MacBooks Top Consumer Reports Survey in Reliability and Customer Satisfaction

[TheChefRillo]

I have been a Mac user since 2005, when I bought my first eMac. Ever since then I've used Mac's exclusively other than when I was/am forced to use Windows at work and school.

I've had:
eMac
13" MacBook Pro w/ CD Drive
13" MacBook Air
11" MacBook Air
And now a 21.5" iMac.

All I can say is that I've been 100% satisfied with each and every machine. None of them have gotten any viruses or have had any major issues that hurt my experience. Go Apple.

 

[Popeye206]

This is great stuff, now the only thing missing is for Apple to make their computer hardware and software less terrible for gaming. Then I won't have to consider getting a Windows PC ever again.

It is sort of amazing that Apple has never really taken gaming seriously. I have never really understood this oversight. But things can always change.... as they always do.

 

[OldSchoolMacGuy]

It other words, consumers don't think they're the overpriced machines that PC users claim they are and far more are happy with their Apple machines than PCs.

 

[acgmph]

58,000 is a pretty small sample size. And we don't know what questions were asked. If it's anything like their car reliability surveys, I'd take the results with a grain of salt. A confusing or hard to use entertainment system interface has nothing to do with a car's reliability, yet CR lumps them together.

Wish CR showed the questions that were asked. Their article provided not much more info than the chart I posted above.

58,000 is a helluva lot for a survey pop to be deemed representative. The only issue with the survey, that I can find by reading this article, is that the pop is not randomly selected, but they are CR subscribers, so this skews the results. I agree that we should know the questions asked to see if bias was eliminated, nor do we have the data set so we can examine the results. Would love to get this in SPSS

 

[iLilana]

full disclosure. I've used macs since system 1. As well as the apple II ad IIe. This laptop is a WTF to me. There was only one selling point and that was the screen. One port, ****** cpu performance and price increase. who bought this thing and why?

also I have a macbook air and love it. Was able to swap out SSD for a Transcend drive and wow.

 

[justperry]

Sounds like it might be dust.

Err, it's the new Macbook he complained about, it is fan-less.

full disclosure. I've used macs since system 1. As well as the apple II ad IIe. This laptop is a WTF to me. There was only one selling point and that was the screen. One port, ****** cpu performance and price increase. who bought this thing and why?

It's not only the new Macbook the article is about, there have been more MacBooks you know.

 

[smithrh]

58,000 is a pretty small sample size. And we don't know what questions were asked. If it's anything like their car reliability surveys, I'd take the results with a grain of salt. A confusing or hard to use entertainment system interface has nothing to do with a car's reliability, yet CR lumps them together.

Wish CR showed the questions that were asked. Their article provided not much more info than the chart I posted above.

Your assertion is incorrect, as others have noted.

58,000 is a whopping sample size.

 

[LordVic]

58,000 is a helluva lot for a survey pop to be deemed representative. The only issue with the survey, that I can find by reading this article, is that the pop is not randomly selected, but they are CR subscribers, so this skews the results. I agree that we should know the questions asked to see if bias was eliminated, nor do we have the data set so we can examine the results. Would love to get this in SPSS

I didn't realize this. Really skews results.

Thats not to say that Apple hardware doesn't deserve it's technical praises. I was very satisfied with my MacBook Air.

But, when you poll anything, and your sample size is not accurate cross sample of the population you're attempting to figure out, you're results are going to be heavily skewed.

There was a famous political poll that was an example of this. One of the most widely remembered failure was the 1948 presidential polls. The polls predicted Thomas Dewey would defeat Truman handedly, by Landslide. This, as history shows didn't happen. The polls were wrong. Sample size was correct, but the sample target audiences were exclusively for thsoe who read specific media publications. Which did not provide an accurate representation of the population as a whole.

 

[Royksöpp]

I agree 100 percent. I bought an HP laptop for about 900 dollars that only lasted two years. The fans became as loud as a mini vacuum due to constant overheating. The paint on the trackpad and palm rest wore down to the bare plastic. Eventually something inside burned out because it couldn't use battery's anymore and it would only power on when plugged in. And to add to this nightmare machine was windows. I bought a standard 2012 MBP to replace it and that thing was in mint operational and cosmetic condition when I sold it this year to upgrade to a rMPB. I'm not a fanboy by any means but I prefer things that last and are uncomplicated. That's why I've gone Apple and I have no plans on going back.

