back to article Macs not all that for reliability

A survey of 30,000 laptops has found one in three machines die within three years and netbooks do even worse, suffering 20 per cent more hardware failures than larger laptop machines. Apple is fourth placed for reliability behind, in ascending order, Sony, Toshiba and in first place Asus. To be fair to Apple there's not much …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    WTF?

    Are you using Google Docs?

    Would it hurt to show a little bar chart instead of spelling out every single percentage?

  2. qwertyuiop
    Troll

    Does it matter?

    Who cares if a Mac fails inside three years? With the blessed Steve pumping out a new piece of kit that the faithful MUST buy every couple of years, they don't need to last that long!

  3. badgers
    Paris Hilton

    Surprised to see HP in that position

    I've always thought HP's reliability was very good indeed, far better than Dell anyway. As for one in four failures - I've not seen that at all with my fleet of HP notebooks.

    But I'll bow to the god of statistics and accept these results.

    I think this should have been combined with some sort of evaluation of the warranty support of these devices. As reliable as sony are, if it's a nightmare to repair a machine, then it's still worth going for the manufacturer that has a prompt and efficient warranty support, even if those machines are going to be a few % less reliable.

    Paris, 'cos she's not too reliable either.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Failure rate does not measure reliability

    The different failure rates may be due to different patterns of usage. For example, I would treat a cheap computer less carefully than an expensive computer, and a smaller laptop is more likely to be carried around and subjected to mechanical shock. Also, a computer that is a pleasure to use is likely to be subjected to heavier use than a computer that is a pain to use and takes forever to boot.

    I am reminded of the rebuttal I once received when I said how robust my army-style walking boots were. "They're so uncomfortable that you'll never wear them and they'll last forever", I was told. I do still have them, actually, in the garage somewhere ...

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I'm no fan of apple but...

    Shouldn't this article be titled ‘HPs NOT ALL THAT FOR RELIABILITY’

  6. Ebeneezer Wanktrollop
    Thumb Down

    Not biased then?

    'The research, from SquareTrade which flogs extended warranties'

    Of course a quarter of them fail. No, honest Guv - we researched it! We're not in any way biased towards the results of this survey so best you buy an extended warranty just in case.

  7. Wrenchy
    Linux

    REALLY????

    That study seems to make sense. I was at a Best Buy bringing my wife's HP laptop in for the 3rd frickin time. At the service counter, two people brought in their Mac laptops with issues. They did not seem too enthusiastic about being there.

    Looks like the 'superior' Mac hardware doesn't seem so bullet-proof after all as the stats prove. Perhaps Apple should change their slogan to "It just works... Except when it doesn't"

  8. jason 7
    Stop

    Arent laptops like washing machines?

    As in there are many 'brands' but only about three companies in the world actually make/assemble them?

    Same with many other items, TVs, cookers etc. etc.

  9. Pete 2 Silver badge

    Doesn't matter

    but they're pretty and shiny and lovely and special and make me think I'm better and more gifted and more intelligent and more creative than those dull and ordinary people who use other kinds of computers that only let you get your work done and don't say "look at me" I'm different from everybody else.

    Pauses to catch breath.

  10. Paul 25
    Thumb Up

    Netbooks get more abuse

    I would think that most netbooks get much more abuse than more expensive and larger laptops. I wouldn't think of chucking my laptop around, but I'd be much more rough with a lightweight, and cheap netbook.

    For some people that's the whole point, most netbooks are so cheap that people are less bothered if they break and are more likely to carry them round.

  11. Toastan Buttar
    Thumb Down

    Hmmmmmmm

    "The research, from SquareTrade which flogs extended warranties......"

    I stopped reading right about there.

  12. Jason Bloomberg Silver badge
    Headmaster

    Failure rate

    "The research ... found overall 31 per cent of machines will fail within 36 months - which is worse than most consumer electronics".

    As SquareTrade states in their PDF, "This comes as no surprise, given that laptops contain far more sophisticated mechanical and delicate electronic components than most other electronic devices".

    That headline failure rate also includes "accidents". When accidents are taken out of the equation, failure rates over 36 months drop from near 1 in 3 to nearer 1 in 5, 20.4%

    I'm no Apple fanboi but don't really see the need to headline "Macs not all that for reliability" when they aren't that far removed from the three above and next below. "HP have crappiest reliability" would have been a more fair and accurate headline based on the figures.

  13. LesB
    WTF?

    Odd spin...

    So, the figure show that Apple's portables are less likely to fail than those made by Dell, HP and Lenovo, but your spin on this is to suggest that Macs are unreliable.

    Was this article sponsored by the same MS droids responsible for the totally spontaneous and not at all arranged dance routine video?

  14. Michael Brown
    Flame

    El Reg anti-Apple bias

    This is really starting to get a bit tedious.

    Lets look at the conclusion of the actual report:

    "ASUS and Toshiba come out on top. With 3 year malfunction rates forecast to be under 16%, laptops from these two manufacturers are nearly 40% more reliable than Hewlett-Packard, the worst performer in our study. Sony and Apple also performed better than the average."

    That's the only explicit mention of Apple in the text of the report , and it's positive. How you managed to spin that into a negative title about Apple's reliability puts you on a level with the lowest of political spin doctors. And if that wasn't enough, by using the word "Macs" instead of "Mac laptops" or "Macbooks" you're tarring all Macs with this ridiculously biased and inflammatory title.

