Every year at this time, we present our annual guide to what we think you should be looking for in different kinds of systems. Also every year at this time, we get the results from our survey of what you are finding about the reliability of your machines and the service you get from vendors. This is the largest canvass of its kind in the industry, based on a projectable sample of PC Magazine subscribers, and the results help us all gauge how well computer, printer, and software vendors are doing their jobs. As such, the survey results are a good way of comparing vendor differences.
Most readers rate their PC, printer, and software makers highly.
That's the good news. The bad news is that the results for frequency of service are far from encouraging. In the past year, on the surveys that were returned from more than 7,000 randomly selected people, about 7,000 of the 21,000 desktops and notebooks mentioned required some service or support. That's 33 percent. The numbers are probably better than those you would get if you asked the same question of people with cars.