Apple computers are most reliable, according to Rescuecom repair data

Posted:
in Current Mac Hardware edited March 2018
Apple, in addition to the highest U.S. market share among computer manufacturers, is also the most reliable brand, handily beating out a group of competitors that includes Samsung, Dell, and Lenovo.




The survey, which is based off of Rescuecom's own data about calls to its service, gives Apple its only A+ reliability grade, and a reliability score of 665. This beats out Samsung, which is second with a grade of A- and a score of 270. Lenovo is third, followed by Microsoft, Dell, and Acer, with the last two spots held by HP and Asus.

Rescuecom, has been criticized in the past for its survey practices, including a questionably precipitous drop in its ratings for Apple products, considering it wasn't even authorized to repair Apple products at the time. The company now does offer Apple repair services, although it's not clear whether or not it services Apple under the terms of Apple's warranty repair program.




AppleInsider has attempted to contact Rescuecom about the matter, but has not as of yet received a response.

The release announcing the survey also singled out such models as the Lenovo ThinkPad 13, Microsoft Surface Book 2 and other models as providing strong reliability value. Dell came in for special condemnation, as the report ripped the company for prioritizing profits over product quality, especially since founder Michael Dell took the company private in 2013.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 14
    Thats not news huauahuuha

    Macs are WAY more reliable.
    racerhomie3flashfan207watto_cobrajony0
  • Reply 2 of 14
    blastdoorblastdoor Posts: 3,255member
    The superiority of Apple's hardware is just really striking. Competitors have attempted to copy Apple stylistically, but they don't match Apple in terms of quality. 

    I see this contrast between my MacBook Pro and my wife's HP laptop (both work-provided) all the time. If you don't get too close, the HP looks stylistically ok. But if you really use these things for any amount of time you come to appreciate what a piece of crap the Windows laptops are. 
    racerhomie3watto_cobrajony0
  • Reply 3 of 14
    rob53rob53 Posts: 3,241member
    I wish an A- in school only meant half of an A+. Now that’s a crazy curve. 665 to 270? Wow! I see the 270 more like a solid C. 
    king editor the gratewatto_cobrajony0
  • Reply 4 of 14
    lkrupplkrupp Posts: 10,557member
    We laud surveys that put Apple in a good light and castigate surveys that put Apple in a bad light. The fanboy/troll wars continue unabated. Personally, after the 2016 elections, I don’t trust any survey on anything. Call me a cynic but surveys like this one, from a single company, have a seedy smell to them. To me this stuff is like using Goggle hits to “prove” a point. 2,325,456 Google hits on an issue don’t prove anything if you get the point. Like another article today showing Apple dropping to 29th in the annual Harris poll of brand reputation, it was preceded by an article declaring millennials overwhelmingly prefer Apple in brand attachment. WTF? 

    In the end all I can go on is my personal history with Apple since 1982. In all that time I’ve had to have service performed on my Apple products only a couple of times. First was a bad power supply in my original Power Macintosh 8100 in 1994. Move forward almost 25 years and I recently had the head hinge fail on my iMac 14,2 (2013). The iMac was long out of warranty but the hinge was replaced no charge.
    muthuk_vanalingamRayz2016lkallianceTuuborwatto_cobrajony0
  • Reply 5 of 14
    I've mentioned it before, I just retired/recycled my 2006 iMac only b/c I could not upgrade past SL, and the same with my 2009 MacBookPro. Both still going strong. My 2017 MacBook has replaced both with over twice battery life, half the weight, much faster and a much better screen. Not to mention running the best MacOS on the planet! :)

    And I'm still running an iPhone SE into its 3rd year...

    ...no offense, but that's not 'Fan-boy-ism,' just good sense! :)

    Best.
    flashfan207baconstangwatto_cobrajony0
  • Reply 6 of 14
    lkrupp said:
    In the end all I can go on is my personal history with Apple since 1982. In all that time I’ve had to have service performed on my Apple products only a couple of times. First was a bad power supply in my original Power Macintosh 8100 in 1994. Move forward almost 25 years and I recently had the head hinge fail on my iMac 14,2 (2013). The iMac was long out of warranty but the hinge was replaced no charge.
    Apple truly is the best for this. I can honestly say that there is no other store like the Apple Store where you feel appreciated as a dedicated customer. 
    watto_cobrajony0
  • Reply 7 of 14
    lkrupp said:
    We laud surveys that put Apple in a good light and castigate surveys that put Apple in a bad light. The fanboy/troll wars continue unabated. Personally, after the 2016 elections, I don’t trust any survey on anything. Call me a cynic but surveys like this one, from a single company, have a seedy smell to them. To me this stuff is like using Goggle hits to “prove” a point. 2,325,456 Google hits on an issue don’t prove anything if you get the point. Like another article today showing Apple dropping to 29th in the annual Harris poll of brand reputation, it was preceded by an article declaring millennials overwhelmingly prefer Apple in brand attachment. WTF? 