    There are any number of accurate and unbiased titles you could have used for this report:

    - Asus tops laptop reliability survey

    - HP last in laptop reliability survey

    - Netbooks suffer poor reliability

    But no, you had to invent an anti-Apple angle. Pretty pathetic really, but what we've come to expect unfortunately.

  15. Wibble
    Jobs Halo

    Apple gets the headline

    So, the two largest manufacturers, Dell and HP, have worse reliability figures.

    But we all love Apple, so because of the Apple headline, I'm reading this.

    If it were HP and Dell less reliable than Asus, I doubt if I'd bother reading it. Apple sells:-)

  16. Dan Wilkinson
    Thumb Down

    Nice headline...

    The story has nothing to do with Macs tho has it? No more than any other manufacturer, and probably less as they were not the best, or the worst. I suggest you change "Macs" to "Toshiba" or "Netbooks" and stop wearing your heart on your straplines.

  17. Bassey

    Revealing

    Whilst the failure rate figures are revealing, two other factors strike me as at least as important;

    1) What failed? Data loss is by far the most important. If it's just a speaker driver blown, who cares?

    2) How well/quickly was it fixed and at what cost?

    I've never been a huge fan of Dell hardware but I've found their support to be excellent. The wife's laptop suffered a mobo failure after nine-months. The following day, someone turned up with a replacement mobo, swapped it out and had her back up and running (with data) very quickly. Asus have always been excellent too.

    My experiences of HP are rather less flattering. Even recalling them is akin to a 'nam flashback (you don't know. You weren't there, man!). No experience with the others but I hope the Sony technical staff are more knowledgeable than their sales staff!

  18. King John

    new stuff

    Eeee by gum, they dont mek em' like they did in my day lad...

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    know your rights

    It is important to know your rights in the UK when buying goods. My Tosh A10 failed after about two years of operation; Tosh engineer report confirmed it was a failure rather than user damage ... but E-buyer refused to recognise the law, stating that it was outside the one year manufacturer warantee so they wanted nothing to do with it ... even after I quoted the law at them.

    In the last ditch attempt before taking them to court, in which E-buyer would have been soundly thrashed, I contacted my credit card company, wo quickly came to a settlement and then chased e-buyer themselves.

    So, lesson learned ... alwasy use a credit card to back up any expensive purchases and read up on your rights - http://www.consumerdirect.gov.uk/after_you_buy/ - keep paperwork and ... avoid retailers like eBuyer, who seem to think that the consumer legislation doesn't apply to them.

  20. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Hard to believe ...

    I've had one for at least 5 years and its still fine. Meanwhile I have had two friends experience the failure of two Vaio's each in less than eighteen months. Display related. They cost the same (or more) as my Mac. The hardware is quite robust and the DVD drive is still 100% fine -- I find these tend to go on PC lappy's real quick.

    On the other hand, Apple's after sale service is absolute dogshit, though. I've found it hard to credit just how bad it is.

  21. magnetik
    Dead Vulture

    Baiting

    C'mon Reg this is poor journalism. Do you have to put that title just to get people to read the story?

    BTW it's interesting that in a story supposedly about Mac reliability you don't mention anything about the MacBook Pro unibody case which is bound to change Apple's stats in the coming years.

  22. mrweekender
    Thumb Up

    I agree..

    ..I've always recommended Asus kit to people over the years due to it's solid reputation. I also had a premium Asus laptop for about 3 years and never had a single problem with the hardware. The operating system supplied was a different matter - Vista = Shit - but dual boot set up with Ubuntu and XP sorted that.

    I've had a 13" MacBook Pro for 3 months now and I can't fault it, and would certainly recommend it. I'd like to see a 13" decent spec (not netbook) Asus running Ubuntu - I think there's a gap in the market for a no nonsense, secure, reliable, fairly cheap, office/internet type "work book". An official install option to dual boot Windows like the MacBook (bootcamp) for gaming, would be the icing on the cake.

  23. Gordon 10

    From a company that flogs extended warrantees

    Is anyone shocked that the research shows what they want it to show? For what its worth I have owned (and fiddled with) several of the manufactures listed and never had a problem

  24. Kurgan

    Interesting, but...

    This is surely interesting, but I suppose that a lot depends on the price range, not only on the brand. If you buy a cheap laptop, it will probably use the worst components available, whichever the brand.

    It would also be interesting to know what component failed: hard disk, ram, mainboard, power supply, screen. We all know that sometimes entire batches of hard disks are crap, and since disks are used cross-brand, we could see that maybe all of the Dell and Apple failures were caused by the same brand of hard disk which failed.

    Anyway, in my experience (Dell, Asus, Toshiba, HP, Acer) I had a lot of troubles with Acer (mainly mainboards and backlight) and various "side" defects on the other brands (disks on every brand, and some backlights with Sony and Toshiba). So, it seems that Acer really sucks.

  25. Sarah Bee (Written by Reg staff)

    puzzlement

    "Why did you put something not especially positive about Macs in the headline of the story I have clicked through to and am now commenting on?"

    Believe me, I'm just as bewildered as all of you. I'm investigating on your behalf as we speak.

  26. BristolBachelor Gold badge
    Thumb Down

    Not surprised HP last

    John Oats says "It seems for laptops, as so much else, you really do get what you pay for. " (still having a dig at people on UK2?)

    Well I bought an HP HDX-18 laptop. Cost 2000 hard-earned pounds. Classed as a "Premium". Even recommended in the Reg review.

