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« Return to: Reliability and Service Report Card


Measure                                   Printers                         Survey average1          Digital Cameras                              Survey average1          Wireless Gateways                              Survey average1          PDAs                              Survey average1          
Problems on arrival: Percentage of devices that were nonfunctional when they were first turned on. (Lower is better.)Good: 1.9 to 2.9 percent
Fair: 3.3 to 3.6 percent
Poor: 4.6 to 5.3 percent
3.3 percentOutstanding: 0 to 1.6 percent
Good: 2.5 to 3 percent
Fair: 5.4 percent
Poor: 8.3 percent
2.4 percentGood: 4.5 to 6.5 percent
Fair: 9.2 to 9.4 percent
Poor: 12.1 to 13.6 percent
9.2 percentGood: 1.9 to 2 percent
Fair: 2.4 to 3.1 percent
Poor: 4.5 percent
2.7 percent
Ease of use: Percentage of respondents who rated the product's ease of use as high. (Higher is better.)Outstanding: 90.6 percent
Good: 83.1 to 80.3 percent
Fair: 78.3 to 71.7 percent
Poor: 65.5 percent
Unacceptable: 56.4 percent
74.9 percentOutstanding: 68.3 to 65 percent
Good: 61.5 to 60.2 percent
Fair: 55.4 to 54.5 percent
Poor: 46.9 to 45.5 percent
59.2 percentGood: 60.1 percent
Fair: 56.4 to 50.2 percent
Poor: 42.1 percent
52.6 percentGood: 71.4 to 68.6 percent
Fair: 62.9 to 58.5 percent
Poor: 45.6 percent
63.6 percent
Percent of units with problems: Percentage of devices with at least one problem that required contacting tech support or that limited the device's usefulness. (Lower is better.)Outstanding: 10.2 percent
Good: 15.6 to 20 percent
Fair: 26.4 to 30.9 percent
Poor: 37.3 percent
Unacceptable: 62 percent
26.7 percentGood: 8 to 11.6 percent
Fair: 13.1 to 17.6 percent
Poor: 19.2 to 23.9 percent
14.6 percentGood: 28.8 percent
Fair: 34.7 to 38.4 percent
Poor: 40.8 percent
35.8 percentGood: 19.9 to 25.5 percent
Fair: 31.7 to 37.7 percent
27.7 percent
Problems per year: Average number of problems per device per year of age. (Lower is better.)Outstanding: 0.11 problem per year
Good: 0.18 to 0.28 problem per year
Fair: 0.34 to 0.49 problem per year
Poor: 0.64 problem per year
Unacceptable: 0.83 problem per year
0.37 problem per yearOutstanding: 0.06 to 0.08 problem per year
Good: 0.1 to 0.14 problem per year
Fair: 0.19 to 0.2 problem per year
Poor: 0.26 problem per year
Unacceptable: 0.36 problem per year
0.15 problem per yearGood: 0.6 problem per year
Fair: 0.73 to 0.81 problem per year
Poor: 1.08 problems per year
0.8 problem per yearGood: 0.22 to 0.33 problem per year
Fair: 0.44 to 0.61 problem per year
Poor: 0.84 problem per year
0.4 problem per year
Satisfaction with reliability: Percentage of respondents who said they were highly satisfied with their peripheral's reliability. (Higher is better.)Outstanding: 94.5 percent
Good: 87.9 to 80 percent
Fair: 75.2 to 75 percent
Poor: 65.5 to 59.1 percent
79.4 percentGood: 89.5 to 83.9 percent
Fair: 79.7 to 73.1 percent
Poor: 60 to 54.5 percent
78.7 percentGood: 80.1 percent
Fair: 77.1 to 72.8 percent
Poor: 67.3 to 60.2 percent
72.1 percentGood: 81.5 to 77.3 percent
Fair: 73.5 to 64.6 percent
74.1 percent
Short hold time: Percentage of service recipients who waited 5 minutes or less for telephone tech support. (Higher is better.)Outstanding: 77.1 percent
Good: 68.6 to 62.8 percent
Fair: 58.5 percent
66.3 percentGood: 72.5 to 70.8 percent
Fair: 66.7 to 64.3 percent
Poor: 56.1 to 55.6 percent
65.4 percentFair: 58.8 to 50.7 percent55.2 percentFair: 60 to 58.6 percent59.4 percent
Satisfactory resolution: Percentage of service recipients who said their problem was resolved to their satisfaction. (Higher is better.)Good: 82.8 percent
Fair: 75.6 to 70.6 percent
75.3 percentGood: 87 percent
Fair: 74.3 to 70.3 percent
Poor: 65.6 to 65.3 percent
72.5 percentGood: 80 percent
Fair: 73 to 71.5 percent
74.8 percentGood: 76.2 to 72.6 percent74.9 percent
Satisfaction with service: Percentage of service recipients who said they were highly satisfied with the company's service. (Higher is better.)Good: 61.5 to 56.4 percent
Fair: 51.9 to 45.4 percent
54.2 percentGood: 57.3 percent
Fair: 52.3 to 46.7 percent
Poor: 42.9 percent
49.3 percentFair: 47.9 to 44.1 percent45.7 percentGood: 55.7 percent
Fair: 50.4 to 48.6 percent
51.6 percent

1Figure refers to the average score among all companies rated in the respective measure in PC World's PC Reliability and Service report.
HOW WE TEST: We test rewritable DVD drives under Windows XP Home on PCs with 1.67-GHz Athlon XP 2000+ processors and 512MB of DDR SDRAM. To test each drive, we use the bundled DVD video authoring, mastering, and packet-writing software; we use vendor-supplied media or Verbatim media. Tests conducted by the PC World Test Center. All rights reserved.