Consumer Reports Does Some Laptop Hunting, Too: Likes Apple Most

[Vincent Ferrari]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://gadgetwise.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/04/consumer-reports-takes-a-shine-to-apple/' target='_blank'>http://gadgetwise.blogs.nytimes.com...shine-to-apple/</a><br /><br /></div><p><em>"In laptops, Apple MacBooks rated first in the 13-inch category, the 14-to 16-inch size, and the 17-inch list; Dell, Toshiba and Hewlett-Packard were also-rans. The 15-inch MacBook Pro was rated overall with a score of 75 out of 100, ahead of a 64-rated Toshiba Satellite (the Pro costs $2,000, the Toshiba $700). Among desktops, the Mac mini finished second to an H-P Pavillion Slimline, and the iMac placed second behind a Dell XPS One. CR surveyed its readers about computer tech support. Apple trounced the field in both desktop and laptop categories."</em></p><p><img height="314" src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com/resizer/thumbs/size/600/at/auto/1241488540.usr18053.jpg" style="border: 1px solid #d2d2bb;" width="541" /></p><p>Well, I'd call that a sound trouncing.&nbsp; Not that I'm surprised.&nbsp; Dell's support is bad, and Toshiba's so far beyond bad that it can't even see the light from bad within 3000 years.</p><p>Now who's gonna break the news to all those "laptop hunters?"</p>

[jgrnt1]

I'm an avid Consumer Reports reader. I rarely buy anything without looking in CR first. However, they often test incomplete lists of products. Vincent, as you were happy to point out when the Windows ads starting running, they were not comparing similar products.

In the Consumer Reports tests, they compared the Apple laptops to the cheap lines of several Windows laptop makers. For example, they looked at Lenovo's IdeaPad line, but not the ThinkPad line, which is higher priced, can easily be configured to spec the same as the Macbooks which were tested, and would still be considerably cheaper than the Macbooks. I'm not going to say they are better laptops than the Macbooks or speculate on whether the test results would be any different. I don't want to start another flame war. I just want to point out that the CR testing was incomplete. After I received my CR magazine a few days ago, I actually wrote CR a letter about this.

I wonder if the project manager for the test uses Macs or Windows PCs? ;)

[Vincent Ferrari]

I'm an avid Consumer Reports reader. I rarely buy anything without looking in CR first. However, they often test incomplete lists of products. Vincent, as you were happy to point out when the Windows ads starting running, they were not comparing similar products.

If Microsoft wants to compete on being the bargain basement clearance computer for soccer moms with kids who have Danny Bonaduce hair, that's fine. Apple has never competed on the price of its products and won't start now, but as I said back then, you do get what you pay for.

CR made the same comparison Microsoft is so fond of making in its latest ads: cheap PC's to much more expensive Macs, and, well, what do you know? The Macs end up being better in the end.

Who knew?

[Sven Johannsen]

CR made the same comparison Microsoft is so fond of making in its latest ads: cheap PC's to much more expensive Macs, and, well, what do you know? The Macs end up being better in the end.

Who knew?What a surprise.

The 15-inch MacBook Pro was rated overall with a score of 75 out of 100, ahead of a 64-rated Toshiba Satellite (the Pro costs $2,000, the Toshiba $700).

11% increase in rating for only 185% increase in cost. Sounds like a buy to me.

CR surveyed its readers about computer tech support.

No argument that Windows based PC tech support is dismal. IMHO we asked for that. We wanted low prices. The OEMs had to cut corners somewhere, and one was sufficient and effective tech support. Beyond that, with the 10 to one (or more) disparity in fielded Windows vs Mac units, even with the same failure rate, the Windows side has 10 times as many incidents to support, and 10 times as many vocal plaintiffs. Yea Apple provides better support, but you are paying for that right up front...it's part of that 185% premium.

[doogald]

Alright, I'll bite.

The Toshiba is a 14.6" display, no discrete graphics, a 2.0 GHz processor with 800 MHz DDR2 SDRAM, no Bluetooth. And Vista, I presume. It does have 4 GB RAM and a larger hard disk drive than the MBP, though it's performance ratings were lower than the 2 GB MBP. The MBP is a 15.4" display, 2.4 GHz processor, 1066 MHz DDR3 SDRAM. Despite the larger display, it weighs a touch less than the Toshiba. I guess that the Toshiba is just the machine for Giampaolo, who is an expert looking for performance and knows what he wants. It looks to me like Toshiba cut corners on more than tech support.

As for tech support, that was in the CR report as well. Apple scored 84 for laptops, with the highest ratings for the 4 categories (problem solved, phone waits, phone staff, online support.) Toshiba scored 55 out of 100, with worse than average problem solved, average on the other 3 categories (which, frankly, based on my experience with Toshiba notebooks earlier this decade, is a vast improvement.) Even if there are more people reporting on Toshiba support, the fact is that they had a worse experience overall. I'd believe that people would feel better about tech support that took longer, with ruder support staff or poorer online support so long as their problem was actually solved in the end.

[possmann]

With Windows it's time versus money. If you want to spend less money count on spending more time in maintaining, troubleshooting, repairing etc...