Who makes the most reliable computers? Lenovo, closely followed by Apple, if you believe online service and support company Rescuecom’s latest reliability audit, derived from more than 20,000 calls made by the firm’s customers during the second quarter this year. Rescuecom assigned a reliability rating to computer vendors. Lenovo, in its guise as provider of IBM desktops and notebooks, scored 243. Apple attained 201. Third-placed HP/Compaq scored a mere 12. Dell’s rating was 4, Gateway -12 and all the rest together scored -16.
Warning: I am bitter and frustrated.
It’s a good thing Lenovo has reliable machines because their support is a jungle-laden mess of automated systems, confused departments that don’t know what they do support and what they don’t support and then of course redicuously long wait times on simple parts that ship out every day but because Department A is different from Department B, cannot fufill parts from the same stock.
I delt with Apple’s support and it was fantastic (got my MacBook Pro and iPod serviced). So far IBM / Lenovo has driven me nuts. Wrote more about it here:
http://www.breakitdownblog.com/2006/10/16/ibm-lenovo-thinkpad-suppo…
That said I really like my ThinkPad T60 so far, but wow… I cannot believe companies like this execute support so poorly still today in this age of automation. I actually go transfers 3x today because I called to find out where my replacement battery was, was suppose to be 3 day deliver… 3 weeks ago.
Department 1: Yes we see your order.
Me: When will it get here? I’ll transfer to CRU that can help you.
Department 2: It should have arrived at the end of September. It’s back ordered.
Me: Ok, what is the ETA?
Department 2: I’ll have to transfer you.
Me: Ok
Department 3: Ok it’s back ordered to end of November. If it was replaced after the first 30 days it would be a refurbished part.
Me: When did I agree to that?
Department 3: It’s how we handle all hardware replacements.
Me: <sigh>
This is paraphrased, but no joke. This was my 40min call this morning to figure out why my battery replacement hadn’t gotten here yet.
Edited 2006-10-16 22:00
While I am happy Apple is fairly high up in reliability, I thing the difference is more based on the users. Lenovo basically has 2 types of users. New Users, and old IBM Users. So for the New Users they have new computers that haven’t been threw the block a few times. And the old IBM users who were mostly large businesses where they are normally in more ideal conditions.
Apple users tend to be a little more on the average more educated. And Apple tends to give a limited hardware for the OS to support vs. Windows. Causing less problems with elcheapo products.
Dell had the old record for dependability. But with a bunch of people getting the systems cheap they also don’t take as well care for them being placed in troublesome locations, as well with dell being cost competitive they are using more and more cheap stuff.
Gateway the users who use them just like the box. They are unknowing enough to take care of the gear.
“Apple users tend to be a little more on the average more educated.”
See, this won’t cut it on my watch. And you would compare Apple users to which users? Windows/Linux/Unix users? So maybe since a user has chosen to purchase an Apple computer they are “on average more educated” by default? I would rather believe that us educated non-apple users are a little more open minded and find value in the freedom of computing rather than eat the “forbidden fruit” (with the nasty worm in it).
I think he is referring to this article:
“Those who surf the Web using a Mac tend to be better educated and make more money than their PC-using counterparts” – a report from Nielsen/NetRatings
http://news.com.com/2100-1040-943519.html
There is really no point in getting uppity about it. He’s not saying “all Apple users are smarter than all PC users”, just “Apple users tend to know a bit more about computers on average.”
In my experience, that’s pretty accurate. The average Apple user is likely to know what an operating system is, know some of the basic components of the computer, know something about the compatibility of peripherals, etc. A lot of this is by necessity: Mac users deal with OS upgrades every couple of years, wheras PC users usually get a new OS just by getting a new machine. Apple usually features its CPUs* prominently in its advertising, so they get some exposure to what a CPU is and what it does. They have to shop for Mac-compatible hardware and software, so they have to understand that their Mac is in some way different from other computers. That’s just more understanding of the machine than most PC users have. Not because Apple users are smarter or better, but just because PC users don’t have to know these things, in a world where almost everything is a PC.
*) It’s not just CPUs, either. Ironically, Apple tends to feature technology more prominently in its advertising than other PC companies. Go to apple.com/macpro. Right on the first page, you learn it’s got dual 3 GHz processors, up to 2TB of storage, 8 DIMM slots with up to 16GB of memory, and 4 PCI Express slots. The remaining pages are replete with pictures of the insides, bus connection diagrams, and benchmark results (including SPECint). You learn the width of the memory bus, the maximum bandwidth of the SATA controller, in the marketing pages, and get all the tech specs neatly summarized on the last page. You get not one, but two pictures of the memory riser, complete with an explanation of the DIMM heatsinks.
