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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.

Yup :) I'm taking this with a bagful of salt! Not to say that our Macs aren't going strong and we love every one of them - our 2011 Mac Mini with upped memory and SSD which rocks underneath our TV as a media center, my 2013 rMBP is still as good as new, and my wife's 2015 rMB. Never had an issue with either of them.
 
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.

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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, .....

This part is the only part I sort of disagree with..... #2.

Yes... they do expect you to buy a new device if you want to upgrade... however, from what I've seen our Macs tend to last us 5+ years before we even think about buying new... and that's a pretty long time in technology terms. Also, you have to have a very old Mac for the OS upgrade to be an issue... again, well over 5 years old, so I don't see that as an issue.

On this survey, it's actually amazing some of the lower end Windows devices even scored as well as they do... a friend a couple years ago bought a $250 laptop for their husband and wanted me to see if I could tell them why it was so slow.... The product was so underpowered and bloated with Windows 8 it was like watching grass grow to work with this thing. I don't even see how they could make and try to sell such a POS.
 
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Well, they never asked me - I would have given my 13" Macbook Pro a fail - given that the SSD failed after four and half months, and that the "genius" repair tech at the Apple store wouldn't fix it, blaming me for corrosion that wasn't my fault (the laptop has never had anything spilled on it, nor been taken into a sauna). Fortunately, another service provider resolved the issue...
 
I just bought an Air over a Chromebook with Linux.

The Chromebook isn't exactly BAD. It's actually quite fast. I replaced the 16 GB SSD with a 128 GB one. It's got slots including HDMI which made it very easy to stream stuff to my TV without buying any gizmos, just with a HDMI cable. It's got an OK screen. It's got an OK keyboard. It's got an OK trackpad. It's not very heavy. It's made of plastic. It got a huge scratch somehow, I have no recollection of how it happened. Maybe it was in my bag next to a pen or something.

It's just that I have never managed to make it work 100% correctly. It's got a similar keyboard to Macbook Air's, without PgDn/Up/Home/End buttons. So I would map Search (placed where Caps Lock is on normal laptops) + arrows. I also write Polish and need the diacritical characters. Somehow Linux would constantly lose one of those. I'd get the ąćęłń OR I'd get PgDn and PgUp. One would re-set the other. Then when I figured out how to make everything work, I allowed the laptop to completely discharge. The BIOS setting allowing to start non-Chrome OS re-set itself and the only way to get back into my Linux was to format the SSD, install Chrome OS AGAIN, do some terminal magic and re-install Linux from scratch. And then guess again how exactly I managed to get the keyboard to work. Then discover YouTube stopped working. Or that the clock keeps on resetting to 1 January 1970. I tried three brands of Linux and each of them gave me a different set of problems. I decided to be a smart ass and made an image of the SSD when everything was working, two weeks later I tried to use it and it wouldn't boot.

The trackpad... I wanted right bottom corner to be right click. I reinstalled Linux about eight times on the machine. Sometimes right click worked. Sometimes it didn't. People on forums said, baffled, "but it works here". Then I got it all to work... and suddenly Ubuntu started getting the keyboard buffer stuck. I'd type "laptop" and it would come out as "lpatpo" after three seconds of a break. I had a €249 computer and I spent half of the time putting out fires and fixing things that constantly kept on breaking.

The Air cost me four times as much as the Chromebook. The biggest problem I have encountered so far was that updating El Capitan to 10.11.2 beta switched SIP back on and I had to disable it again. The HORROR. Before the purchase I was thinking, I don't REALLY need it. I have my Chromebook and I can do basic things with it. And the Air is so much more expensive... Now that I've spent 10 days with the Air I see very clearly that I needed it very, very much. It was worth paying four times as much. And I expect it to last me five years. As for the Chromebook... it's in the storage and unless, Gods forbid, my Macbook is stolen or breaks, it will remain in the storage indefinitely. After all these years, Mac OS remains my system of choice, Apple tax or not.
 
