsis]

My entire family has owned Apple desktops and laptops since before I can remember (over 10 years) and none of us have ever experienced any major issues So between the five of us, we have easily had maybe 15 or more computers. Any problems we have experienced were either due to the computer's age (and thus naturally slowing down, etc.) or OS issues that were fixed by the next update.

 

Similarly, I have only ever owned Canon cameras. Not much to say other than no major issues and I've loved them all :P

[Guy]

I have to say, I've got a dell laptop and a dell desktop and I've had no real problems. Any problems I did have, just rang them up and they came and replaced my laptops motherboard without a second thought.

[Low C]

I've got a Toshiba Laptop, the hard drive went out after like 8 months. I have to say I got wonderful support from them though and received my computer back with a new hard drive in less than a week.. It's a cheap laptop so I really wasn't surprised.

 

I just bought a Compaq desktop computer like a month ago for school work and stuff and haven't had any problems yet out of it.

 

Lastly I purchased a 32" Emerson LCD Hdtv on black friday for $198.00. Anyone had experiences with these tv's? So far its worked great and no problems other than 1 dead pixel but I can only tell it's dead when I'm on a white screen on my xbox 360 so I'm really not bothered considering the tv is dirt cheap lol.

 

Interested to hear feedback about these brands. I know I haven't had any major problems as of yet, knock on wood.

[Skeptical]

Out of 4 Dell laptops, they were all garbage after a year of heavy use.

 

Out of 1 HP desktop and 4 laptops we've yet to have a hardware problem. (Vista, and to a lesser extent, 7, is complete crap, but that's a different story.)

 

I know two people with Toshibas, and they're together after quite a few years, but they sound like jet engines, are ugly as hell, and weigh twice as much as my HP G60. They cost half, maybe a third, of the equivalent Apple product, so really, if they're inferior, I don't care.

[Low C]

Yeah I refuse to pay for the apple brand name. Especially when the most stressing thing for my computers is running runescape or streaming movies.. Are apple computers really that much better to warrant the price jump in comparison to other brands?

[Gandorf61]

I had an HP laptop with a good graphics card, processor, etc but the motherboard died on me twice, most likely for overheating. While the hardware was easily capable of running most games fairly well, it couldn't even handle Runescape at min graphics without getting really hot. I did get the motherboard replaced twice for free but only after several hours on the phone each time and another moth for it to be sent in, repaired, and sent back.

 

In my current computer setup I'm using several ASUS parts including a monitor and so far they've been of great quality. Same with my Apple iPod, 4 years old and still works just as great as it did when I first got it.

[Shelby_Polo]

I had an HP laptop with a good graphics card, processor, etc but the motherboard died on me twice, most likely for overheating. While the hardware was easily capable of running most games fairly well, it couldn't even handle Runescape at min graphics without getting really hot. I did get the motherboard replaced twice for free but only after several hours on the phone each time and another moth for it to be sent in, repaired, and sent back.

 

Wow, I had almost the same scenario. The computer I used before my current one was an HP laptop, the motherboard died and I had to threaten HP to get them to replace it. Shortly after, the hinge that connects to screen to the keyboard and such literally melted and broke apart and according to HP it would cost over $100 to fix; but fortunately I found a replacement part (made in china) and fixed it myself for $25. THEN, the power supply somehow broke and instead of fixing it I sold the laptop and bought my current computer, a MACBOOK PRO. I've worked with and owned previous apple computers so the switch was easy breeze. I have had my current macbook pro for a couple years now and have had zero problems (but yes, it cost me a pretty penny).

 

I do however have both OS X and Windows 7 on my computer and switch between the two often; I typically use windows for homework and some coding.

[mcneilp]

My current laptop is a Dell and I've had trouble with it right from the start. First it wouldn't connect to our wireless internet, which I think was more a problem with our router and Windows Vista than the laptops wireless card. At the start of the year the power supply and battery stopped working right. When it's plugged into mains electricity, the battery doesn't charge so I'm left with a laptop that can only be used when it's plugged in. For all I use it for it does me fine but I can see the battery thing being a major problem for some people.

 

I bought a Canon printer/scanner which was on offer at christmas last year and for a relatively cheap piece of kit, its worked flawlessly ever since I got it, printing and scanning reports and stuff for Uni. Now my sister uses it and it's still going strong. My parents have a HP printer connected to their desktop and the thing is pretty bad. It constantly reports faults (misfeeds/no paper/no ink) when everything is fine and seems a bit temperamental about when it wants to print your documents.

