Consumer Reports has a new report on which computer company has the best tech support. Apple wins! That’s what happens when the same company controls the hardware as well as the operating system (and several of the most prominent pieces of software). The highest ranking PC manufacturer is Dell for desktops and Lenovo for laptops.
The actual report is behind the Consumer Reports paywall, but Slashgear had the bottle to do the impossible and pay for content. Far braver than any of us here.
But the highlights:
• Apple had the tops marks for both desktop and laptop tech support
• Dell leads the PC desktop side, and Lenovo leads the laptop side
• Acer/Gateway/eMachineshas the worst tech support on both the desktop and laptop side
That’s the gist of it—Apple good, Acer/Gateway/eMachines not so good.
It sorta makes sense, in a very superficial way. When you buy an iMac, not only was the hardware created by Apple, but much of the software was created by Apple, too. When you buy an Acer laptop, how is Microsoft supposed to know what kind of hardware it [Acer] stuck in there? Whereas Apple only as to support a pretty small hardware line, Microsoft has to support all sorts of alien configurations.
That still doesn’t explain the manufacturer’s inability to provide tech support for its own hardware. “Hi Dell. Your laptop won’t turn on, what’s wrong?” Dell should go out of its way to help you out. After all, that’s part of the reason why you buy a Dell (or HP or whatever) PC in the first place, so that you can receive tech support when you need it. Otherwise, just build your own PC, like cool people like me do.
But as the family’s “tech guy,” I cannot stress how incredibly infuriating it is to help family members with their computer woes. “My computer is broken,” they’ll tell me over the phone, “I need you to fix it.” Sure, let me stop what I’m doing to try to figure out what the hell is going wrong with your wretched Windows XP installation…
This is a joke for me. Apple’s tech support is bad and I have suffered because of that. Sorry, I think Consumer reports must have been bribed by Apple to say the same.
You’re kidding, right?
( I love the conspiracy theory posts about Apple bribing people – even more than when somebody cites ultra specific examples to refute an *average* finding )
But anyway…..
I hate that I have a schedule a damn appointment to get service. Why do I have to make an appointment with a ‘Genius’ when any idiot will do?
Just let me drop my stuff off and get the h*ll out of there. At least let me drop and go for obvious stuff, like a broken screen.
you actually can just *drop* off your computer.. its called a “quick drop” and the main problem with that is that the turn around time to getting your computer fixed is longer than having an appointment.
Not at my Apple Store(s) in New York City – unless that is a VERY new policy. And believe me, its not like I haven’t tried. Every time I’m told I will need to make an appointment with a Genius. Doesn’t matter if its a phone or my laptop. No appointment. No Luck.
“When you buy an Acer laptop, how is Microsoft supposed to know what kind of hardware it [Acer] stuck in there?”
Exactly why it’s less problematic to just get a mac.
If you’re calling tech support therein lies the problem.
I’ve only ever dealt with their iPod tech support so I cannot speak about their computer support. However, I found the iPod support fairly nice, especially after I unleashed a Steve Jobs type email on them about there how horrific their company is and how their products are made cheap (see: 3rd world country mud hut workers).
After that delightful email they were very pleasant, even waived to $30 shipping fee just to make me happy.
Mr arkid i think you don’t use apple products,it is best and innovation of apple is essence of technology.
@sarafunky – worked for apple for long then?
Apple care is overpriced.
So don’t pay for them. Simple as that. Others can afford, which is obvious, so let them buy. No one said you had to.
No, mnml is referring to “AppleCare,” the extended warranty that Apple offers for their machines. It is overpriced, just like every other extended warranty on Earth. I’ve owned a number of Apple products and never pony up for AppleCare.
Quotes from my recent trip (3rd for the same issue) from the apple store in London:
me: the guy on Wednesday said the part should be here by Friday, and that’s the only reason I came here today – for the third time
Apple Rep (with pride): some people come here to 20 times to get their computer fixed
That was followed by this gem:
me: what am I supposed to do for a computer in the next 5 weeks? (the length of time I have to wait for repairs to be completed – yes, it’s under warranty)
Rep: you can buy a new one
Just because they can diagnose and fix things easily, doesn’t mean their service is that great & friendly.
wish me luck, trip #4 tomorrow…
(for the rest of the conversation: http://www.mikolayczyk.com/2010/02/quotes-from-apple-store.html)
sure.
well played!
