Survey rates good and bad computer companies

Last week PC World reported on the results of a survey of 79,000 "tech aficionados". The goal of the survey was to identify the companies providing the best tech support and service.

I found it interesting because, in part, Defensive Computing means dealing with good companies and avoiding the bad ones.

Here's an executive summary from the article

Put simply, products made by Apple, Asus, Brother, and Canon are typically reliable and well supported. Products made by Dell and Hewlett-Packard often aren't, especially if you're a home user.

As with every such survey, Apple scored well, no news here.

For laptop computers, Asus was the top rated Windows vendor, followed by Toshiba. Dell and HP were rated poorly. Asus was rated highly not only for their hardware but also their phone support. Toshiba only scored well on hardware. For desktop computers, Asus again scored well.
 
Canon printers are described as "a perennial favorite", and the survey also found Brother printers gaining in popularity.

Canon has ruled the printer and camera categories for years, but it's now facing some stiff competition. Brother's printers are comparable with Canon's in reliability, according to readers' reports, but Canon retains the edge in customer support ... Hewlett-Packard consumer printers remain in the cellar.

Speaking of HP consumer printers, someone I know recently purchased a new, highly-rated HP all-in-one, and they hate it. Compared to their older HP all-in-one, the new one is noisy and slow.

And, not an hour before writing this posting, I was helping someone install another HP all-in-one. A quick search found the page at hp.com with the necessary drivers. The "Full Feature Software and Driver" was over 300 megabytes, which seems quite a bit excessive. The "Basic Print and Scan Driver" was 185 megabytes, also likely to include some unnecessary software.

Fortunately, there were also "Enterprise Solution" drivers, for "IT Professional Use Only" whatever that means. These drivers were only 26 megabytes and worked just fine.   

It was a bit surprising to read that "Year after year, readers proclaim HP one of the biggest losers in our Reliability and Service Survey." On the other hand, the article also pointed out that "... Dell and HP business customers are far happier than Dell and HP home computer owners."

The survey also rates smartphones, cameras and HDTVs. Read it here: The Tech Brands You Can Trust.