    Broke in the first month. On the support site, others with similar complaints. Took a month to fix. Within 3 months, the same fault again (I'm just ignoring the fault now unless it turns off the sound or WiFi again)

    I would've bought the Asus or Sony if it weren't for their keyboards. Lenovo lost out (or I did!) because I couldn't justify another 1000 quid. Apple chose to be out of the race because they didn't have anything with the resolution (I mean, honestly who wants HD? certainly not media creators or editors!)

  27. Scott 9
    Flame

    Let the flames begin

    I can save the Mac fans the trouble and just post what they're going to say---repetitive bunch don't you know:

    A. Failure rate doesn't matter, people buy Macs for the "experience," and that esoteric value stands out above all else.

    B. Macs *still* did better than some of the others.

    C. The analysis was biased/unfair, the true view of a Mac is only the best one.

    Just pick a letter and go for it. As for me I have an 18 month old Compaq/HP that's still going strong.

  28. Richard 20
    WTF?

    Surely title should include HP, not Apple

    Ok, as every reader here knows you, are not invited to Apple's various shindigs. Why can't you just get over it instead of employing petulant headlines as seen above.

    Would a simple graph of the data have been so hard to append?

  29. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    A breakdown...

    ... so to speak, of which components are most likely to fail may shed some helpful extra light on all this. For example, a bad batch of hard drives may affect several laptop manufacturers, bringing them all down in reliability by similar degrees. Usage patterns and demographics would also be handy.

    I assume the data is already outdated, as the products reported on will be already two or three years old, but nonetheless I would have expected Apple to score higher due to their perceived premium nature, although I have heard anecdotal reports of declining reliability in the past. Whilst this in itself wouldn't stop me buying an Apple laptop, the generally poor reliability of all laptops as a group might.

    A non-rabid Mac user. Yes, really.

  30. blackworx

    Interesting

    I wonder how much of these "failures" are down to the user demographic.

    I've had loads of supposedly broken machines handed to me with a stuffed registry, dripping malware, broken power socket, or other user-initiated breakdown. Almost without fail these machines are bargain basement Acers and HPs bought from PC World by people whose sole purpose in life is apparently to avoid ever gleaning anything close to a clue about how _not_ to break computers.

    Likewise, how many are failing because they are lowest-cost bulk corporate purchases handed out to bottom feeders who use their machines all day every day and have little or no motivation to look after them properly?

  31. Jess--

    @Kurgan

    I wouldn't be too quick to say that acer laptops suck, I have an old acer aspire 1312 that has really been through the wars.

    it gets used outdoors to operate a sound and lighting system 6 months a year and has minimal shielding from the weather, as a result it picks up sand, salt and rain almost on a daily basis.

    the machine has only failed once and that was due to rain (water poured out of it when it was picked up) after letting it dry out for 6 hours it carried on working perfectly.

    I will admit the battery life leaves a lot to be desired these days (6 seconds on a full charge) but as the machine never runs on batteries thats no problem

  32. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Really? Colour me shocked

    Mac's generally have been very poor in the reliability stakes since the introduction of the angle-poise model, although I've been told the cube wasn't much use either in that regard.

    Wouldn't touch one with a barge-pole.

  33. Michael Jennings

    I care more about service.

    As other people have said, likelihood of failure depends on how people use the laptop as much as the actual quality of it. My mother loves having a laptop, but treats it gently and seldom takes it out of the house. On the other hand, I have been known to cart mine around South America in a backpack. I probably buy physically tougher machines than she does, but hers last longer than mine.

    What matters more than failure time is the quality of after sales service. I have had laptops from Dell, Sony, and Apple. Apple's service has been the best. Dell's is sort of middling (but that's expected given their products are cheaper) and Sony's has been by far the worst. I don't know what other peoples experiences have been.

  34. Jolyon

    Does this take into account

    a) all the anecdotal evidence of laptops that have / haven't gone wrong for Reg readers this millennium? I read a survey once and its findings about the generality of experience didn't match my personal findings which must be a flaw worth telling everyone about.

    b) the Macs damaged by stamping during hissy fits?

  35. Anonymous Coward
    WTF?

    Never mind the frequency, compare the experience...

    £2k 17" MacBookPro. A month in, and the screen throws it's toys. Big vertical splodgy flickery line.

    Next-day three year onsite warranty as standard? Oh, no.

    One year, with (expensive) optional three year extension.

    But it's gotta be NBD on-site, right?

    Oh, no. Ring around to find the local Apple Service Centre, TAKE IT TO THEM, then wait over a week to be allowed to go and get it back. No loan machine, nothing.

  36. John Ridley 1

    I've noticed this myself

    All my friends who have Apple laptops are always singing about how reliable they are...and forgetting that they've returned them for service twice in the last year. Seriously, most of them have had more trouble with their Apple kit than I have with either Dell, Toshiba or MSI. My old Compaq was a total loser, so that fits in with the horrible HP/Compaq rating here.

    Having talked to friends (many of whom are consultants for businesses with dozens of laptops, so plenty of experience), when my kid needed a laptop to go off to college, we went shopping with "anything but HP" as the rule.

  37. EvilGav 1

    @ Mac Fans

    Why put Mac in the title ? Quite obvious really, the mantra is that Apple products cost more because they are better than everyone else - yet this specific report doesn't bear out that assumption.

    Plus, of course, it's a really easy flame bait.

  38. The Fuzzy Wotnot
    Thumb Up

    Pretty obvious though!

    Yeah, but is anything built to last these days?

