[Galaxy Note 10.1 General] TheWerewolf:
I agree. I wasn't actually making a 'Western vs Asian' comparison - although rereading what I wrote, it does come across that way. Unfortunately, Apple is kind of the bar for support, quality and attention to detail, even with their recent decline in all three areas.

But my experiences with HP, for example - with their Slate 500 was odd - they had delivery problems, but they really went the extra mile to make up for it. In fact, in my own case, they ended up giving me almost a 30% discount for being late. I didn't even ask for it. They did screw up by choosing n-Trig for the digitiser - but at the time, it seemed a logical choice.

I only have one major experience with Dell - I bought an Axion Windows Mobile PDA that failed. They sent me a box in which to return it at no cost... and a new unit along with the box - also at no cost.

Of course, I have a Transformer Prime - and it's such a mixed bag of hurt and happy. As you note - the device feels right - and they got a lot right about it. It has the best USB driver support of any tablet out there. It provides enough USB power to run a hard drive. The dock is brilliant. And then they mess up something as basic as the GPS, WiFi and Bluetooth. And I think most of us could have dealt with that - if Asus hadn't utterly botched their response to the problem by essentially admitting the problem, then failing to fix it, then claiming the GPS wasn't meant for serious use (commerical GPS? What?) then trying to erase history by removing the feature from the box, then sending everyone a free GPS dongle that was just horribly thought out... and didn't fix the WiFi or BT issues. To add insult to injury - they announce a replacement pair of Transformers with the problem fixed... just two weeks after finally shipping the Prime - which was late. But the Infinity was supposed to be $100 more (which kind of took some of the pain away) - only to finally ship at the exact same price as the Prime.

Oh.. and then just after getting the dongle, the Prime's back camera died and that took a month to get repaired...

That's a lot of bad PR and bad customer support in one ball of hurt.

I bought an HTC Surround - the design made it impossible to remove the back without holding the screen which is on a slider. I sent it back after just two months of ownership because after upgrading to WP7.5 the screen started to act oddly.They claimed that the strain on the screen damaged it and refused to repair or replace it under warranty - demanding $250.

Which brings us back to Apple for a moment - I bought an iPhone 3G and two weeks afters the warranty expired, the 3G radio fried. When I took it back, they refused service - but offered refurb replacement.. also for $250. I asked if I could pay extra and upgrade to the 3Gs, but they refused claiming that their agreement with the cellco prohibited that. You'll pardon me when I get annoyed at people who go on about how great Apple's customer support is and how 'they'll replace or repair broken devices, even if they're a little over warranty...' Riiiight.

So, yes, as much as I hate to say it - at the moment, Samsung is the least evil current choice....

But it's definitely not what I would call a great choice...