This is why in terms of periodic cost of ownership, Apple computers tend to be less expensive than Windows PCs. A Macbook will last 6+ years easily. How many Windows PCs bought 6 years ago (likely running Vista) are still chugging along as well as a 2009 Macbook of some kind? Divide the cost by the number of months of reliable service, and a Mac comes out like a great deal most of the time.
 
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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.

No, 58,000 is a huge sample size. That's something you would understand if you had taken any statistics courses in college, or even attended collage.
 
My MacBook Pro 15" Retina Late 2014, fully spec upgraded, is a beast! I am using it to replace my aging iMac as my home server, central to all my media/e-appliances and a family computer. No complaints, never broke down, I am completely satisfied.
 
OMG? YOUR $1500 laptop WAS BETTER QUALITY THAN YOUR $900 LAPTOP? STOP THE PRESS!

900 is a lot of money for a laptop, especially a windows laptop. I'm not gonna lie I'm still kicking myself for not buying a Mac in the first place.
 
Consumer Reports is great because they say MacBooks are good. Consumer Reports is irrelevant and nobody uses them when they don't recommend the iPhone.

Every Consumer Reports thread has both sceptics and believers, regardless of the headline.
 
Consumer Reports is great because they say MacBooks are good. Consumer Reports is irrelevant and nobody uses them when they don't recommend the iPhone.

People always support a media who tells the truth. It is also true otherwise.
 
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So the MacBook waits until the warranty is up before it does all its failing. If you're covered by EU consumer laws the Samsungs and Gateways and even Acers might look a better prospect in the long term. So long as you don't mind the inconvenience of getting a replacement in the first year. Apologies for the negative spin though. For the useless anecdote, I'm still running a 2008 MBP, got a free replacement GPU around the four year mark but otherwise all pretty reliable.
 
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.
I've been through that several times. Yes, in the end Apple admitted problems and fixed them but it doesn't compensate the amount of hours lost dealing with it. Current rMBP has had the board replaced twice already and I still have to make an appointment for the screen coating issue.
 
Netwalker that's a good point. I wasted hour and hours and hours dealing with us, and the people at the Apple store were singularly unhelpful!
 
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.


Honda is overrated mediocre to junk cars that people have been told they are "superior". They made glass transmissions for years (00-06) and denied it. They have some serious issues with their V6's and deny it. Sorry, Honda is overrated junk.

And there are plenty of old Saturns running around. Usually the original plastic paneled ones. The engine in them runs a long while and the body, well, being plastic tends to hold up well.

Honda's sales were down (contrast to most others which were up this month) in the USA in November:
Honda auto sales decline in November - USA Today
 
Brought a space grey model ~2 months ago. Use it mainly to code via Xcode. Only complaint I have is when on desk, the desk has to be near flat, else MacBook sits on less than four points of contact. It is an annoyance more so than a complaint. I'm buying a glass desk cover to solve issue.

What's the warrantee on your desk?

Honda is overrated mediocre to junk cars that people have been told they are "superior". They made glass transmissions for years (00-06) and denied it. They have some serious issues with their V6's and deny it. Sorry, Honda is overrated junk.

And there are plenty of old Saturns running around. Usually the original plastic paneled ones. The engine in them runs a long while and the body, well, being plastic tends to hold up well.

Honda's sales were down (contrast to most others which were up this month) in the USA in November:
Honda auto sales decline in November - USA Today

His point was exactly the opposite of yours
 
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.

I dunno, their "oversight" resonates pretty well with me, as I've never taken gaming very seriously either.

I get that there are lots of folks who buy machines with very powerful graphics so that they can play immersive 3d games. I'm sure that Apple has investigated the size of that market and found no compelling argument for pursuing it.
 
. . . The car surveys break things down into engine, body, interior, etc. And their surveys are the "gold standard" and track other surveys. . . . .
Hate to bust your bubble, but most car surveys and reports reports are bought and paid for just like political surveys. Thats why you see advertising that says all major brands have a "Car of the Year" or "Best in Class". Nope, no proof, except working around the industry.
 
No, it's not. It's a ridiculously large sample size.
Depends, if survey only queried 2 mac users, then it is not. Without more data, it is simply not possible to guess about the robustness of the survey or determine if it applies to the computers users at large.
 
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