PC Magazine - 2009 11.pdf - Libertad Zero

8.5 overall score) or bought locally from ano-name vendor (8.3 SBA overall). Yes, bothtypes of systems received significantly betterthan average overall scores, giving theman edge over any Windows PC vendor, evenSony.The other vendors in the final list eitherscored the same overall as last year (HP, Dell,Gateway, and Acer), or fell somewhat. Emachineswent from a 7.3 to 7.2; Lenovo hadthe worst showing this year for an overallscore in all desktops, dropping from 7.4 to aworse-than-average (WA) 7.1. HP did betterthis year, going from last year’s merely average7.6 to a BA score of 7.7.Extrapolating the market share of a companybased on the responses we receivedyields some intriguing information. Acer isthe only vendor in the desktop survey to netmore users than last year. It might not seemlike much going from 81 responses in 2008to 89 in 2009, but consider that every othervendor is down by double-digit percentages(17 percent in Apple’s case; 66 percentfor Sony); this probably says somethingabout how much PC Mag readers like Acer.When it comes to business-oriented PCs,Apple is still the top rated, but Windowsvendors are led by Dell with an SBA 7.4. Dellalso scores high for tech support, both overalland for business, and gets SBA scores forthe likelihood of recommending in overall,business, and home systems. HP also scoresSBAs in those three areas for likelihoodof being recommended. We call that thepower of the brand name.When it comes to desktop systems thatare less than one year old, the scores arealways higher—after all, newer computers(hopefully) require less tech support orrepair than a system with a few years and afew relocations under its skin. Apple (still theonly vendor to get an SBA score) and Dellboth had slight drops in their overall scores;Gateway and HP went up slightly, but areall just in the average range. Gateway andHP remain in the average range for overallscores.Dell’s newer systems had some otherissues. Last year for reliability the companyscored better than the average (8.2);this year’s 8.1 doesn’t seem like much of adrop, but that score is suddenly worse thanthe average. It also had an SBA score of 8.2last year for likelihood to be recommended,which fell to 8.1—merely in the averagerange this year.NotebooksREADERS’ CHOICEApple MacBooks of all shapes garner highmarks from our readers.Asus Netbooks or notebooks, it doesn’tmatter. Asus is far and away the top-ratedWindows-centric notebook maker with PCMag readers.Are you sick of seeing Apple as thePC Mag Readers’ Choice vendorfor notebooks year after year?Tough. Jobs & Co. are back ontop again, with the same significantly betterthan average (SBA) score of 9.2 out of 10that the company received last year (albeitNOVEMBER 2009 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION 53