Can’t say about Apple, but Acer does Suck
Are they comparing Free support with paid support? i mean i know that most Apple fanbois pay for their support but that’s not true on the pc side of things.
Umm… No. They don’t. Lrn2getfacts
Apple’s support isn’t very good. Their extended support, which costs as much as Dell’s accidental damage, only covers pretty much what the basic Dell warranty covers. A few months ago, I had a client call me for problems with their MacBook Pro, just over a month old, bad RAM in it (memtest failed)… called tech support, figured it should be no big deal to send out some RAM, the guy refused to talk to me until I bought AppleCare. After the owner gave in and bought AppleCare, we got disconnected of course. After waiting on hold again, then they insisted in us sending the laptop in to them instead of just sending us the part, and it took 4 weeks to get it fixed.
Doing support, I’ve dealt with bad parts in tons of computers, and Dell, is flat out the best.. when you tell them the RAM is bad, they ship it to you immediately along with a prepaid box for the old one. Very easy to deal with. Dell also offers next day at home service as a repair option as well, which is absolutely amazing.
The one time Dell was having problems getting a computer working, they refunded, in full, the 6 month old laptop. No other big computer manufacturer does that, period.
Just because you had one bad experience doesn’t mean that all of their support is bad.
Its not one bad experience, its very consistant, always bad experience. The only way to get support out of Apple is to pay for AppleCare and then go into the store, during the business hours. I’m a busy person and have no desire to travel to and go into Apple stores for hours upon end when theirs a much better way almost every other company has figured it out.
Every other company is willing to operate via mail/delivery services, and Dell will come to me, next day, wherever I am, with a protection plan similiar in price to AppleCare. And they’ll do everything AppleCare does, free of charge, with the standard warranty on every computer.
They did tell me if I called a few days earlier, while it was in the return period, they might have been able to bend their policy so I don’t return it…
Sorry Crunchy, but you are not informed.
Apple will arrange shipping for products, if you can’t make it to a store. They will also arrange home visits by service contractors.
Perhaps you spoke to the wrong folks, or didn’t ask the right questions.
Wow.
Apple’s website clearly states that MacBook Pros come with free 90-day phone support and a one year limited warranty.
See Limited warranty and service section at:
http://www.apple.com/macbookpro/specs.html
You should contact your client. Since their MacBook Pro was under a month old, he or she should have been given phone support at the very least.
And if their memory was the original memory that came with the machine and not a third party upgrade it should be covered under the warranty as a factory defect.
Maybe they’ll get a break on the Apple Care they purchased.
I bought Apple Care for my Macbook Pro almost three years ago and have taken it to the Apple Store for service twice in that time. Both times they took care of the problem in under two hours while I had lunch or coffee nearby. I wasn’t charged either time. So my Apple Care ultimately paid for itself.
In fact, I’ll be bummed when my warranty runs out in a couple months. But I need a new laptop anyway and the 13-inch MPB looks mighty nice.
Sorry you and your client had a bad experience.
Please disregard my comments about the 90-day phone support above.
I just re-read the policy which states in part:
“Only the AppleCare Protection Plan provides you with direct telephone support from Apple technical experts…”
So that’s apparently why your client’s request for tech support over the phone was denied until AppleCare was purchased.
Bummer.
I guess it helps to live near an Apple Store.
Once again, sorry for your experience and my misinterpretation.
You can’t get your cake and eat it too. Acer/Gateway/eMachines are the king of cheap. If you want premium hand holding then go and pay your “Apple tax.”
Lot of Macs still have issues and people have to sue Apple just to get some improvements out of them. I’m not envious – no reason to be.
In the end, read reviews before you buy something and hit up the forums. If people have found issues you’ll see them there way before the manufacturer cops to it (See Toyota).
Me and my Asus 1000HE are still rocking even though I’ve dropped this thing every where and it still gets about 8 hours of battery on a full charge.
Akrid –
Statistically speaking someone is always going to have a bad support experience with an otherwise well intentioned and helpful support team. Maybe you just have the unfortunate distinction of being one of those people?