 

Meh, just my two cents.

[indy500fan]

Haven't had many problems with many of the tech products I've ever purchased. I once had an ASUS A8N-VM motherboard with a bad video card slot, which at first cause me to think bad video card so I got another one, and by the time all was said and done it was too late to do anything with the motherboard. Ate that $65, hasn't caused me to hate ASUS any though. I still bought motherboards, monitors and DVD-RW drives from them since that. My Philips DVP3980 upconverting DVD player just stopped working, it's a little under two years old, which is not a good lifespan for these devices (should be a few years at least). My Kindle acts weird at times, I think that just might be the way it is though, I don't think there is anything wrong with it.

 

Those are just three random things from a ton of devices I have purchased over the years.

[Hawks]

We've had 3 Dells: Inspiron laptop that the video card overheated on because it's not designed for laptops (CD/DVD went shortly before), a refurbished dell optiplex gx-something which the BIOS battery died in, but is otherwise fine, and a replacement for the laptop which is a Dell desktop of some sort... So as long as you know what you're buying, I think Dells are okay.

 

We've got a near 15 yo Micron that has blown up a couple of times but we've fixed. Still works, even though they're not in business anymore.

 

Canon cameras are PWN. My mom's got two, an older Canon Powershot (not sure what model, it uses CF cards which is hysterical), and a Canon Powershot A470. I personally love the A470, it's a great point-and-shoot and I'm actually getting one for Christmas.

 

I personally do not like my dad's Nikon point-and-shoot, mainly because the Canons are so much better (imo). It's still good quality and works well.

 

We had an HP laserjet for some time, after about 5 years it'd start getting a 'smiley gunked up in the works' and would randomly spew [print] garbage, but when you fixed that it still worked great.

We also had a Brother MFC for like 15 years and the drum finally got to be suckish (so it used up toner really fast) and we bought a refurbished drum, but toner for it got so expensive we bought a different Brother MFC, which works awesome except our wireless network fails at keeping the printer always working.

 

We have the world's most awful laserjet now, an Epson Photo RX600 or summat. We've had to have it exchanged at least three times, and the cartridges are freaking expensive. The $3 BlueDog Ink ones we got seem to be working okay for the time being. The scanner works but their software (besides the TWAIN driver) sucks.

 

I am anti-Apple to begin with. So no Macs for me.

 

For mp3 players: The Sansa Clip can't be beat. I've had mine for 3ish years now and it's only freaked out on me once. My brother's put his through the washer and it still works. Plus the newest version is only $30 when it's on sale.

 

I've got a Nintendo DSi and love it as well.

[Nadril]

I've had a number of computers over the years (including building two) and I've very rarely had issues. I've had an issue with bad RAM once and with a GPU overheating but that's really it.

 

My current laptop is a Gateway which has actually held out amazingly well (have had it for 2-3 years now).

[jasignhagj]

I never got the allure of apple. I shouldn't have to pay $1300 for a laptop with 2 gigs of ram, a core2 and integrated graphics. Itunes is a pile of resource hogging [cabbage], and iPods are severely overpriced for what they can do, except maybe for a jailbroken touch.

 

Personally I would never buy a prebuilt desktop computer. You get more for less when you build it yourself.

 

For cameras, I have a cannon, and I'm happy with it.

 

Printer wise I honestly couldn't care less as long it prints text.

[Sbrideau]

Well, let's start with the bad experiences.

 

First, there is the HP that I have that is now 5 years old. When it had Windows XP on it it would keep crashing, especially the programs. When I installed Vista (a few weeks after SP1 had got out), all the problems went away. I haven't had a crash and it ran faster under Vista and still does to this day.

 

Dells, omg... I've had a lot of bad experiences with them, well, actually friends and I, and also at work. First the hard drive in one of my friend's laptop failed after only 3 months. Same thing with the screen of another of my friends, it was after 2.5 to 3 months. Right now, at work, out of the 11 new Dell Optiplex 980 they put there for us to use when we work, 2 of them had their motherboard changed because they had failed, and one of them has BSODs at least once every 2 weeks. This is what I call high failure rate. Since at work the computers are all Dells, no wonder that one of the IT guys commented that it was frequent that there was a failure.

 

Now on the good experiences.

