I and my 2 sisters all own Macbooks. They're cute looking, and the OS is nice looking.Lovely, in fact.

But build quality is extremely shoddy for such an expensive item. All have splits at the front right edge. And we all agree that the keyboard isn't as well built as machines costing hundereds of dollars less.

As for the software, well all three crash. I use a PC (Vaio) for work that runs XP. I have to say that XP is a far more stable environment than Leopard.

Did I just have the bad luck to get a "bad Apple"? Perhaps. But I never recommend Apple to anyone, and will go back to a PC system next purchase, maybe Vaio or a ToughBook.

Macs just aren't worth what you pay for. Sorry Steve.

"Who would like to bet that Inquirer will sack Nick Ferret within a year ? Does anyone really bothers to read his drivel ?"

You do.

Apple computers have good hardware, and the OS is quite simplified to people that dont wont to do more than the average.
But if you wont to go everywhere and do everythin, ther's no alternative do windos.
In facto, Apple will probably loose a lot of market because their OS is no more stable than XP or Windows 7, unless you have a mac from the times of 9.5... Anyone that thinke that macs are more reliable or faster on average computing than a 800$ build with good components is just a guy that has never put the hands inside a PC or tryed to do something else with his OS. Period.

because everyone can type without looking at the keyboard and because you can't turn off the backlit lighting.

You shouldn't be insulting their faith!
Everyone knows that only an apple can last more than two years...the VAIOs that I've owned and lasted more than that are no match to a fruity overpriced little white toy that these hardcore believers love so passionately.
So how you dare??!!, shame on you Nick!

Unless you're a hunt and peck typist the backlit keyboard is such a gimmick. I don't even look at the keyboard anymore when I type. The backlit led is also quite annoying especially when watching a video in darklit areas...

The article on the Inquirer was not made up you know: http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10400447-1.html

Now we have at least two sources backing up the article: the PDF link in the article + one on C|Net.

you sure do know how to get the girls a screaming doncha? rofl.

Look at them all crying and hugging their precious. awwwww it's so cute. :)

Another (bad) copy and paste job by the world's worst online journo.

Just thinking (yeah, non-fanboys do that!)... How can a device be LESS reliable and last LONGER? You see, if a machine isn't reliable, it needs to be repaired... Or do you mean that WITH repairs, they last longer? because that is just a ridiculous way of measuring the quality of a product... If something fails a lot, why does it matter that it lasts longer?
Even accepting that way of measuring quality, if I get a pc that lasts 4years and has, let's say, 2 issues during it's lifetime, and get an apple that lasts 6 years but needs to be repaired 7 or 8 times, isn't it obvious that the first case is less troublesome? Taking account that the warranty expires in it's half-life, it's even more costly, even when you desregard the selling price.

"HOWEVER, the big difference, and one backed up by lots of studies, is when you have problems Apple fixes them and stands by their products."

I've not seen or read of any of these studies. Perhaps you could suggest a few for us to read?

of course Apple computers break down and of course they use the same parts as many PCs. HOWEVER, the big difference, and one backed up by lots of studies, is when you have problems Apple fixes them and stands by their products. Also, there's so much more to the overall computer experience that justifies Apple's higher price -- others have listed them in the comment sections.

I'm not a fanboy, but this article is pretty useless.

At this point all of us should commend Nick of constantly being so cute imitating early 2000's John Dvorak and channeling some of the fox news networks great sense of "news'.
its just so cute, it kills me...
ah ah ahahaha.
funny story, dood.
no wait I mean heroic, in fact.

This story is silly. Macs are perfect. Everyone knows this because Steve tells us so.

I don't care what and how these studies come about their results... one body declares Apple as highest ranked in customer satisfaction... other says, Apple machine are less reliable... blah blah blah.

I don't care what fanboys and anti-fanboys say, from my personal experience of owning two Apple notebooks they have lasted me way longer than the Windows notebooks that I had own (couple HP, one Dell).

My iBook G4 (1.33GHz) is still running dandy and still gives me good 2.5/3 hr battery on light surfing. It's been over 5 years now I'm using, meanwhile all my PC notebooks have come and gone. Beat that for reliability.

I don't know about Apple desktops as I own none (instead I made myself one hackintosh), but I'm never buying another PC notebook again in my life.

A difference of less than 2% between the best 4, with unknown sample sizes and Apple being a smaller player (so lower statistical accuracy) vs a 6% or more gap to Acer and an 8% gap to HP (who are larger players). Put another way that's a 64%(+/-) higher failure rate for HP compared to Asus. No, I'm not having it both ways.

There ARE any HP fans left? There was a day when they were renowned for the quality of their kit. Not any more.

If Nick were even handed in his insults and was to check his fact before posting his articles then he might get a little more respect. As it is he comes across as incredibly biased.

Who would like to bet that Inquirer will sack Nick Ferret within a year ? Does anyone really bothers to read his drivel ?

I have a G4 Powerbook that I bought in October 2004 and use daily. A few months ago I spilled a cup of coffee in it while it was running. The result was a destroyed hard drive which I quickly and easily changed myself. How's that for reliability?

Nick is nothing more than a (bad) tabloid wannabe. There is .05% truth in any of his "articles" at any one time.

Why doesn't the Inq fire him already?

Typing this on my trusty TiBook.

I've had Dells, IBMs, HPs, etc... I've been around long enough to be able to base my opinion of reliability on personal experience instead of "studies" by paid hacks.

I forgot to include the biggest error. They claim an average failure rate of 31% - yet HP (with 26% failure) is cited as the worst performer.

Clearly, they're playing fast and loose with the data.

