Laptop PCs
Acer, Dell, and Sony did well overall, too, though not at Apple's level. Acer and Sony laptops earned praise for their reliability, and readers reported that Dell did a better job of resolving customer problems in 2008 than in previous years. Dell's efforts to reduce hold times for phone support seem to be paying off as well: The company's score on this measure rose to average from worse than average. On the other hand, Dell needs to do a better job of replacing failed parts, according to our readers.
Lenovo, which last year challenged Apple for the top spot, posed less of a challenge this year. Its only high mark came in overall reliability; last year it earned five better-than-average grades, mostly for aspects of its service.
At the other end of the spectrum, HP repeated last year's dismal last-place finish with six subpar marks, plus another one for its Compaq brand. In fact, HP's 2008 grades are even worse than its 2007 marks, which included two ahead-of-the-pack scores for reliable components. The good news this year? Well, HP says that it has been working to shorten phone-support hold times--and our readers noticed the difference. The world's biggest PC vendor rose to average from worse than average in that area.
Another interesting survey finding: One-third of our respondents reported experiencing one or more significant hardware or software problems with their laptops. Desktops caused just as many headaches, but other peripherals--except printers--were much more dependable.