 

[LordVic]

I agree 100 percent. I bought an HP laptop for about 900 dollars that only lasted two years. The fans became as loud as a mini vacuum due to constant overheating. The paint on the trackpad and palm rest wore down to the bare plastic. And to add to this nightmare machine was windows. I bought a standard 2012 MBP to replace it and that thing was in mint operational and cosmetic condition when I sold it this year to upgrade to a rMPB. I'm not a fanboy by any means but I prefer things that last and are uncomplicated. That's why I've gone Apple and I have no plans on going back.

OMG? YOUR $1500 laptop WAS BETTER QUALITY THAN YOUR $900 LAPTOP? STOP THE PRESS!

 

[Max(IT)]

Is Macbook out for 3 years already?

They are referring to "MacBooks" speaking about all the Apple notebooks, including MacBook, MacBook Pro and MacBook Air.

How can you be satisfied about a computer that overheats like a madman when doing anything remotely CPU heavy with a 480p camera and just one connector?

If you compare it to other ultra portable machines, sure, aluminium beats plastic, but as a product on it's own it's a long way from being any good.

The survey is not only about the MacBook.
Btw the MacBook is a niche product, designed to fit a very specific type of customers that don't need wired connectivity and big processing power

OMG? YOUR $1500 laptop WAS BETTER QUALITY THAN YOUR $900 LAPTOP? STOP THE PRESS!

A $900 laptop in Windows world is a quite high end model.... So yes, it's not supposed to last one year

 

[johngordon]

How can you be satisfied about a computer that overheats like a madman when doing anything remotely CPU heavy with a 480p camera and just one connector?

If you compare it to other ultra portable machines, sure, aluminium beats plastic, but as a product on it's own it's a long way from being any good.

Define "anything remotely CPU heavy"?

I imagine a Venn Diagram of Macbook users, and CPU intensive tasks, with virtually no overlap.

I am perfectly satisfied, despite not having ports I never need, and a 480p camera I never use.

Hope this helps.

 

[iBug2]

58,000 is a pretty small sample size. And we don't know what questions were asked. If it's anything like their car reliability surveys, I'd take the results with a grain of salt. A confusing or hard to use entertainment system interface has nothing to do with a car's reliability, yet CR lumps them together.

Wish CR showed the questions that were asked. Their article provided not much more info than the chart I posted above.

In what universe is 58000 a pretty small sample size? Do determine voter preferences of an entire country, they usually sample 3000-5000 people.

 

[netwalker]

Those laptop failure rates of 10 - 23% are a shame for the computer industry. Good to see Apple on the lower side but as a consumer that pays good money for these products I'd expect more. What if other products/services would show these failure or error rates...

 

[Nicksd84]

Steve Jobs in heaven like:

 

[KdParker]

This matches my experience.

Since I started running windows with boot camp, My Mac has become the best PC that I have ever owned

 

[nsayer]

Are they counting purely hardware reliability?

If so, it sounds like the most reliable Windows computer is a Macbook running boot camp.

 

[Lexdexia]

It is sort of amazing that Apple has never really taken gaming seriously. I have never really understood this oversight. But things can always change.... as they always do.

They're kinda starting now on the software side with Metal for Mac. But hardware wise it's more complicated since majority of Macs are equipped with iGPU and only a few with dGPU. And no matter how much driver overhead Metal can reduce, the hardware limitations of the computers are still there.

The only way Apple will ever break the stigma that 'You can't game on a Mac' is by improving their hardware and start putting dGPU in every MacBook Pro model and every iMac model. Also they'll need to better optimize OS X for gaming.

In no way I'm saying Apple NEEDS to do any of this, they'll still sell lots of computers even if they continue to neglect gaming completely. Just saying it would definitely make their computers more desirable if they could figure out a way to make gaming on a Mac a better experience.

For the moment, I'm fine with playing games via bootcamp on my 15-inch MBP w/ AMD Radeon R9 M370X. The thermal design is wonderful and there was never any throttling issues after 2 hours of non stop gaming.

 

[ignatius345]

full disclosure. I've used macs since system 1. As well as the apple II ad IIe. This laptop is a WTF to me. There was only one selling point and that was the screen. One port, ****** cpu performance and price increase. who bought this thing and why?

Eh, the first Macbook Air was pretty severely compromised as well, and it later became an amazing all-around machine. As long as you're patient enough to wait for at least v2 of any brand new Apple product line, you can just let the early adopters feel the pain and work out the kinks.

