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Apple has beaten its PC rivals by a country mile in the latest PC Magazine awards. And the voters were the paying public, not the (non-paying) editors. The Reader's Choice awards saw Apple poll "far and away the highest for all vendors," the magazine says. Apple received a score of 9.2 for its desktops and notebooks. Among portables, only IBM and Fujitsu were anywhere near Apple, both with a score of 8.4. Of course, there's always some FUD: maybe Mac users are so "passionate" about the product, they overlook shortcomings and score the Mac higher. But the empirical evidence – such as it is – seems to refute that. Despite a slew of battery recalls and repair extension programs recently, Apple desktop products surveyed needed to go in for repair only 11% of the time. Apple's nearest rival on this score was Sony with 16%. On the portable front, iBooks and PowerBooks scored 17% on repairs, beaten by Averatec's (who?) 14%, with no other vendors having less than 20% of their notebook products requiring repairs. One reader said he'd never had problems with his PowerBook, and only called Apple for help to set up his Airport connection. Then Apple tech support helped him with his Windows desktop setup. That's some full-service IT help they're got there. Apple's warranties and tech support aren't highly regarded by PC mag, but perhaps it's a tribute to the products' generally high quality which means it's less likely to have to pay for warranty claims – and tech support costs are likely to be much lower for Windows machines. Nevertheless, this doesn't seem to hurt the company's poll ratings – or, seemingly, the incentive to repurchase. Analysis: Not bad publicity, particularly for the poor Joe/Jill Citizen who's wondering what to replace his virus-encrusted desktop with and, after all, Joe and Jill's iPod works well.
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