    12 months ago I ripped out my kitchen, put in all new everything myself, all applicances changed. Within 6 weeks, the dishwasher, the washing machine and the oven all had to go back, all different makes, all different sources!

    I own Apple kit, several machines in fact, but I have no more faith in any of it lasting me more than 18 month, than the HP kit it replaced! I know it will blow up, so I keep backups and I make sure I can live without it, at a pinch. I pay insurances where I feel it's worth it! Nothing lasts anymore.

    The manufacturers do NOT want anything to last. Once the market is saturated, where to? Nowhere. So...make it out of inferior parts and hopefully it will blow up in 18 months, then the mug, sorry customer will have to buy a new one!

    Simple and obvious!

  39. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Personal experience

    I've owned Mac laptops nearly continuously since 1992. When one REALLY fails, I wait for a year or two and then buy another.

    I'm on my third one, right now, with the previous two both lasting more than six years. The last few years are punctuated by reduced functionality, as bits and bobs break and OSes leave the CPU behind, but that happens to people, too.

    I'm not claiming this as typical, but it's worth a tiny bit of customer loyalty on my part.

  40. Tim Almond

    Lenovo?

    Quite surprised at how Lenovo did - would have expected higher, although if the sample size is quite small then a percentage or 2 either way would be OK.

  41. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    @Michael Brown the Mactard

    The reason Macs get the mention is rather simple. Apple is the only one of the manufacturers who explicitly claim to be more reliable than PCs (in general) in their advertising. What the article seemed to show, albeit not as clearly as I would have liked, is that the strongest correlation for reliability comes on price, and if you buy a premium PC (like a Sony) you will get something more reliable than the Mac, but if you buy cheaper then you get something less reliable.

    Apple set themselves up for this type of reporting by explicitly trying to claim they are better than 95% of the computers out there (the PCs) and as such I have no sympathy for them. If they tried to sell computers on why they think they are good, instead of why they think PCs are bad, it would be a little less irritating.

  42. richard 69
    WTF?

    apple in the title?

    why? to justify the 'apple are expensive' angle????

    go and price one up against the exact same spec'ed sony and see how much more they are...

    my powerbook is now in its 6th year and going great.

    very poor editorial judgement by the register on this one....

  43. Michael C
    Thumb Down

    Bad Data

    Keep in mind, the BULK of Apple machines failing in their 3rd year are the 1st generation intels, which had 1) a mainboard recall, 2) battery issues, 3) heat disipation issues, and 4) fualty hinge systems that lead to display failure.

    I'd like to see the data broken out to show the 2nd and 3rd generation Apple notebook failure rates seperate from Gen 1.

    On a side note, we recently (about 2 years ago) sold a fully functional Lisa and a Mac 512ke to a museum. About 6 months ago I sold a 17" iMac (lampshade) for $750 on ebay. We have in our posession a fully functional original blue iMac still in use, a G4 cube, a G3 tower, an original edition iBook clam (orange), a 1st generation intel iMac (still used daily), and a 1st generation Intel MacBook Pro 15" (used daily). A few have gone through hard disk drives, and the original iMac needed a motherboard after a surge (and discovering dad had it connected to a surge protector that appeared to be as old as he was), but other than that, none have required repairs.

    It should ALSO be noted, the large majority of Mac users buy waranties. The large majority of other buyers accept the default policy offered and by no extended coverage. This means most macs failing in their 3rd year are repaired free (inclusive of those covered by extended waranties due to voluntary recall notices, which includes at this point nearly all the original intel mac notebooks).

    I'd also like to see numbers for 4th and 5th year, and beyong reliability. I've never had a PC last more than 4 years before tossing it as some repair simply "wasn't worth it vs a new purchase", but several of my 4+ year old macs I'd bother to repair if the part was under $200-300.

  44. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    worse than most electronics I'll bloody say

    How many of us have seen decade old laptops still going strong?

    How about 20GB hard drives that, having been thrashed for a decade, still work?

    Buy a new laptop, or a 1TB hard drive today and if it's not broken when you open the box, it'll be broken the day after the warranty expires.

    I suppose that's the price you pay for cheap, fast, capacious computing. Does it's job, but not for long.

    You bought a PC in the early 90s and you got a thick steel case you could park a hummer on top of. Buy a PC now and you get cheap plastic crap broken right out of the box. Even from Apple.

    Don't spose anyone really cares anymore though.

  45. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Mac and Lenovo

    Did the report separate out the cheapass sections of the manufacturer's ranges for Mac non-pro and Lenovo non-Thinkpad? If not, it's not really much of a report because it is mixing up kit that is designed and built to be inexpensive with seriously well made seriously expensive kit.

    When I used to do hardware standards I'd always as a laptop manufacturer if I could drop their laptop everyone except IBM/Lenovo said no, IBM/Lenovo said, "yup and you can stand on it as well if you want."

  46. Anonymous Coward
    Boffin

    HP poor from experience

    Of the 11 HP laptops we have in our office, I believe that my laptop and maybe one or two others are the only one which hasn't had a warranty repair in the 2.5 years we've had them - though mine came with 2 cracks in the case due to the person assembling it tightening the screws to much and splitting the plastic socket.

    One laptop has had 3 display repairs!

  47. Rob Dobs
    FAIL

    FAIL on reporting!!!

    Huge FAIL el Reg.... THIS IS NOT A VALID STUDY OR ARTICLE.

