Apple, Dell # 1 in Customer Satisfaction


Hands up if you have a Compaq? Fail. If you have a Mac? A+.

Those are among the results of PC Magazine's user survey, which asks its magazine subscribers to rate PC manufacturers' offerings. Over 18,000 subscribers responded to the survey. Apple scored an A+ for its desktops and a B for its notebooks.

The news isn't all good, however: Dell was also rated an A+ for the 12th time, out of a total of 16 surveys. At the other end of the scale, HP, Compaq, E-Machines, NEC and Acer rated execrable Es.

IBM Toshiba and Apple scored highest on notebooks, while Dell had to settle for a second-best B.

Interestingly, a lot of PC Mag's subscribers who bothered to do the survey aren't Linux users (1%). They're twice as likely to be Mac users.

Support operations from Dell, HP and Gateway came in for a flogging from users, who complained about their overseas relocations.

Analysis: This isn't the most scientific of quantitative analysis, as the raw data is automatically suspect, given the opportunity for bogus entries. Who knows? Dell (and Apple) might have a whole team of Santa's elves locked away in a skunkworks somewhere filling out forms.

Still, this kind of stuff has marketing value - we guess - and some industry commentators argue that it keeps tech support divisions on their toes. Except at HP, Acer, NEC and E-Machines, obviously...