    In the end all I can go on is my personal history with Apple since 1982. In all that time I’ve had to have service performed on my Apple products only a couple of times. First was a bad power supply in my original Power Macintosh 8100 in 1994. Move forward almost 25 years and I recently had the head hinge fail on my iMac 14,2 (2013). The iMac was long out of warranty but the hinge was replaced no charge.
    Wall Street will turn high Apple computer reliability into a negative point. I'm sure there isn't a driving need for anyone to replace a reliable computer so they'll hold onto it much longer than a computer that isn't reliable. Wall Street will see this as a hindrance based on longer upgrade schedules and therefore a lower frequency of sales. Companies don't seem to get any praise for building longer-lasting products. Only frequent high sales seem to matter. I guess that's just how things are. As a consumer, I want a longer lasting product and that's one reason I like Macs. I honestly don't see that as a drawback as I'm not looking to constantly replace products I buy. The way Wall Street curses Apple for stagnating iPad sales is rather ridiculous. No smart consumer is going to constantly replace a product that works well and is built like a brick.
    baconstangwatto_cobrajony0
  • Reply 8 of 14
    that’s a definite, my 2005 macbook still running adobe suite despite the os not being upgradeable for several versions now, i still use that laptop in a pinch but seriously anyone with a windows machine still able to do anything without hardware mods from 2005 lol think not, my hp lasted four years and the dell three, but my macs like a diesel never die
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 9 of 14
    lkrupp said:
    In the end all I can go on is my personal history with Apple since 1982. In all that time I’ve had to have service performed on my Apple products only a couple of times. First was a bad power supply in my original Power Macintosh 8100 in 1994. Move forward almost 25 years and I recently had the head hinge fail on my iMac 14,2 (2013). The iMac was long out of warranty but the hinge was replaced no charge.
    Apple truly is the best for this. I can honestly say that there is no other store like the Apple Store where you feel appreciated as a dedicated customer. 
    100% agree. Just a few weeks ago I went into an Apple store to replace my wife’s Series 3 Apple Watch. I had purchased it as a Christmas gift in early November, she previously had the original Apple Watch in stainless steel, however this time she wanted a color that only came in the aluminum so I ordered that one. I kept it hidden in the house and gifted it on Christmas. After wearing the watch for a month or so we started to notice she was developing a rash on her wrist. Long story short she has an sensitivity to aluminum. We were busy so we didn’t get to an Apple store until the beginning of March. Our plan was to purchase her a new stainless steel Apple Watch and give her aluminum to a friend or family member. Instead when we explained the issue they offered to just take it back and let us upgrade to the stainless steel for the price difference. This was unexpected especially since the front face of her watch was slightly marred. Since we had already planned on spending the full amount for a new watch we went ahead and purchased a HomePod (which is awesome!).

    This is why we buy so many Apple products. The typical customer support experience with other electronics companies is a miserable one and often leaves the customer with one take away ... never buy that brand again, or if they believe this to be a common problem to that type of electronic item it causes them to be dissatisfied with the product category as a whole which inevitably means less of their discretionary income will be spent on them in the future. This is a great example of where Apple sees the bigger picture vs the straight dollars and cents of customer service.

    baconstangkevin keewatto_cobrajony0
  • Reply 10 of 14
    colinngcolinng Posts: 116member
    I wanted to say the experience in Canada is nowhere as good as what I am reading on the forums. 

    Years ago two of my friends had iPhone 5 batteries swell on them, just outside the 1 year included warranty. After long discussions, the best Apple would do was offer them a refurb for $200. An iPhone that lasts just over a year, fails through no fault of the user, in a catastrophic way that bent the screen and logic board and case, such that they needed to replace the unit? 

    One took his $200 to OnePlus and never looked back. The other took his $200 to Samsung. 