    Reg: please cease to publish ANY study in which the manufacturer is proving a study (conducted by themselves) that shows that the public should buy their product. We might as well listen to the Cigarette companies studies that showed time and time again that cigarettes did not cause cancer!!!

    These studies are not worth ANYTHING!

    Readers:

    Please don't blindly start arguing about a study before looking to see if its valid, don't buy a statistic just because its printed. Everyone here should have seen this is a study by an extended warranty company that shows Shock! Horror! that people should but their product.

    This is a study of a group of 30,000 people ALL of who have decided to purchase aftermarket warranties for their laptop. Read: this means they have been burned already and are NOT representative of the market as a whole. More accurately they could be expected to be a study group who would have FAR WORSE rates of failure due to their very interest in paying money to a 3rd pary vendor for an extended laptop warranty.

    Worse the study mentions that HP shipped more laptops than ANYONE else. So if you ship a whole lot more than anyone else, you will have more failure rates than say someone shipping half as many or less. No mention that the study normalized this factor market represntation.

    FAIL

  48. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Missing from the list: toughbooks.

    I would've liked to see panasonic toughbooks mentioned, but oh well. Sad but not surprising to see lenovo well down on the list. They really don't know how to love the thinkpad brand.

  49. Annihilator
    Pint

    Premium - not so much

    I believe the underlying point of the article is that for a "premium" brand of machines, Apple's not the most reliable. Which flies in the face of what Apple will tell you - what's the premium price tag for again? If the story were "Dell reliability is shit", people would file it under the "Sky is blue" category of stories.

    Dell are in the market of pile em high, sell em cheap - don't come crying to anyone if they break down, they're a comodity. Lenovo on the other hand, I still see as a business laptop that gets straight-line depreciated over 3 years and written off, not even the accountants care about longevity. Acer are the only surprise on there for me.

    Agree with the comments above of things lasting longer that were built years ago. That's pretty much always been true tho. My 30yr old telly still works, my 1.2GB HD still spins happily (noisy as hell, but always was)

  50. Ivan Headache

    @Robert Long

    "Mac's generally have been very poor in the reliability stakes since the introduction of the angle-poise model, although I've been told the cube wasn't much use either in that regard."

    Got any proof or is it just hearsay?

    I've been in the Mac business doing support since before the dawn of the PPC chip. In my experience the Anglepoise iMac has been the most reliable iMac ever. I've only every seen 1 failure out of probably a hundred or more that I've been involved with. We have 2 here, working reliably as main machines day in day out. I have clients who will not sell Cubes no matter how much you offer them. The least reliable mac in my experience is the 1st edition G5 imac closely followed by the first Intel model.. With towers, the G5 had issues with the liquid cooling and with some PSUs - similarly the G4 model had iffy PSUs.

    If I get a hardware failure it's invariable the HD - something that Apple don't make.

    Anyway - It's a rubbish headline.

  51. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    @Michael C

    "I'd like to see the data broken out to show the 2nd and 3rd generation Apple notebook failure rates seperate from Gen 1."

    Are there any 3yr old Gen 2/3s? Yes, I think those numbers would look quite healthy, if you ignore the numbers you don't like because there were niggly issues with battery, mainboard, cooling and display. Zepplins were quite reliable if you don't count the ones that blew up.

    "We have in our posession a fully functional original blue iMac still in use, a G4 cube, a G3 tower, an original edition iBook clam (orange), a 1st generation intel iMac (still used daily), and a 1st generation Intel MacBook Pro 15" (used daily). A few have gone through hard disk drives, and the original iMac needed a motherboard after a surge (and discovering dad had it connected to a surge protector that appeared to be as old as he was), but other than that, none have required repairs."

    Yup, my broom has had 3 replacement heads and 2 new shafts. It's perfect.

    "It should ALSO be noted, the large majority of Mac users buy waranties. The large majority of other buyers accept the default policy offered and by no extended coverage. This means most macs failing in their 3rd year are repaired free (inclusive of those covered by extended waranties due to voluntary recall notices, which includes at this point nearly all the original intel mac notebooks)."

    They're not repaired free. You BUY a warranty. How are you managing to justify failure rates simply because Mac owners like to spend money?

    "I'd also like to see numbers for 4th and 5th year, and beyong reliability. I've never had a PC last more than 4 years before tossing it as some repair simply "wasn't worth it vs a new purchase", but several of my 4+ year old macs I'd bother to repair if the part was under $200-300."

    Because it's cheaper to buy a replacement PC, compared to buying a new Mac? I'd suggest the "wasn't worth it vs a new purchase" comparison is quite different when you're buying a "premium" product.

    Really really surprised - you usually write very well reasoned comments.

  52. Michael Brown
    Flame

    @AC 13:18 GMT

    I'm not aware of any Apple advertising that claims that Macs are more reliable than PCs in terms of hardware reliability, which is what this study was about. They do claim (correctly) that Macs are a lot more reliable than PCs in terms of the OS, but that's got nothing to do with this study.

    Just because you find Apple adverts irritating is not a justification for a supposedly independent IT news site like El Reg to spin a report that's basically positive about Apple (it's conclusion is that Apple laptops have above average reliability) into a ridiculously negative title about Apple.

  53. windywoo
    Jobs Horns

    Dim much Rob Dobs?

    Of course the data is normalised, Dell has around 3 to 4 times the number of sales Apple do and they are only about 1% behind Apple in that chart. Unless Dells have super low breakdown rates I think this shows that the people making the report are smarter than you give them credit for.