Additionally, was the bad support experience partially caused by a misunderstanding on your side? I can’t tell you how many times I have began to get frustrated over a support issue just to take a step back and realize that I misunderstood, or more often, failed to properly research some aspect of the support contract or details before making contact.
I manage hundreds of machines in corporate settings of which about 35% are apple and 65% windows (HP/Dell/Lenovo mostly). I will admit that as a general rule Dell has the best customer support (at least on the business side) but I have far less problems with the Apple machines I support. Far Less.
That said I have never had a really bad experience with Apple. The worst being one that was cleared up after a few conversations with some managers. On the other hand I have had apple go out of their way to help me on a few occasions.
While I don’t run a consumer computer shop by any stretch of the imagination, I am the family “tech-guy” for a _very_large_family_. Over the past three or four years I have gotten about 2/3′s of them to switch to Mac, and 1/2 of those haven’t had a single issue requiring support in those years, the others have had mainly minimal issues that are more to do with a misunderstanding than an actual computer malfunction. Contrast this with the remaining 1/3 of windows users, who I talk with seemingly every month or two and rebuild there machines almost yearly.
While I understand I am an exceedingly small sample size, and that the report in question has to do with customer support, not overall reliability, If my experiences play out over any number of people, I could easily see how a more stable environment overall would leave people rating the platform highly in all areas, regardless of the amount of contact they have had.
Heck, most of my family who have never called apple’s support a single time would rate the support highly simply because they don’t need to use it, or the online FAQ’s are simple enough.
As always YMMV.
Karl “Use the right platform for the right purpose” P
If I am not mistaken Apple boasts their turn around time on fixing issues to be under 24 hours.
If that number is correct, then it is a no brainer to see why Apple has the best tech support.
Despite their superior service, it still doesn’t justify the Apple tax.
I don’t really understand why people complain about some mythical “Apple Tax”
I purchase dozens of and recommend for purchase hundreds more machines each year split probably 35%/65% OSX/Windows.
If we purchase the same spec and quality of machine (AKA not just processor/memory/display/proc, but also taking into account physical build quality, backlit keyboards, etc) the apple machines we buy typically differ no more than 15% than their windows counterparts, and often less than 5%.
That percentage, depending on the client, can generally be justified in either the very-useable included software (which generally takes away from having to buy commercial Print2PDF programs, CD burning programs, etc), the (relatively) low cost of upgrading the O/S, or maybe it doesn’t need to be justified at all. Let’s be honest, 10% (Average) generally won’t break the bank for anyone.
No, the only viable complaints are that they don’t make a cheaper computer, and the computers they do make maybe don’t appeal to every individual out there.
Those would be perfectly valid complaints, and ones that I myself may make from time to time.
If another company can do the amount of R&D apple does, build the quality of machine they do and support it at the level they do, while selling it at a meaningfully cheaper price point, let them step forward.
Until then however this buisness about “Apple Tax” needs to stop.
Again, to be clear, I buy a lot more Windows (Dell/HP/Lenovo) machines than I do Apple, and I like them all well enough, but they are typically not appreciably cheaper.
Karl P
I do agree with you on the R&D and, by extension, the uniqueness of design has something to with the “Apple Tax”.
However, you are out and out wrong concerning part for part matching and the sum total cost of a comparably built computer. It is not in the 5%-15% range as you claim. The difference is easily within the 30%-60% range. I am only comparing the physical parts where possible. Not service plans, OS’s, etc. (Microsoft REALLY needs to come with a single flavor of an OS like Apple.)
This is true for desktop computers, whether they are ordered online or built from scratch. Same goes for laptops.
Surely you can see this if you do truly order other brands as I do. Not sure what you are ordering that only puts the non-Apple computers within 5%-15% difference. Yes, you can buy a Windows based computer for the same price as an Apple but you can readily meet the same performance for at least 30% less for desktops and laptops/notebooks alike.
Not to be disrespectful, but I fail to understand how we can make a comparison and not bring into account service plans, OS’s, the chassis design, the custom battery work (on the portables anyway), etc into account.
