Reliability and Service Report Card

Survey Methodology: A Word About Our Scores

Our survey was conducted in conjunction with Research Results of Fitchburg, Massachusetts. We invited subscribers to take the Web-based survey from April 1 through June 30, 2003. We received 32,051 responses. We asked subscribers about six different categories of products: desktop PCs, notebook PCs, printers, digital cameras, PDAs, and wireless gateways. Survey respondents told us about the reliability of their hardware and their experiences (if any) in getting service. We limited reports to products that were three years old or younger.

PC World editors and research experts analyzed the reliability and service performance of each company in the six different categories. In the case of desktop and notebook PCs, we rated each company's performance on 12 weighted measures, and then used those results to determine the company's overall ranking. In the case of the other four product categories, we rated each company's performance on 8 weighted measures, 5 relating to reliability and 3 to service.