    The data of a 31% percent over all failure rate is the only statistic that can be questioned as having some bias, as that is what will suggest to users that they need a warranty. The percentage of failure rates by company is not relevant to whether one should purchase a warranty or not, unless Square Trade really want to target HP customers.

    As has been mentioned, Apple get special mention because they make wild claims about their reliability over other PCs. This isn't the first reliability study I have seen that suggests they are exaggerating.

  54. Eradicate all BB entrants

    Reason for title is simple.....

    .... they are the only manufacturer in the survey who claim 'It just works'

    Should change it to '82.6% just work, tho if you included that debacle of an OS called OSX 0.001% just work'

    How do I know? Cos im writing this on a crappy macbook.

  55. Robbie Bain
    Flame

    Acer... and AC

    Almost as important as failure rate is the actual level of service you get when you RMA something. Acer were appalling in that regard when my netbook died - it took 6 trips back to the warranty center for them to admit it was actually broken and unfixable, and to replace it...

    Also, to the AC whining about not getting an on-site warranty with his Mac... On-site warranties are not very common with personal laptop purchases, unless you pay through the nose for one of those mostly-scam schemes. Sounds to me like you gave them the machine and a week later it was fixed... What are you whinging about? You wanted a courtesy machine for that week? Poor diddums...

  56. Daniel Pimley
    Badgers

    Damn lies and statistics

    Nice to know the average Reg reader is as credulous as everybody else when the statistics "prove" your own point of view.

  57. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @ Michael Brown

    <quote>They do claim (correctly) that Macs are a lot more reliable than PCs in terms of the OS, but that's got nothing to do with this study.</quote>

    Oh really? And exactly what evidence can they produce to justify this marketing-bullshit claim? (Serious question).

  58. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Re. know your rights

    Yep, as Michelle Knight indicated, buyers in the UK should really check up on their rights. Forget extended warranties, the Sale of Goods Act is your friend, don't be fobbed off by out of warranty excuses or suppliers sending you off to contact the manufacturer - the contract of sale is with them.

  59. Michael Brown
    Jobs Halo

    @AC 16:46

    When was the last time a Mac ground to a halt because of a virus or being part of a bot-net? Oh, that's right, NEVER. On the other hand, depending on which study you read, anything from 15% to 35% of PCs world wide are infected with some kind of bot-net, virus, spyware or other type of malware.

  60. Rob Dobs

    I disagree Windywoo

    Without the data behind the study we have no idea what the breakdown rates really are in the market.

    We have no reason to believe these numbers are normalized, and what they give us suggests otherwise.

    They took 30,000 "randomly selected" people who had already purchased warranty service. This group appears to be simply broken down into what percentage of this group of 30k had problems, and with which manufacturer. This group is horribly mis-representative of the general public.

    The malfunction rate listed in the table is % of failure per manufacturer, from their group of 30k not from MARKET.

    Other key factors in the study results

    -They estimated 3rd year results based on the change from 1st to 2nd year data

    -The other group that did poor (Acer/Gateway) also happens to be the #2 shipper of laptops.

    -Only NEW system purchased were considered, which would hurt any vendors ranking that might work well with 2nd owners

    -As big business is unlikely to purchase extended warranties from third party vendors they are not represented on this list either

    -Only problems reported to SquareTrade were included:

    -Not Included in their numbers:

    -Problems handled under warranty

    -Product recalls

    -Problems reported to or fixed by the Manufacturer

    -Problems fixed by software or firmware updates

    -That's a whole lot of problems that would affect your ownership, that are NOT considered.

    with all these exceptions, the findings are useless

    Now does this company have it in for Apple? Probably not, I would agree with you that it may be safe to extract from this study at least that Apple is likely not the quality product that they purport themselves to be. .

    You can trust that companies like this are smarter than YOU if you wish, I will go the other route and mistrust them when they don't lay it on the table. Worse they are using this study to promote their product, which calls into question their handling, collection and reporting of said data. They have a vested interest in reporting these numbers as artificially high. Were this verified or conducted by a third party, or by a party with no vested interest I would be more inclined to take it at face value.

    Oh and isn't it funny that the MOST popular 2 laptop vendors (read largest markets) happens to be the group this paper targets as needed an extended warranty the most.

    As it stands this to me is a worthless article based on worthless data. I hope its not a total waste, and we can all learn to be more critical of studies and reports and those that feed us info. This is subtle pandering at best, and at worst, shady, despicable marketing practices. I will avoid like the plague services or studies done by this company.

  61. Anonymous Coward
    Badgers

    Re: Surprised to see HP in that position

    You shouldn't be Badgers. Please read up on the Carly Fiorina CEO debacle and enlighten yourself. HP are very much in a recovery period after this dimwit managed to halve the value of the company between 1999-2005. The resultant massive job losses didn't help much either. When the board has to sack the CEO you know things aren't going quite as well as they should be!

  62. Sean Timarco Baggaley
    Stop

    Odd.

    The two oldest, still-working laptops in my family are an Acer Ferrari 3000 LMi (or similar; the first of the "Ferrari" models anyway), and my mother's paving-slab of an HP. Both are around six years old. Both get a lot of use, though the cooling fans in both appear to be on the way out now.

    My brother was the first person I knew who bought a Mac laptop—a PowerbookG4 12" model—and, guess what? That's still working too. (He used to DJ with it and it's still his main laptop.)