You don’t get most of this information even in Dell’s customization pages. You certainly don’t get it in the marketing pages for, say, the XPS 700.
Edited 2006-10-17 15:20
“” I would rather believe that us educated non-apple users are a little more open minded….”
um…. i guess the previous post struck a nearve!!!!!!!
look… since is seems we are all talking generations here… let me generalize a bit…
your average computer user knows ONE platform… the one in front of him… and when that average users goes to buy a new computer… he goes down to the big box store and buys a sale item (you guess it! a windows PC… compaq, HP… what ever!) when you ask him a month later what kind of computer he bought… he gleefully tells you…”um… a pentium? or maybe a dell…. no.. no… is a sony, or somthing!) he has no clue what he is using… or what brand… or even what OS….
so much for choice!!!!!!
now… your average “non windows” computer user… such as a Mac user… well… he just happens to know EXACTLY what kind of computer he owns… as a matter of fact… he most likely owns more than ONE!!!!! yes… its true…. those mac heads can indead operate more than one computer at a time…. USUALLY… they will have different OSes on them too!
so much for being less open minded… not to mention… “locked in”!!!!
riddle me this bat man…. how many “windows power users” do you know, that have more than ONE computer? ahhh…. but how many of those machines are running somthing OTHER than windows? hummmmmm
open minded and free….. what ever!!!!!
ill eat my forbidden fruit… next time my XP box bluscreens!
if we are honest most PCs nowaddays use the same commodity parts.. how is there such a HUGE discrepancy?
A PC is more than just a total of those parts, it’s also the choice of wiring, switches, case, screws and so on. Not to mention the standards/circumstances under which they are assembled. I have 2 IBM PC’s: one 7 year old Aptiva (intensively used) which has only needed a new CPU fan…the battery still doesn’t need to be replaced. The other (a year younger Netvista) never gave me any problem. And I guess no flat screens for me the coming 7 years or so, as my monitors are two chunky 4 year old G78’s that I estimate will still run after being thrown of the staircase.
“if we are honest most PCs nowaddays use the same commodity parts.. how is there such a HUGE discrepancy?”
to mark down a comment it must be because of one of these reasons
Yes, this comment includes personal attacks/offensive language
Yes, this comment is off-topic
Yes, this comment is spam or includes advertisements
this comment was none of those, im just wondering why its been marked down. This seems to be happening more and more on this site and its a shame to see
People are marking down comments with which they disagree. Like you, I hate to see this happening.
Yes, E-Machines are junk; right?
No…and, sort of.
The shop I work at see’s more Emachines in for repair than ANY other brand by at least triple.
Do they use no name memory? Nope.
El-cheap-o Hard Drives? Nope.
Unheard of Video cards? Sorry, no.
PC Chips Mainboards? Not that I’ve seen (yet).
So why? ITS THE GODD-MN POWER SUPPLY.
I can’t tell you how many companies make power supplies but almost every emachine that I work on the five volt ground on the PS goes out (if not the whole thing) and causes all sorts of weird problems that have most tech’s needlessly replacing memory sticks and HDD ribbons.
Gateways the closets second.
Just because they “all use the same parts” doesn’t mean they “all use the same parts” nudge, nudge, wink, wink, – their may be some crap you just didn’t see . . .
I’ve been using Thinkpads for several years, and I have worked on other notebooks (at a service shop) and there is a world of difference between them.
This is true also for me, I have worked as a technician for sometime and I have fixed just one thinkpad laptop (dating back to 1999) just for a water spill on the keyboard that required replacement of the keyboard. While I fixed hundreds of Dells/HP/Sony, few compaq and gateways and traces of other brands.
I prefer first Compaq then HP then Dell then gateway then sony then other brands.
IBM and Apple are in another category or world. Owning them is like owning Mercedes.
I have to agree with you on this one. Over the last few years I have purchased eight IBM reconditioned units. One purchase was an IBM Thinkpad with a Pentium 150 that replaced a Thinkpad 486 SX25 system. The Pentium 150 is still very happily running Windows 98 to this day.
As for quality design the IBM’s are on a par with my G5. They are all easy to work on and so solidly built you could use them for a step stool. The last one I got is an IBM Thinkcenter and that, like the G5, is so easy to work on. You can replace drives and cards with no tools at all. The two M-Pro servers are still chugging away. I got one for a friend and recently gave the other to my oldest son. The latter one had dual P-II 450’s in it.
for anyone not in the U.S. The local company I got my whitebox laptop from has given me better support than any of the big multinationals ever have.
