Consumer Reports loves those MacBooks
In an embarrassment of plaudits, Apple (AAPL) swept all three laptop categories in Consumer Reports' latest study of personal computers. The reader survey, published Monday, is the cover story of the magazine's June issue.
In all, five Apple notebooks made the cut. In one category –13-inch notebooks — Apple won the top three places.
In that category, the 13-inch aluminum MacBook was No. 1, the solid-state MacBook Air No. 2, and the white plastic 13-inch MacBook No. 3.
The 15-inch MacBook came in first in the 14- to 16-inch notebook category.
And the 17- to 18-inch notebook category was taken by the 17-inch MacBook. The 17-inch HP (HPQ) Pavilion made famous by Lauren De Long in the first Microsoft's (MSFT) Laptop Hunter ad, came in fourth in this category behind Dell (DELL) and Lenovo machines.
Apple also took first place in tech support. Its desktop machines did not fare quite as well. The 20-inch iMac came in second after the Dell XPS One 24 in the standard desktop category. The Mac Mini also made this list.
Below: Consumer Reports' laptop rankings. (Click to enlarge.)
James, Denver CO wrote:
"You openly admit that the first thing you did when you got a MacBook Pro was to install Vista on it – just so that you could open some applications!"
Now maybe you should openly admit that he now has a much greater base of applications to choose from than you do. He can use OS X applications and Windows applications. There are many Mac applications that are far superior to their Windows counterparts. Plus he has the elegant, and far more productive, OS X operating system.
"If it was Vista causing your problems, they would have returned when you installed Vista on your MacBook. Instead it sounds like you just needed a clean install of Vista."
That statement makes it clear that you're not fully cognizant of the technical side of things. An operating system can be stable on one hardware platform and totally unstable on another. If you cannot predict ahead of time whether it will be stable, that's a big concern. Also, the thought that reinstalling the entire OS is a "normal" way to resolve problems is just crazy: How did it get corrupted? How do you avoid it happening again, possibly at a critical time? And what is your time worth?
Matt writes:
"What exactly are they measuring in this laptop ranking?"
Consumer opinion on the best choice of product.
"75 is better than 64, but without normalization, the data is meaningless."
That is exactly the sort of thing PC users say when their machine shuts down and crashes. "The vector trans-invertor chip has cross referenced the voltage oscillator, and that has forced the operating system to go to Cuba for a holiday. But it is not a problem with the machine."
Matt continues: "Yes, Lamborghini owners may be more satisfied with their purchase than Honda Civic owners, but it doesn’t mean the average person should buy a Lamborghini."
Yeah it does. Your analogy is useful. If the choice is between a honda civic and a porsche (lambo's are owned by porsche now), and the porsche only costs a few hundred bucks more than the civic….. yeah, buy the porsche! Its a no brainer.
See, this is crucial point that PC users always try to avoid. They justify their behaviour by saying "cheaper is better".
cheaper is NOT better, except for people who like cheap things.
Dig?
I own PCs and a Mac Pro, for photography and video editing. My Mac Pro consistently 'drops' drivers forcing me to reload driver software for my Canon ipf8000 printer. It also fails to come out of sleep mode on a regular basis. I loaded VM Fusion so I could run XP in order to run SONY Vegas video editing software, which I prefer to Final Cut. Guess what? VM Fusion doesn't allow firewire connections to be recognized running Windows on a Mac. My MAC video card has gone sour. Now my options are to drive 120 miles to an Apple store to have it replaced or send it back to Apple. If I was using a Dell they would send me an advance replacement. So far, not impressive.
For those PC users who still don't get it, the best analogy of Mac vs. WinDoze is BMW vs. Chevy. Yes, you'll pay more for the BMW 3-series versus a Chevy Cobalt but the experience –and reward of ownership– is totally different.
AM, Dallas, TX – I'm sure Apple is happy to hear that their customer base is of the mentality of "don't fix it, replace it."
You openly admit that the first thing you did when you got a MacBook Pro was to install Vista on it – just so that you could open some applications!
If it was Vista causing your problems, they would have returned when you installed Vista on your MacBook. Instead it sounds like you just needed a clean install of Vista.
Perhaps your hardware was flawed, but don't fool yourself into thinking the issue was Vista. So, yes paying a little more for better hardware makes sense, but that only strengthens the argument for grouping the notebooks by price point and not screen size.
You basically are saying that you spent $500-2000 for a new laptop, the $500 Apple premium on top of that, and then paid an additional $300 or so to Microsoft for a Windows license, just so you could get sleep mode to work. Apple loves customers like you. And so does Microsoft.
