Apple Laptops Fourth In Reliability

[Crushdepth]

Interesting study of laptop reliability from major manufacturers based on fairly large sample size.

Best: Asus.

Worst: HP.

[nikster]

I guess you meant to say "buy Asus". Acer is one of the worst with 23.3% failure rate.

Asus has a failure rate of 15.6% over 3 years

Apple has a failure rate of 17.4% over 3 years.

Since this is based on the previous generation Apples I am pretty sure they'll be much better now. Just from personal experience, the prev gen MacBook Pros had all sorts of heat issues. Since the unibody MacBook Pro, quality is up by what feels like a very large margin. The unibody is basically rock solid. It's hard to imagine anything going wrong with it physically. It's also very cool to the touch.

Nevertheless, if you buy Apple, I recommend the 3 year extended warranty. It's expensive, but would be worth it even at an industry best 15% failure rate.

[spacemunk]

i will never use a Apple product outside of the US.

customer service outside of it is total bull

[Dontdisturb]

i will never use a Apple product outside of the US.

customer service outside of it is total bull

Absolutely wrong.

My iMac (under warranty) had a hard drive failure and some strange dark stain on the upper center of the screen last april.

I brought the computer to MacZone Chiangmai on Monday afternoon and get a phone call on Thursday morning. Hard drive and screen replaced and ready to pick up. Very professional and friendly service.

[Crushdepth]

I guess you meant to say "buy Asus". Acer is one of the worst with 23.3% failure rate.

Oops, yes I did. Can't seem to fix it. dam_n!

-------Fixed it for you Monty-------

[surface]

Just took a look at the actual "study" and found it leaves out too much information to be taken seriously.

It does not give any indication on the type or severity of service that was need with regards to each brand.

It could be that HP, who came in last, had a majority of issues with an LED for the caps lock key not working, while ASUS had failed CPU's, hard drives, and motherboards.

It could have been useful, but unfortunately it's nothing more than a marketing tool published by a 3rd party warranty company.

Edited November 19, 2009 by surface

[TexasRanger]

i will never use a Apple product outside of the US.

customer service outside of it is total bull

Nonsense!

[Crash999]

i will never use a Apple product outside of the US.

customer service outside of it is total bull

I had both a top-of-the-line Nokia and an iPod touch fail on me last year within a short span of each other. Apple replaced the iPod touch without question while Nokia gave me such a rediculous run-around that I vowed never to buy any of their products again.

[Dontdisturb]

And look at the red bars on the graph. It's a 3 years projection, just a joke IMHO.

[Crushdepth]

I think a sample size of 30,000 is more than enough to project a trend. There's a PDF at the bottom of the article with the full study.

[CobraSnakeNecktie]

as long as Apple is in the ballpark of reliablity then its my choice because I like the OS a lot more. I have a first generation Intel Macbook pro and while it does run a bit hot its been super reliable. I did need the Apple Care to replace the battery and fans after a couple of years. Very fast repair from Applezone in Chiang Mai. BTW I bought AppleCare on Ebay in the US and got the AppleCare registration via email for about half the price of buying it in Thailand. Applecare is Applecare and Maczone was fine with it.

My MBP is 3.5 years old and running perfectly but max'd out with 2 GB of RAM. I will definitely be buying a new MBP in the next year. Just love them.

[Max2000]

From my personal experience with Acer: 1st motherboard died before 1 year, changed on warranty.

The 2nd motherboard lasted 4 months. No warranty anymore, so they want 7K for a new board.

No more acer for me, that's for shure. They are on the bottom when it comes to reliability.

The study was based on 1000 units of each brand,so should be a good indication.

Any similar study of desktops?

[Curt1591]

I just find it much more pleasing to the eye, gazing at the desk top on my Apple computer.

As far as reliability goes, however, the Macs have gone downhill. In the interest of bringing down the price point, they have turned to Chinese manufacture. Previously, Macs were bullet proof!

Mac service, at least in Bangkok, is great. MCC, the certified Applecare center, are on top of things.

[CobraSnakeNecktie]

I just find it much more pleasing to the eye, gazing at the desk top on my Apple computer.

As far as reliability goes, however, the Macs have gone downhill. In the interest of bringing down the price point, they have turned to Chinese manufacture. Previously, Macs were bullet proof!

Mac service, at least in Bangkok, is great. MCC, the certified Applecare center, are on top of things.

most of the components for Macbooks come from Japan, Korea, Taiwan and Singapore. The Macs are just assembled in China.