I do not dispute with you that you could achieve a similar level of raw hardware performance from a machine costing 30~50% less. That (as you elude) isn’t difficult. However it isn’t all about raw performance. Support, Build Quality, Power Management, Creature Comforts (Backlit keyboard, autodim screen etc) and of course TCO all factor in as points that have equal weighting to raw performance.
Thus, here are my comparisons, off of actual receipts and PO’s I have
A standard 15″ 2’000$ MBP is only about 200$ more than a similarly configured Lenovo T series.
The 13″ MBP is actually the same price as the smaller Lenovo T series. (I understand that the smaller T series is a 14″ compared with the 13″ MBP, but the comparison is still valid, at least in my cases as my clients looking for machines of this size are simply looking for something smaller than 15″, in which case 13″ is actually preferable .)
The standard 15″ 2’000$ MBP is actually the same exact price as a similarly configured Dell Precision, although you can normally talk 15% off of dell .
The 13″ MB really doesn’t have a good match with either dell or lenovo. It would be most comparable with the Vostro or the SL line, while those machines are roughly 35% less than the MB, they have atrocious build quality, (comparatively) terrible battery life, etc. This means that it is actually more comparable to the Latitude and Thinkpad lines. However even I can’t fully agree with that, so I will say that it sits in the middle, at which case it would sit about 10% higher in cost than a machine which it directly compares with (which I don’t know, I would assume one of Sony’s models, but I don’t know there lineup)
The 17″ MBP is actually about 400$ cheaper to acquire than the comparable dell precision, and beats the crap out of it in battery life.
I’ll be honest and admit I don’t purchase many HP ProBook or EliteBooks, but a quick fact check with colleagues doesn’t put them far off of my Lenovo/Dell pricing.
As for the workstations we are all over the place
The base single processor is probably 20% over the comparable Dell Precision and HP Z series. However once we proceed to the dual – quads we are 15% on the base model, almost identical pricing on the mid range model and the high end models are maybe 5% cheaper.
The base iMac is actually within 3% of the same configuration from Dell, with the exception that the iMac has a much nicer, higher resolution, larger, screen.
The MacMini is actually cheaper than the new comparable dell that came out to compete with it.
Look, I only spent the time to do this because I feel this problem is becoming rampant.
Complain all day that Apple doesn’t make a cheap computer if you want.
You would have a point if you said they should make a cheaper tower.
I myself wish they would make an i5 tower with 2 PCIE slots and a single front bay for <1500. I would buy the mess out of them.
However I don't think they deserve a bad rap for the pricing of there current computers. They simply aren't comparable with other base or even mid line machines. They aren't intended to be.
Karl P
Really, buy the computer brand that’s “better” for you. You do have the choice. Not even sure why there is contention on the issue.
Absolutely, which is why more often than not I recommend, purchase, and support machines from any number of (non apple) providers.
It simply bothers me that so many people have this misconception that Apple = Overpriced.
I understand it is a loosing battle, but the reality of the matter is they are not over priced in any significant way, certainly not to earn the title “apple-tax”. They are simply different machines that deserved to be compared in price to there true competitors, not what you usually find at BestBuy. (Not that I have any problem with bestbuy at all….. :) )
Karl P
Just the other day I watched in terror as multiply Dell reps tried to fix an issue and refuse to honor the customers Warranties and extended warranties that she purchased less than a year agao. They even asked for her credit card number the second she got a hold of a Dell rep. Dell = BAD. I don’t believe Consumer Reports anymore.
while i do believe building my own PC’s is cool the dynamic of the pricing model lately makes it a bit expensive since i can buy commodity brand name machines for half of what it costs to build my own.
i would prefer to build but am unwilling to pay the surcharge.
Example of Dell Support:
“Hi this is Kyle with Dell Tech support, how may I assist you” (i.e Hi this is Shareff, and from here on out you will not be able to understand a word I say to you as I read from this manual on my desk.)
Had a dell couldnt stand the support, now have a mac and I can see why its the best.
Well, have you got better support from other *PC* makers? If not, Consumer Reports is technically correct to put Dell as the first.
this comments section is a good indicator of how far crunchgear favors the windows side of the equation. an article like this really chaps the ass of the writers and the commenters.
that’s a shame.
You realise that Crunchgear don’t actually write the comments, right?