And no, branded whitebox aren’t really any better than whitebox computers.
Edited 2006-10-17 02:55
Rescuecom focuses on providing IT support to businesses, so it’s customer base doesn’t necessarily match the demographics of the broader computer technology user base
Skewed numbers, really tell us nothing. They claim that Apple has 4% market share, but only 2% of the business tech calls. How many Macs are in businesses? Not surprisingly, Dell, the company that focuses mainly on businesses, has a high rate of business support issues. Go figure…
These are not even statistics…they are just numbers.
ibm:
in the last 14 years i bought 5 ibm-notebooks (one of them pre-thinkpad), which all work to this day – the few times i needed service were unproblematic and a matter of waiting just few days.
the only time a laptop needed to be serviced out of guarantee i got a call from the technician who said they’d have to change the motherboard. i told him how the problem occured, he said he’d have another look at it, then phoned back to tell me that he had re-soldered a certain contact, now the notebook was working again and if it was ok for me if he charged one hour repair time.
please note that he behaved that way to a private customer, not a business!!
this notebook is, like the others, still working, couple of years later.
as dektop i have a ibm netvista business-pc, bought secondhand – my second ibm desktop:
both of them not a single problem up to now, the first being retired just because it got too slow.
apple:
one year ago i bought an apple ibook G4 and then, because i liked what i saw, a macmini G4.
the macmini is working fine up to now –
the ibook is another story.
the motherboard already had to be replaced, which was a matter of one week waiting. a month ago the internal dvd/cd-rw-drive stopped reading disks – though it had been used *very* sparingly, i mostly used an external drive especially to spare the internal drive – so it was brought to an apple dealer (it has the 3-year-guarantee).
i told them that i was not very happy that the drive did not work any more though it had hardly been used. they replied, that it might be because i used no-name disks. well – in the first place i was *not* using no-name disks, and second – i’m using the same disks on my pc-dvd-drives, which worked and still work happily with them …
then i was told that the repair would take ten days, at the most two weeks.
after a week i got a phone-call where i was accused of having tampered with the firmware of the drive. well, i was rather taken aback – it took me a while to get accustomed to the idea that i bring a malfunctioning notebook to the dealer, and instead of repairing it they accuse me of deliberately ruining it… this i something i never encountered when dealing with ibm (or any other pc-dealer, by the way). after some talking they agreed to look at the drive again, seemed to be satisfied at last that it had not been tampered with, so i was told it would be replaced.
about a week later i was told that the ibook was repaired and i could fetch it. luckily when i went to the dealer i first tried it out – the situation had not changed, the drive still could not read any cd or dvd. i looked disbelieving at the representative – he said, reading my mind (which in that situation was not very hard to do) that, yes, they *had* tested the notebook before declaring it repaired, and he couldn’t understand how this was possible…
so it is now exactly a month that i brought the ibook to the dealer for a simple guarantee-exchange of a component, and i still haven’t got it back.
i guess there’s no need to say expressively what conclusions i’ve drawn from all this …
few notes:
* now that ibm is lenovo, i don’t know how the situation there is now or will develop in the future, having no own experience with lenovo yet.
* i still like apple-computers, some things are fantastic – like the home-dtp-program “pages”, which to my mind alone would be worth buying an apple-computer for, i’ve never seen such an intuitive program *anywhere*.
But i’ve become quite wary of their hardware now, and with regard to their so-called “support” … it seems to me that if you are lucky and your apple-computer works, it’s ok – but woe to you if something breaks down …
Before buying an apple, i had looked up in the internet quite a lot of user experiences with apple-computers in different apple user forums, and the general impression i had gathered from there also had been: “ok, as long as they work …”, so this was not entirely unexpected – still i would have preferred to be mistaken. also from the forums i gathered the impression that it has not always been so, that there was a time when apple-computers were really solid, but that’s now gone… so they live more from their reputation now, i guess.
sadly i have to say that i will not give a single cent to apple anymore – as long as the computers work, i’ll be happy, but when they stop working, if i have to buy second-rate hardware, i’ll buy it from vendors with second-rate prices… that’s more adequate.
* in a previous post it has been noted that apple-users are more computer-savy than pc-users. that’s interesting, because where i live i had a different experience:
the apple-users i know are more the type who just expect their computer to work and don’t want to have to understand how and why, while the pc-users i know are accustomed to have to do everything, and practically assmble their pc’s themselves.
i also noticed it in the way that apple and pc-dealers treat their customers: the apple dealers i met tend to be patronising to their not-tech-savy-customers, while the pc-dealers have already learned that a lot of their customers know their way around in a pc and sometimes know more about it than they themselves do.