[nikster]

Everything is assembled in China these days. That's not an indicator for quality.

As for Macs being bulletproof, then having gone downhill. That of course is true. 10 years ago when Macs were produced in California, they had unbelievable quality. And they were expensive!

I have a PowerBook from 1996 that works perfectly. And a PowerBook from 2001 that also works perfectly, the latter is a G4 and it's even running OS X. 512MB of RAM makes it slow, otherwise it just works. My mom uses it for email when she's visiting.

Anyway, my prediction for the unibody MacBook Pros is that reliability will be way up. There is nothing rattling, nothing moving. Closing the lid feels like closing the door on a Mercedes. Rock solid.

@surface - the study is clearly slanted towards making it seem like there's a lot of failures going on. It was done by a company that sells extended warranties, so that should come as no surprise. They'll count every incident, no matter how small. Nevertheless, I think it's still a pretty good overall indication of quality.

[OriginalPoster]

I'm quite surprised by the results of this survey. I was under the impression that Macs were perfect.

[Gary A]

I just read that a group is pressuring Apple to recall the plastic cased laptops. It seems like they all crack near the palm rest. Apple has replaced some under warranty so they are aware that there is a problem. Unfortunately the replacements crack too so they have not corrected the problem.

[Crushdepth]

I'm quite surprised by the results of this survey. I was under the impression that Macs were perfect.

Of course they are perfect. Now go out the back and self-flagelate for half an hour you wicked doubter!

Re. cracking on plastic Macs, I'm a big fan of metal cases on my laptops. Plastic laptops (and yes I know thats nearly all of them) suck. White plastic turns yellow. Silver or grey plastic rubs off, leaving ugly wear prints. Black plastic is the only way to go but its not half as nice as a metal case.

Had a look at the HP Envy today. Leaving aside the hefty price tag, the case is gorgeous. And I finally got my hands on a HP Mini 5101 (metal lid, but unfortunately not body).

[nikster]

I just read that a group is pressuring Apple to recall the plastic cased laptops. It seems like they all crack near the palm rest. Apple has replaced some under warranty so they are aware that there is a problem. Unfortunately the replacements crack too so they have not corrected the problem.

See here http://i.gizmodo.com/5204395/apple-private...s-crack-problem

Seems like it can happen to all white MacBooks, but doesn't say if that includes the latest "unibody" white MacBook - it's quite different from before and you'd think after all that time they'd get this under control.

Apple also replaces these even when out of warranty. Which is something that no PC manufacturer would ever dream of doing. Imagine you go to Acer and say "hey... you see these tiny little hairline cracks in my case? Yeah, I know it's 2 years old but they are just so unsightly". They'd thank you for brightening their day with this funny joke and show you the way to the door... don't get me wrong, Acer Thailand has great service. But when it comes to the appearance of their machines, they couldn't care less... just like most of their customers

[hhgz]

Recent sales reports indicate that the top 3 sellers of computers systems in the world are:

1. HP

2. Asus

3. Dell

I guess that people prefer systems with lower reliability. It's either that, or something's wrong with the study's data analysis.

[ballzafire]

I bought a 128K Mac when they first came out and thought it was the neatest thing since sliced bread, upgraded a number of times, putting up with the inflated prices and mediocre functionality, then sold my last Mac back in '89 (a Mac II) and switched to the PC platform and haven't look back.

I still refuse to consider Macs even to this day simply because nothing has changed regarding Apple products, IMO. They remained largely cheaply made and overpriced relative to similar functionality on the PC (which I can and prefer to custom make to my specs, BTW).

So, all this talk about Apple "reliability" being substandard is extremely unsurprising to me...

Caveat Emptor...

[ballzafire]

Recent sales reports indicate that the top 3 sellers of computers systems in the world are: 1. HP 2. Asus 3. Dell I guess that people prefer systems with lower reliability. It's either that, or something's wrong with the study's data analysis.

It's their marketing...

[OriginalPoster]

Recent sales reports indicate that the top 3 sellers of computers systems in the world are: 1. HP 2. Asus 3. Dell I guess that people prefer systems with lower reliability. It's either that, or something's wrong with the study's data analysis.

It's their marketing...

Or that Apple's brainwashing of the technically inept and the over-cashed is incomplete.

Edited November 22, 2009 by OriginalPoster

[pampal]

I only buy Asus laptops. Seen too many Macs' die an early death.