Apple has slight edge in quality in test

Apple's lead in reliability has shrunk substantially over the course of the year, according to a new RESCUECOM study. While Apple had a wide gap as late as December, its edge in the ratio of support calls to market share had closed overall in 2009; its score of 365 was only a moderate edge over ASUS' 305. Most of this came from extremely high reliability in the first half of the year, but even poor netbook quality in the later half wasn't enough to completely erode an overall lead.

ASUS's relative quality grew about 190.7 percent versus 2008 even with a sharp increase in US market share to 0.9 percent, the support firm said.

Lenovo's IdeaPads and ThinkPads tied with ASUS for reliability scores. However, scores quickly fell off after these top three as Toshiba scored a much lower 199 while the combined HP and Compaq scored 149, or less than half of the top scores. Dell's drop in market share combined with poor overall reliability led it to fall out of the top five, but Panasonic and Samsung are expected to be fast-risers this year as they had surprisingly high reliability despite their small share.

RESCUECOM doesn't directly explain each vendor's performance in its annual report but does note that cheap parts and poor support lead to lower scores. HP in particular is known to use thinner plastic shells and regularly outsources phone support to countries like the Philippines, where language barriers can affect the ability to receive help.

By Electronista Staff