I mean, I agree with you on all counts, but I look at these first versions of new machines as kind of public betas -- the parts that work will trickle down to the better versions later.

 

[ignatius345]

Those laptop failure rates of 10 - 23% are a shame for the computer industry. Good to see Apple on the lower side but as a consumer that pays good money for these products I'd expect more. What if other products/services would show these failure or error rates...

Here's the thing: Apple's service is so good (in my experience, anyway) that if you do happen to get a lemon, it's relatively painless to get the issue fixed or the machine replaced.

 

[JeffyTheQuik]

Because surveys are objective data, or as my friend, Greg says,

People Lie.

 

[ignatius345]

So, people who spend 3x as much for a niche product they know they want end up happier than the "let´s just grab this one, it will probably work. At least its cheap"-crowd..

THREE TIMES the price? "Niche product"? In 1994 maybe, but not today.

 

[JackANSI]

This survey at least comes closer to the reality I've experienced than most.

At work, we replace Dell, Lenovo, and HP laptops about 4 times to every 1 MBP. Granted we only have 12% on MBPs and the PC remainder is split pretty evenly between the 3 names listed.

When I hand out a MBP, I won't hear from the user for about 3-4 years (usually have to pry the old one out of their hands or they buy it from the company). Biggest issue is waning battery life.

When I hand out a Windows-based one, I know it will be less than a year, sometimes, almost 2 and they will be back complaining of all kinds of things. Biggest issues are viruses and broken ports.

Personally, I've been asked by several friends and family now "What laptop should I get to replace my Mac laptop?". My standard response is to upgrade to an SSD if they have not already. It's not a stretch for me to tell someone that they can go 8 years on a MBP for most home uses. 4-5 on rotational storage, another 3-5 on the SSD. Unless they have one of those MBP's with the video/MB issues.



IMHO #1. I think the Windows PC makers could make good laptops, they did "back in the day". It think they caught on to the fact that the better they make them, the less they sell over time. So they started making them to fit their sales schedules. If they can count on someone coming back every 2-3 years, thats better for the bottom line than 4-6 years. Doesn't matter if they don't buy another Dell if HP/Lenovo/etc make the same choices in component suppliers to stay competitive. If Dell loses a customer to HP, chances are HP will lose a customer to Dell, just like the cell carriers do it. Sure, overall satisfaction goes down, but if you're looking for cheap there isn't anything but other PC makers.

In the last few years they've been schooled by Apple on the "better" way to do this.

IMHO #2. Apple's solution to the "good quality leads to fewer YoY sales overall" has been to solder everything down and use the "OS retirement" and "usage scope changes" as their future sales guarantees. Your needs change from 4GB to 8GB RAM? New laptop. Your needs change from 256GB to 512GB storage? New laptop or endlessly fumble with external drives. Want to upgrade to the latest OS? Too bad for you if they leave your device behind, new laptop. It's a smart business plan for Apple, but it makes "loving" the company really hard if you can see it for what it really is.


Take note.. I think you'll see that OS 11.x.x (OS XI? OS 11?) will cut out every Mac laptop/desktop that doesn't have at least soldered RAM or soldered storage below $2350. I also think right around that time everything new, except maybe for the Mac Pro, will have one or both of those upgrade prevention techniques applied.

(No, don't even say it's so they could make something smaller than ever before... Apple has enough pull these days, and margin in their products, that they could define a new thinner, replaceable form factor. They choose not to do that purely for profit. )


Yes, I have a real love/hate Apple thing going on...

 

[Breaking Good]

Consumer Reports has zero credibility with me. They have their own favorites (the favorites of their readers) and they make sure their favorites always get good ratings. Contrary to what they espouse, they are not an unbiased source for evaluations of products.

Case in point, in 1995 they rated the Saturn automobile higher than the Honda Civic. Where is Saturn/GM now? Where is Honda?

I know this because I bought a 1995 Saturn and for the two years I owned it I had nothing but problems. Traded it in after two years on a 1997 Honda Civic which I finally got rid of this year.

Curiously, SquareTrade, whose information I trust way more than Consumer Reports, reports that Asus followed by Toshiba have the lowest defects while Apple falls somewhere in the middle with Dell and Lenovo. HP ranks dead last.

 

[mr.steevo]

Is Macbook out for 3 years already?

Hard to believe it's been almost a decade now.

https://www.apple.com/pr/library/20...Book-Featuring-Intel-Core-Duo-Processors.html