    I've owned quite a few Macs since 2005, (I upgraded frequently as I'm an ex-programmer and developer, and Apple kit tends to hold its value rather well, so it makes sense to sell on and buy new every 12 to 18 months or so. I'm a techie. So sue me.) The family also has an ancient Sony, two cheap and nasty Asus "Pundit" desktop PCs (built by me nearly 7 years ago) and a fairly recent Asus laptop.

    The Acer and HP models have had to be serviced once, in the dim and distant past. (The former's optical drive failed. The latter had the same problem my current MacBook Pro had: a dud battery which refused to recharge. In both cases, the batteries were manufactured by, er, Sony!)

    I claim my statistically irrelevant anecdotal evidence award!

    Oh yes: you do realise that those Extended Warranty companies often cover "accidental" damage too, right?

    "Gosh, my expensive warranty runs out in a month or two!"

    >>CRASH!<<

    "WHOOPS! Butterfingers!"

    >>tap-tap-tap... ringgg... click... "this call may be recorded for training purposes... your call is important to us..."<<

    (30 minutes on an 0845 premium rate number later...)

    "Yay! I'm getting a brand new laptop!"

    (Meanwhile, at the extended warranty company...)

    "I say, have you noticed how few laptops manage to survive three years?"

    "Yes! And an awful lot of them seem to break just before those three years are up!"

    "Amazing! Who knew, eh? I think there's a press release in this..."

  63. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    Failure Breakdown Please !

    What where the nature of the the "Hardware" failures ?

    Looks to me like these muppets want to sell you an extended warranty.

  64. JWS
    Thumb Up

    Title seems correct

    I think the title is bang on. Have you ever seen an Apple laptop for anything like as cheap as an HP, Dell etc... based on the huge cost of the Apple kit it should be ultra reliable by a good margin, instead Sony beat them (and they're hardly cheap!). So from a cost vs. reliability level Apple are last by an absolute mile.

    On another note I'm surprised it's not higher for Macs since some non-mac users can probably fix their laptops instead of sitting looking smug but having NO idea how a computer works... <ducks for cover>.

  65. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    @Michael Brown the Mactard

    Clearly you have never watched the irritating adverts in the US then. Also, clearly you haven't studied what causes OS instability. As someone who works on Windows, Linux and Solaris, I actually see a well maintained linux box kernel panic just about the same amount of time as a windows box blue screens. And both are almost always memory problems (minimised with ECC of course) or CPU issues. Windows is actually damn reliable if you put it on reliable hardware, in the same way that Linux is damn reliable if you put it on reliable hardware. Of course, neither are a patch on Solaris, especially the way it ringfences memory which starts to get ECC errors reported and moves everything off that memory if it can, thereby reduces the number of kernel panics by a huge amount.

    The most annoying thing about Macs though is that when you do have a system problem you have a nightmare debugging it because of the horribly hacked version of debug tools like dtrace that actively stop you probing and debugging the kernel. That's what you get when your OS is built on a crippled other OS.

  66. Hardcastle
    Pint

    HP = Crap?

    Back in the Y2K Era, HP had a knack for making entry-level machines that the mainstream could afford but were CRAP. This I know, for I have had my share of HP desktops from that era that had more bugs than the ghetto, were a royal pain to upgrade and also provided the techie with generous portions of hearty Grief Pie when making valiant attempts at installing some Linux onto them. By the mid-2000s, however, it looked like HP/Compaq actually managed to get their collective heads out of their collective posteriors and made some halfway decent kit that could hold up to a proper whoopin'. I have a Compaq desktop and an HP lappy, both 2005 vintage, that have both been used regularly and are still going strong. The lappy runs XP Pro, 7 and Ubuntu Karmic with ease and still seems like it has some good years left in it. If any OEM deserves the dubious distinction of Most Crap kit, it is frickin' eMachines. The machine I have is a 2006 model that has been buggy since it was new (to be fair, I got it on special for $148 new, so I overlooked its flaws for the most part). Can't speak for the Mac, as I am too cheap... I mean broke... to justify the premium Apple charges for their kit, but I can say this much: I have used Macs in college, and while the OS was decent, their mice sucked huge industrial donkey bollocks... especially that frickin' discus mouse that even a cat would turn up its nose in disgust. However, if a philantropic Mac user wanted to donate a used Macbook to me, I would give it some honest use.

    Well h3ll, look at this... someone just sent me an e-pint for me to shut the piehole, so I shall do so now...

  67. Anf

    Do the Statistics Look Right To You?

    I've read the article twice, and perhaps I'm not concentrating, but if the three-year fail rate for the best PC overall, the Asus, is 15.6%, and the worst overall is the HP at 25.6%, how is the final figure - the averaged-out failure rate for all of them - calculated at 31%?

    Perhaps I'd better go over it again.

  68. James Butler

    Piling On

    My Micron TransPort NX laptop is still an every day work accessory 11 years after I first fired it up. I'm just saying ... care and feeding are very important to the survival rate of any species. My bet is that most of the laptops that fail early in life are probably abused. When people hear "it just works", they figure they can beat the thing up pretty bad before they start to experience problems ... and they are wrong. It really takes very little beating to kill a computer. For those of you who are complaining about a system that dies after only a month or two ... are you sure you didn't dump that Starbucks all over the thing, and are just hiding behind false innocence? I see it frequently, and find it very hard to believe people who claim, "It just stopped working!" and "I did nothing to cause it!" Maybe you don't want people knowing that you dumped that coffee or pushed the unit off the back of the desk by accident, but it doesn't mean it didn't happen.

    You get what you pay for, and then you get to keep it if you treat it well. There's a direct correlation.