 

2.5 years ago I bought my Asus laptop, which has been extremely solid and still surprises me to this day with it's quality. Battery still lasting 3/4 as long as it used to when it was new, which I find fun because I don't have to buy a new one when I go on trips, to different things like de DVD burner that was able to burn on dual layer dvds that some of my friend's laptops couldn't even take. It also has HDMI and eSATA which was pretty rare to find directly on a laptop in the times I bought it. The only problem I had with this laptop was the ATI video card. What happened, is that the drivers and the catalyst center would crash, and very often, even sometimes giving me BSODs. At least it wasn't more than once a week that was happening, until I installed windows 7 Pro on it. Still crashes from time to time, but it's pretty rare now. I am by no means an Nvidia fanboy, but this is part of what put me off ATI/AMD cards. Better cards, but worse drivers.

 

Next, the computer I built. In a few months, it's going to be 1 year old. I have also chosen the best time to build it as right now it would cost more to build it than it did at that time. I have chosen parts that I knew were of quality, and I have not regreted it, except not buying more than 4GB of RAM, since right now I'm close to upgrading it to 8GB, and maybe to 16GB in a few years. I have Windows 7 Ultimate on it and it has never crashed and the 9800GT I have in it never failed me. Also it suprised me how much power the i3 processor has over the Athlon dual core that I have in the 5 year old HP, the difference is amazing.

 

As for printers, my 5 year old HP printer and my parent's 10 year old HP printer never failed us and never had error except for my parent's one before I told them they had to install the driver, after they had had Windows 7 put on it.

 

Wow kinda went further than I thought I would be going, but I hope it was a good read to some of you.

[Kaphias]

Like tripsis, my whole family has had upwards of four Macs among us forever. We had the screen on an old iBook let go, and I've been experiencing some minor issues with my 4 year old Macbook. Never contacted service about any of the issues, just let them go. I built a computer about a year and a half ago, no issues with that so far (except for the Netgear wireless card, don't buy their crap). My only issue with that computer is Windows XP, but as it's an old operating system I am trying to refrain from complaining too much until I upgrade.

Have a HP all-in-one printer, I wouldn't recommend it. USB port gave out real fast, can't send scans to computers anymore. Basic printing works decent for the price though.

Only camera I have is a 6+ year old Olympus, and it's still going strong. Not like 3MP and 3x zoom does much these days.

[obfuscator]

I have a toshiba laptop which as worked wonderfully. My brother had an Asus laptop that had a bad hard drive but the tech support was decent and they replaced it pretty quickly.

In terms of desktops, I've built my own (and did the same for my family) so I can't say much there, although I have had a few problems with individual components.

 

I also have a blackberry that I'm quite happy with, no problems there at all.

[jasignhagj]

Laptop wise, Ive heard Asus is the best.

[The Observer]

I've had a few HP computers and had no serious problems with them. As for blackberries, I don't see why they're rated so low. I know many people who are satisfied with the blackberries that they have. Considering getting one in a few weeks.

[Sbrideau]

I've had a few HP computers and had no serious problems with them. As for blackberries, I don't see why they're rated so low. I know many people who are satisfied with the blackberries that they have. Considering getting one in a few weeks.

 

 

I know my brother would rate them pretty low as well as his blackberry curve that was only 1 year had the usb plug on his went out with the power cord when he had recharged it. Company sent it for repairs but only to be returned because it was apparently not repairable.

[Laura]

I've had a few HP computers and had no serious problems with them. As for blackberries, I don't see why they're rated so low. I know many people who are satisfied with the blackberries that they have. Considering getting one in a few weeks.

It's not so much the individual product as it is customer support and consumer appeal, as indicated by the charts below.

 

[hide=Smartphones]

[/hide]

[hide=Laptops][/hide]

[hide=Desktops][/hide]

[hide=HDTV][/hide]

[Low C]

Apple beat Alienware, that's funny lol.

 

Those are really interesting, I expected to see Asus and Apple atop.

[Jernlov]

Only problem I had with Asus was quality control on their monitors, however they were replaced easily.

[jasignhagj]

NEVER buy a monitor online, if you get a stuck pixel they won't send you a new one.

[Laura]

Uh, sure they do. You just have to check their warranty.

[jasignhagj]

The warrant of near-every LCD panel states that a few (Usually less than seven or three touching) stuck pixels is a symptom of the manufacturing process and not a defect, and therefore is not covered by the warranty. If you know of a brand that covers any stuck pixels, please let me know though.