This is no surprise at all. Acer/eMachines target low-end consumer market. Their customers are less tech-savvy. These customers are more likely to be frustrated by all the technical terms that have to be used in the tech support. The Apple customers have higher education (on average).
Lots of “average” people own iPods and iPhones, but since this discussion is about computer systems, they don’t really count.
Less tech-savvy? Just because a person has a small budget doesn’t mean they don’t know what they’re doing or that they are less educated. I’ve known a number of students who have bought MacBooks (because of school discounts) that didn’t know the first thing about computers and didn’t have a clue how to install even basic programs. Plus, most people seem to buy Macs because they are “easier” or “more intuitive”, which implies a lack of willingness to become more tech-savvy. Yes, there are those that choose Mac systems for specific needs and they either already know how to use them for those needs or they soon learn how, but this is true for most computers these days.
I don’t know what the stats are on the average Mac user is, but with Windows PCs having much larger market share, the comparison isn’t oranges to oranges. The biggest reason for this was mentioned in the reply comment by Karl Peterson above: Apple doesn’t make or sell computer products in the low-end spectrum, thus many people cannot afford their computers. The iPad doesn’t change this since it doesn’t run OSX, so they don’t fall into the same category as Macs and PCs.
“The highest ranking PC manufacturer is Dell”
No, it’s Apple.
No need to nitpick. Many people still feel that OSX computers and Windows computers fall under the “Mac” and “PC” labels that Apple itself uses in its commercials. Just because they both now use the same hardware architectures doesn’t mean they are both PCs in the minds of most people.
But they are. They’re Personal Computers.
I use a Macbook. I just don’t kid myself that it’s something it’s not.
Granted, but Apple and PC people draw a distinction that you are do not draw: the OS and what software can be used on it. Virtually all desktop and laptop computers can be considered “personal computers” under the old definition (including pre-OSX Apple computers), but the de facto standard definition of “PC” is that of a Windows OS.
“But as the family’s “tech guy,” I cannot stress how incredibly infuriating it is to help family members with their computer woes. “My computer is broken,” they’ll tell me over the phone, “I need you to fix it.” Sure, let me stop what I’m doing to try to figure out what the hell is going wrong with your wretched Windows XP installation…”
Im in the same situation in my family!! I know the feeling.
Same here and because I’m more familiar with XP than Vista or 7 (for the time being), I’m happy they are! I do have one family member using Vista though, I have to do more research, but at least it helps me become more familiar with Vista and hopefully 7 too.
The way I help them, since most of them are out-of-state, is over the phone, so they’re actually performing the steps. I find that people have a better ability to learn what is being fixed and how by them doing the steps, plus I add as much information as possible about why the fix works and/or what the actual problem is. Because of this, I’m getting fewer and fewer “support” calls from my family every year.
I think that apple’s support is quite nice as compared to others and as said in the post, they have a nice advantage as they manufacture both the hardware and software.
Every time my ACER laptop breaks I throw it in the can and buy a new one.
If there is one thing I like about Apple… well there really is only one thing I like about Apple… it is the tech support. I have never had a problem with anyone in an Apple store.
It’s off topic but people are mentioning computer problems in general… I work in a Mac/PC lab and let me tell you, Macs are far from perfect. Non-stop problems. We have last years 20 and 24 inch computers too so you can’t blame it on age. I only say this because some people were talking about Apple computers rarely needing tech assistance. BULL CRAP. Your either disillusioned or the only programs you use on your computer are Safari and MS Word. To be fair I’ll mention that we have a lot of PC problems as well… but all of our PCs are 5 year old IBM Think Centers that have never been reformatted. Not the fairest comparison.
I’ve had great consumer experience with Acer (Aspire), Gateway (SX2802) and eMachines. Their hardware and customer support has been excellent. Their machines are built rock solid and are very cost effective for the power/feature set. The Acer and Gateway support staff has been friendly and helpful (providing me with backup installation disks). In addition to supporting various versions of Windows, I’ve found Acer, Gateway, and eMachines work great with Linux and open source.
Does anybody know, how that wallpaper on the macbook is called and where to get it?
