PC Magazine - 2009 11.pdf - Libertad Zero

among the worst on our survey.Of the other major carriers, Sprint did alittle better than it did last year, and AT&Tdid a little worse; nonetheless both remainat the bottom, with significantly worse thanaverage (SWA) scores. AT&T also scoredSWA on coverage and call quality withinsubscribers’ home areas, with the iPhone’ssole U.S. carrier being buoyed a little by anexcellent “choice of handsets provided.”Perpetual cellar-dweller Sprint hasimproved somewhat on all measures since2008, but the company clearly still has aquite a way to go. In particular, it needs toimprove in the area of tech support, whichreaders gave a dreary 6.1 rating.If you’re looking for cheap and cheerful,you can’t do better than T-Mobile, whichscored significantly better than average onfees, plan options, and customer service.The only downside is the limited network,shown by the company’s worse than averagerating on coverage outside users’ homeareas.Lower fees, great coverage, and flexibleplan options helped vault TracFone into thelead among prepaid carriers, though it washelped by a decline in Virgin Mobile’s scoresfor fees and plans from significantly betterthan average (SBA) to merely better thanaverage (BA). The prepaid offerings frommajor carriers like Verizon and AT&T ratedlow on fees and plan options, which alsohelped TracFone.Interested in hearing more about theresults of our 2009 survey? For the fullreport, click here.The Rest:Our comprehensive readers’ surveyincluded many more products thanthose discussed in our story. Below arethe Readers’ Choice winners of the othercategories covered in our survey. Andyou can find in-depth reports of all of theproducts by clicking here.Digital CamerasNikon The company makes such highqualitydigital SLR cameras that the lovespills over into Nikon’s overall score, puttingthe popular manufacturer at the top.Canon Canon plays in almost every subcategoryof digital camera. And in almostall of those, this camera giant comes outahead of the competition.Game ConsolesNintendo Wii, Wii, Wii, all the way home…and into many a home, it turns out. Wehad more responses from Wii users thanfor the other consoles, and no wonder. PCMag readers adore it.Sony The PS3 scores great with pictureand sound and reliability; overall it’s a bigfavorite in this survey.64 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION NOVEMBER 2009