    Just last week, another friend had his Retina MacBook Pro overheat so badly while it was asleep that he nearly burned his fingers taking it out of his backpack. It was dead. It had sleep/wake issues all its life (even after full wipe and reinstall), and graphics glitches. The Apple Store wanted $860 to repair it. 

    I found that the particular model was under recall. It was an official Apple recall, listed on the Apple site. The store didn’t volunteer this information. His serial number matched the recall range. The GPU and chipset are the same chip, so if the GPU was faulty, the system would have all sorts of issues. So the cause and symptoms checked out. 

    The store fought him on the recall, so he had to phone AppleCare. It took him 3 hours to negotiate a fair deal; first they offered to charge $860, then $200 for labor (parts were free), then finally the 3rd person was actually reasonable and authorized the recall, as stated on the Apple site. Recalls should be free right? 

    So what I’m seeing in Canada, is the exact opposite of what I’m hearing about in the forums. 

    Not trying to deny that Apple *could* have great support - just that I have 3 data points that prove they don’t do this uniformly across countries. 

    I don’t want Apple to look bad! I just want them to apply good service principles everywhere they do business (ie be fair to all customers in any country). 
  • Reply 11 of 14
    kevin keekevin kee Posts: 1,289member
    lkrupp said:
    In the end all I can go on is my personal history with Apple since 1982. In all that time I’ve had to have service performed on my Apple products only a couple of times. First was a bad power supply in my original Power Macintosh 8100 in 1994. Move forward almost 25 years and I recently had the head hinge fail on my iMac 14,2 (2013). The iMac was long out of warranty but the hinge was replaced no charge.
    Apple truly is the best for this. I can honestly say that there is no other store like the Apple Store where you feel appreciated as a dedicated customer. 
    100% agree. Just a few weeks ago I went into an Apple store to replace my wife’s Series 3 Apple Watch. I had purchased it as a Christmas gift in early November, she previously had the original Apple Watch in stainless steel, however this time she wanted a color that only came in the aluminum so I ordered that one. I kept it hidden in the house and gifted it on Christmas. After wearing the watch for a month or so we started to notice she was developing a rash on her wrist. Long story short she has an sensitivity to aluminum. We were busy so we didn’t get to an Apple store until the beginning of March. Our plan was to purchase her a new stainless steel Apple Watch and give her aluminum to a friend or family member. Instead when we explained the issue they offered to just take it back and let us upgrade to the stainless steel for the price difference. This was unexpected especially since the front face of her watch was slightly marred. Since we had already planned on spending the full amount for a new watch we went ahead and purchased a HomePod (which is awesome!).

    This is why we buy so many Apple products. The typical customer support experience with other electronics companies is a miserable one and often leaves the customer with one take away ... never buy that brand again, or if they believe this to be a common problem to that type of electronic item it causes them to be dissatisfied with the product category as a whole which inevitably means less of their discretionary income will be spent on them in the future. This is a great example of where Apple sees the bigger picture vs the straight dollars and cents of customer service.

    Generally Apple gives an exceptional services, although I admit that I also have been a not-so-friendly Apple store. Rare as it is, it exists. But your comment reminds me that actual people's experience often tell different stories than that of a specific poll (Harris reputation) or what certain people tried to make us believe in forums.
  • Reply 12 of 14
    jb510jb510 Posts: 129member
    Those stats are monumentally misleading...

    Assuming Rescuecom gets an equal number of repairs from each brand based on total market share is a ridiculously poor false assumption.  

    Owners are way more likely to call or take Apple products into an Apple Store than to contact Rescuecom. That would not be the case with many of those brands.  i don’t disagree with the generalized conclusion, but a 4th grader should be able to see the fallacy in those “stats”. 
  • Reply 13 of 14
    bkudrlebkudrle Posts: 1unconfirmed, member
    I come from a different perspective. I just spent over $5000 on a new Dell workstation. I have a couple of Apple computers, but as a developer (websites now, used to be desktop software mostly) I wanted a hefty machine with multiple monitors (I have 5 on the Dell) and felt left behind by the Mac desktop in terms of computing power. I am not sure about the multiple monitors, as when I added a second monitor to my old Mac it was seamless, but I am not sure about 5 and Windows 10 has handled them very well, allowing me to change orientation and ordering at will. So far the reliability has been fine for Dell, but I know that is a matter of statistics.
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