  69. Tony Martin

    For safety of data - Macs win out

    If they did a study on which laptops you are less likely to lose your data, my guess is the Apple laptops will come out on top. PC's are vulnerable to viruses that attack the data. Also, all Apple laptops have motion detection to disconnect the head from the drive in the event of an abrupt jerk or falling motion - this prevents data loss or corruption of the drive. Also, the Apple laptops power cord has a magnetic lock which disconnects if someone trips over it.

  70. Annihilator
    Boffin

    @Anf

    Laptop maker A sells 2, 1 fails - 50% failure rate

    Laptop maker B sells 100, 1 fails - 1% failure rate

    Total of 102 laptops sold - 2 failures - 1.96% failure rate across the industry. But average of the failure rates is 25.5%. You can't average percentages :-)

    Extreme example perhaps, but you get the point

  71. Patrick R
    Thumb Down

    Acer service

    Problem with Acer as some readers report is the quality of service for repairs, even under warranty. Acer seems to send replacement parts to their partners, good and dead on arrival all together, it saves them the cost of testing the dubious parts. The customer is told to wait for the next part to arrive within x days, but no warranty it will be the good one.

  72. sT0rNG b4R3 duRiD
    Jobs Horns

    Laptops

    What I look for in a laptop and netbook are not specs touted by vendor alone.

    There is the issue of build quality, previous history of the model and maker (ideally researched), ergonomics - keyboard, screen.

    Never an early adopter be, but of course this is just a general rule. The converse is of course, don't jump in too late on a good thing.

    I bought my mac laptop only after a lot of research and contemplation, haven't regretted it.

    As an aside, I have noticed most people who own macs around me IRL are usually quite err.. vocal about their choice of laptop/OS and usually quite illterate. You know the types (read fanboi).

    I hate them. They REALLY make me ashamed to be seen with a mac, which is a shame, as Apple lappies by and large on the whole aren't half bad.

    I wonder if it is because Apple doesn't actually manufacture them :)

  73. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    Results Unfounded

    2 % ???? This entire load of nonsense was based on a 2% difference??!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  74. This post has been deleted by its author

  75. Michael Brown
    FAIL

    @AC the UnixTard 19:58

    You clearly don't know what's relevant. Linux and Solaris are irrelevant to a discussion about Windows vs OS X for users (as opposed to servers). Whether Windows is a stable OS, when well configured and well protected against malware in the hands of a tech nerd like yourself is also irrelevant.

    What IS relevant, is whether Windows is a stable and safe OS for the vast majority of ordinary users, you know, normal people, the ones which Apple's ads are aimed at. Compared to OS X, it just can't compare. A huge percentage, if not the majority, of ordinary non-techie Windows users, with their PC at home with a broadband connection WILL become infected with malware or have their PCs co-opted into a bot net sooner or later.

  76. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    BS article

    This is a meaningless survey for a LOT of reasons:

    1. It was done by a warranty company using only their own data. That makes it very limited and self-selected. For example, I've never known a single Mac user to use any warranty but AppleCare. How many Mac users are they talking about? I'll bet it's a tiny number.

    2. It ignores the price issue. If I have a $250 Netbook and something breaks, I probably won't go through the hassle of getting it fixed. If I have a $2,000 MacBook Pro, I will.

    3. There's the issue of useful life. If I have a Dell laptop that's 2.5 years old, I probably wouldn't bother getting it fixed- since it's near the end of its useful life, anyway. Macs have a much longer useful life, so they're worth fixing.

    4. No mention of the types of failures. If I spend $250 on a netbook and it has some annoying minor glitch, I would probably ignore it. If a $2,000 Mac (or $2,000 HP or Lenovo) had the same problem, I might well get it fixed.

    5. The data isn't even internally self-consistent. Netbooks fail far more than other laptops, yet Asus (which makes predominantly netbooks) has the best performance rating. And the author never even bothers to question that result. Clearly, the netbooks are being discarded rather than repaired.

    While Consumer Reports isn't perfect, at least they make an ATTEMPT to cover all computer users in their surveys - and Apple always comes out at or near the top. That's clearly a much more valid survey because it doesn't face all the problems listed above.

  77. Joe Ragosta

    @ Durid

    "I bought my mac laptop only after a lot of research and contemplation, haven't regretted it.

    As an aside, I have noticed most people who own macs around me IRL are usually quite err.. vocal about their choice of laptop/OS and usually quite illterate. You know the types (read fanboi).

    I hate them. They REALLY make me ashamed to be seen with a mac, which is a shame, as Apple lappies by and large on the whole aren't half bad."

    So your point is that Apple laptops really are good, but you can't stand anyone telling you that?

    So who's the one with the attitude?

  78. Joe Ragosta

    More problems with the survey

    I just read the pdf of Squaretrade's 'survey'. Near the bottom, the state that there's very little data on netbooks over a year old. So they're looking at 3 years for Apple and 1 year for netbooks (which make up a large portion of Asus' business)???

    Even if they extrapolate, that's meaningless. There's no reason to believe that Asus netbooks fall apart at the same rate as anyone else's. In fact, Asus tends to be the cheapest of the cheap, so extrapolating would UNDERestimate Asus' failure rate.

  79. Giles Jones Gold badge

    Heat

    Given how hot some Apple laptops run it's pretty good that they are so high up the list.

    My Macbook Pro is almost always silent. Even quieter than the Amiga 1200 I used to own (and that only had one motor, in the hard disk).

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