I’m also looking for that wallpaper, its awesome but well, I could only find this one in the web : http://macmastersoftware.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/wallpaper-circl.png
I don’t own any Apple products because I’ve never been able to afford any. Now that their computers are priced similarly to many Windows-based computers, I can’t afford either one! Lucky me.
Anyway, since I don’t own any Apple stuff and haven’t worked for any company that’s used their computers either, I have zero experience with their customer service. However, since they have a 100% monopoly on their hardware and software and since they sell a significantly smaller volume of computer products than Dell, HP, OR Lenovo (individually, not even combined), they really should have top notch service. It’s true that there will always be bad experiences though since customer service is all about human interaction, which *always* has the potential to go down hill fast.
I have done hundreds of support calls, emails, and chats with Dell’s customer support and always found them to be courteous, knowledgeable, and helpful. I can also second CrunchPad’s comment above that any time a component goes out, they will send a replacement part out using Next Day UPS that includes a UPS Ground return label for returning the bad part. I have never had a problem with this process even if the part I requested was not the correct part. I simply contacted them a second (or third) time and repeated the process to get the correct part, with zero hassle. However, I can’t stress enough that the fastest way to get results from them *by far* is by using their live chat support. You get a transcript of the chat emailed to you as well, which includes the case number, so if you do have any problems, you can point to the person you spoke to and CYA completely.
My company uses both Dell desktops and Lenovo laptops and I’ve found Lenovo’s support to be very fast and responsive as well. Using their online “Electronic Service Call” system is a breeze and I usually get a return phone call verifying the information and what part needs to be sent out the same day. If you have Lenovo or IBM systems under warranty, make sure you bookmark this page: https://www-930.ibm.com/support/esc/signin.jsp.
I’ve always had excellent support for my apple products. I bought my mom an iMac for xmas and she had an issue she called me (as she always did for her crappy gateway) I said she should give apple care a shot (since I paid for it!) and she said they were awesome, patient and got the problem fixed, and ALSO offered up some helpful tips for her to better her experience.
Apple is #1 in my opinion…that’s why I spend money on Macs….I would never buy a PC again!
I have an iPhone and have had iPods and Apple does have excellent support. Better than my experience with Dell and HP, of which I’ve owned many. However, Mac Book Pros _are_ overpriced. But, not necessarily when you consider the support. There’s a reason you talk to an American when you call Apple support and an Indian when you call Dell support. Nothing against Indians per se, but Americans are capable of providing better phone support.
I think of myself as being tech savvy and by no means consider myself an expert. I’m speaking as a user and consumer. Three years ago I went from my Dell PC to an Apple so I can speak to the products and services for both. Apple wins hands down. We currently have three Apple computers, two iPhones, two Airports, and one iPod. No troubles. When I’ve had to call Apple about a question or small issue, I’ve never spent more than 10 minutes on-hold. Plus you are given options like scheduling a time that is good for you to speak with a support person. Their support people are friendly and knowledgeable. They don’t make you feel dumb and I’ve never been bounced around. When I had my Dell PC, I dreaded calling support because I knew I’d be on the phone for hours interacting with someone working off script and often transferred to someone then to another person. I’d often end up pestering my IT co-worker to fix my issues to avoid calling Dell… he got a many good bottles of beer from me. It shouldn’t be that way. I’m sold on Apple.
I dont believe that..Mac support is the best..thats absolutely not true.I have seen my friends loosing their patience while getting a laptop back from repair..it takes ages. I think Dell should get it. In terms of hardware warranty Dell cannot be defeated. They pick laptops up from home and delivered it back on time.Though you sometimes feel angry about paying for software support but believe me once you pay for the software support they wont leave you till they completely fix the problem. Actually when you think about it they are right..why should they guarantee for a microsoft product who themselves doesnt guarantee that there product will work perfect after paying a hell lot of money. Microsoft not only rob consumers..they rob other big companies too. And also when i compared it with some of the techicians near my place…Dell seemed to be much cheaper in fixing a software problem..
Apple call in support is pretty bad from my experience. Apple in store support is the best hands down. There are ALWAYS sour apples (no pun intended) you just can not be perfect.