Who cares about the technology, Macs are as close to fashionable as corporate types can get:
http://iloveclosing.com/2009/05/03/fashion-disasters-in-corporate-america/
Cheers
The Closer
to James in Denver, CO:
I travel extensively on business, open and close my notebook more than a dozen times a day between meetings. Until I switched to Mac OS X six months ago, I was always afraid of my Vista notebook not coming back from sleep, requiring a 5 minute+ reboot – NOT what you want to happen in a client meeting! With my MacBook Pro, I never had a problem over the last six months, even while keeping some applications open in virtual Vista mode with Parallels. Since I switched, my frustration level has significantly dropped and my clients are thankful for not wasting their time, too.
Those ratings look good for Apple until you look at the pricing. As Matt from Austin wrote, Apple's laptops are two, three or even four times more expensive than PCs in the same category.
Actually I was reading an article in Fortune about an article in Consumer Reports. It doesn't matter what methodology Consumer Reports used for collecting the data – it was Fortune that reported it out of context.
Without context, any data can be made to say whatever you want. What if you recategorize your customer feedback by price, memory, weight, thickness, power consumption, or any other arbritary value? Why choose size? Is it because it is the only way to show a Mac in a favorable light?
Not to be harsh, but to say OS X doesn't let you do what you want with a computer is just this side of ignorant. In terms of overall flexibility in an OS/Hardware combo, OS X on the Mac is far away the best available.
You can run anything under a VM, or natively boot into any x86 compatible OS. On top of the arguably higher quality of software available for OS X, there is the entire world of UNIX/POSIX software, and anything in the Windows world through VM.
Postscript to James in Denver: You have it exactly backwards. PC Users get off on their CPU's, their graphics processors, their tweaks, etc. All you hear Mac people talk about is the cool stuff they got done on their machine, while we PC users are rambling on about the latest AVG release or the convoluted process for switching to Zero Net Config to get your Wi-Fi working.
For James in CO and his ilk: Why not acquaint yourself with the subject before trashing something in ignorance. It's pretty obvious you've never read Consumer Reports or understood their methodology. CR is the antithesis of fandom. They are the ONLY source of unbiased product testing and surveys on the planet. Agree or disagree (and I rarely agree with the weight they give the categories, so I'm not a die-hard CR fan), their findings are based on rigorous process. It's also pretty obvious you're one of those knee-jerk Mac haters. I own five PC's and I recommend PC's on occasion, but more often Macs if money is less of an object, simply because OSX is a lot more user-friendly and forgiving as an OS than XP or Vista. Macs are a lot easier for non-techies to keep up and running – like you say, it's just a tool, and you want your tool to be working for you, not going to Task Manager five times a day and wasting your time. Hence, a major chunk of the love for Macs.
CR ranks the units based on performance items such as speed, battery life, etc. However, they earmark specific units as "recommended" or "best buy." Best buy is the most desired ranking, meaning best performance for the money, and typically there is only 1 per category (if any). In this case, none of the Apple's were marked as "best buys" because of exhorbitant pricing. Most of them are 2x to 3x the price of the PC equivalent. The only "best buy" in the entire laptop category was the Dell Studio S17, priced at $750, vs the Apple Macbook Pro 17, priced at $2,800.
What exactly are they measuring in this laptop ranking?
75 is better than 64, but without normalization, the data is meaningless.
Yes, Lamborghini owners may be more satisfied with their purchase than Honda Civic owners, but it doesn't mean the average person should buy a Lamborghini.
This seems like more of a survey of fanboyism than anything else. To Mac users, a computer is a status symbol. To PC users a computer is a tool.
…but if I hate using mac osx because it doesn't let me do what I want with a computer…? I won't by a mac because people like them !!!
and the white plastic 15-inch MacBook No. 3.
Should be 13-inch plastic MacBook.
ex ped: Typo. Fixed. Thanks.
The most retarded consumer reports yet.
If they want a fair comparison, do a native install with the same OS on ALL. Not to mention OSX is limited in ability and many things are now optimized for professional that run on Vista 64 but not in 64 bit mode on OSX.
The battery life on a mac, is notably shorter than Apple has advertised.
For the 13" they didnt even include the Sony Z which mops the floor with Apple's laptop!!
The Sony VAIO SW also stops all over Apple's 15". Not included in competiton. Christ why not compare PCs with Apple's made 1 -1&1/2 years ago, and see how Apple reacts because that's what you are doing with PCs!
The only lead that Apple has, might be with the 17" but thats only slight with a massive price for it.
Consumer Reports = You get a very low ranking for accurate comparisons!
What did Apple slight some testers free computers and gifts? I want my money back from purchasing this crap on the news stand!