Onto the Microsoft statement… this just proves you are not very technologically sound. Why should Microsoft, a software manufacture, guarantee Dells hardware…? And if your speaking about the problems with Vista then I would say most of the reasponsibilty is the fault of the manufactures. Yes, Vista was a HOG, yet PC manufactures still released low speced computers that could barley handle Vista. This was the biggest problem (yes, I know there were others but this was by far the largest). Brand new computers could barely run the operating system. I NEVER had a problem with Vista because I owned a decent speced computer from a manufacture that actually knew how to properly install the OS without clouding it with bloatware. Your argument fails from every aspect.
@ xspz living
Sorry, forgot to mention that.
I think HP is worst. I even can not find my notebook model in their sites.
Apples seems to be the best in everything , this is making me think of switching to MAC , interesting
How timely. I’m going through my own Acer issue.
Acer’s support system documents the problem inquiry, their statement that it’s a hardware problem, and instructions to ship BEFORE warranty expired. Product is now in transit – last msg from Acer support “Your product is no longer under warranty”… WTF? I’m trying to enlist people to help me write a song about this.
I have an IBM Thinkpad T60. Two words: ROCK SOLID. Slow with all the lenovo software craps, but the laptop works after multiple droppings onto a hardwood floor. Love it!
I hate to be contrarian, but this is ridiculous. Honestly. I still use my 2003 eMachines to this day with its 1.87 gHz CPU, two 40GB hard drives and 2GB of RAM, seven years now, and no need for service of any sort.
In that time I’ve burned up three hard drives, none of which were original to the tower, replaced the RAM three times simply to upgrade it, not because it no longer worked, and…that’s it. It runs games. It lets me surf. It runs photo editing programs. It gets me my email. It lets me watch video.
I’ve probably had hundreds of destructive AOL programs on it for testing purposes over the years, I’ve had viruses, trojans, and spyware on it, I’ve messed up the registry and formatted and re-installed the OSs dozens of times, and did I mention this thing can run any OS out there – Windows XP Home, Windows XP Pro, Windows Vista Ultimate, Windows 7 Ultimate, Ubuntu – sometimes two or three of those OSs at once, and it runs them just fine.
There’s no need for good tech support if you don’t need any tech support! It’s really as simple as that. eMachines always gets a bad name as cheap, low-end, etc…but I take exception to that.
I have, at least figuratively speaking, beat the crap out of this machine (and it wasn’t even new when I got it), leaving it on for months at a time, losing it to power surges in dozens of FL storms and a handful of hurricanes, and I’ve been about as abusive and wantonly destructive with it as you can imagine a person being, and still it’s ticking. It still has the original power supply, but I don’t even know how that could be, with the above-mentioned surges it’s withstood. And it still runs like a dream, for that matter.
Maybe some people have more problems with their eMachines than I’ve had with mine, but as far as I’m concerned, if it’s still in this good shape after all I’ve put it through, then you probably can’t ask for more than that.
I’m Senior Mac Support Specialist for a large corporation. I love Apple products and regularly recommend the Apple solution. My experience with Apple Support, on the other hand, for the 2nd time in 22 years was very disappointing. I purchased a NEW personal Mac Mini for use as a (monitor-less) home sever which is experiencing the inability to do SCREEN CAPTURES or open images in PREVIEW. After going through regular support channels from junior Support to Senior Support Specialists to escalation with Apple Engineers over a 2-1/2 week period I have been unable to obtain a reply. I called regarding my case# on four occasions. I find that Apple Experts are not very knowledgeable when it comes to Apple products and the Senior Support staff woman I spoke to seemed like she was in a bad mood? Imagine if I had a complex issue. I spoke to the Genius at the Apple retail store and he told me Apple will want to run CaptureData.app to send data from my Mini to their Engineers. In other words collect data from a factory install Mac with no additional software or peripherals. The only new info captured would be my name and email address when I registered the new Mini. The capture, Preview anomaly is not complex. Connect two Macs, log on to the headless Mini using SCREEN SHARING and attempt to do a screen capture, open a JPEG or PNG to determine if this is an OS issue or my Mini is defective?
I’ll call the support number again in a week to see if I can get some kind of answer to my query.
I regret for the inconveniences. You may contact Acer\Gateway\EMachines support to resolve your system issues.
The people is very fond of Apple products and me too had an Apple i pod good to hear songs and to watch movies very good result in clarity.