I just caught perhaps the biggest flaw in the whole thing - they state that there's little data on netbooks over a year old. So they're comparing Asus (with a large percentage of netbooks, almost all of which are under a year old) with Apple who doesn't even have a netbook.

I nominate this one for the mindless Apple-bashing hall of fame.

Another worthless POS Nick Farrell article.

The survey is just plain pointless for many, many reasons. Just a few:

1. Sample size. Assuming that Apple's share of the survey is close to its market share (it won't be for reasons shown below), there would have been about 1500 Apple computers with 200 failures. There is no statistical difference between Asus and Apple at that level.

2. Almost every Apple users uses AppleCare rather than a third party warranty - so the Apple sample is probably even smaller, making the results less meaningful.

3. Because experienced Apple users typically use AppleCare, the sample here is clearly biased by being inexperienced - which increases the chance that they'd complain about something that wasn't a problem.

4. Apple computers are more expensive on average than the other brands. That means that users are more likely to take a computer in for repair over a minor issue than someone who bought a cheaper model (a Bentley purchaser will ask for a wrinkled headliner to be repaired while a Kia purchaser won't even notice).

5. For similar reasons, Mac users are more likely to still care enough about the computer at the end of 3 years to take it in for repair. After 3 years, the average Dell or Asus isn't worth enough to cover the postage to ship it back while the Mac is. So many broken computers from cheaper brands are probably discarded rather than repaired.

6. At least some of the results appear to have been extrapolated - but since no methodology was reported, it's impossible to verify the study one way or another.

7. No mention of warranty repairs. Anything repaired under warranty won't show up here.

8. The data isn't even internally self-consistent. They claim that Netbooks are much less reliable than laptops, yet Asus (which jumped into the top of the ranks of PC vendors almost entirely on the strength of its netbook sales) is #1 in reliability?

Bottom line is that the data is not consistent and there are clearly procedural problems with it. It would be interesting to see the actual numbers and types of repairs.

Until then, try to stick with something that at least makes an effort at obtaining a representative sample (PC World or Consumer Reports, for example) - and these almost always show Apple right at the top of the list.

Well, my organization was a Toshiba and HP laptop house which converted a few years ago completely to Dell, and in my opinion Dell's quality isn't that good, it's just average. Their machines are a little clunky and for a $1800 Latitude I'm surprised at the lower quality LCD screen and parts. But one thing they're top notch is their support resolution. Going through the support desk is a good experience when compared to all really bad experiences I've had. As soon as hardware is classified as defective there's a tech at your door the next morning just itching to replace the hardware. I'm not kidding.

Apple's hardware is top notch, and I don't care what all the haters think since nothing would make a difference to them.
(Right Nick? Fair and balanced news reporting is never a title you'll ever be able to use.)
I think Apple could improve their support network more. But then again, Apple is very high-profile so we hear all the positive and negative experiences all the time. I rarely hear anything from IBM and HP users, but I know first-hand what that's like and those numbers should be worse.

If being 1.8% behind the top rated company pushes Apple to improve then this is a good report. Too bad Nick had to type this article with his grubby little weasel hands.
Hey Nick, no comment on Squaretrade's report of the 16% Red Ring of Death for Microsoft's Xbox's which was a huge embarrassment, eh? No, I wasn't referring to your problems on the toilet.

Dear Steve,

You tell us all we should pay no attention to the survey because of all the reasons you list but then we should pay attention to where it says to avoid Acer, Gateway and HP.

Gee, what if I'm an avid HP fan. You would have offended me.

Nick does a fine job of throwing back at the fruity fan boys what they throw at every one else.

It seems that if someone criticizes an HP machine running Microsoft it's no big deal. But if anyone dares make any attempt to point out that an Apple product is like any other product, then whoa....up in arms.

According to the chart the most reliable brand is Asus at 15.6% and Apple is forth at 17.4%, a 1.8% difference and certainly within any margin of error. By chance Apple could have been #1.

The real story is that Apple is more reliable than HP and Dell. Apple lead HP by 9% and HP is dead last.

So Apple is more reliable that 9/10th of the PCs sold since Dell, Leveno, Acer, Gateway and HP who all trail Apple make up 90% of the computers sold.

It's dam good to be in the top 10% of the market right where Apple is.

What a lame story.

You taught Ed Berridge a thing or two!

.. Inqx ..maybe have a top 10 weekly articles and see how much ignorance, fanboism (lets call that a word) and general bashing it attracts and then pay bonuses to writers based on how many jug heads they manage to piss off. - 8)

Now that Charlie has gone, Nick would be top dog it seems. - tho my personal favs are mugs that bitch about how terrible the reporting is and they still come back foe more ... something akin to Masochism I guess ,,,

Funtastic!

According to the chart the most reliable brand is Asus at 15.6% and Apple is forth at 17.4%, a 1.8% difference and certainly within any margin of error. By chance Apple could have been #1.

The real story is that Apple is more reliable that HP and Dell. Apple lead HP by 9% and they are dead last.

So Apple is more reelable that 9/10th of the PCs sold since Dell, Leveno, Acer, Gateway and HP who all trail Apple make up 90% of the computers sold.

It's dam good to be in the top 10% where Apple is at.

What a lame story.

I think the article could have been spun a little less flame inducingly but the numbers are there in black and white. It might only be by a little but Asus, Tosh and Sony laptops are indeed more reliable. Fact. Lets face it, Mac books are always more expensive than equivalent (hardware spec) offerings so the arguement for the hardware being much of the reason for the hike in price is not justified. It's for the OS and software and always has been

Now let me just say I am no fa of apple and their overpriced pretty things, but I just knew when I saw the title of the article that it was going to be written by Nick.

Now he either loves the attention, or he's given these stories to "research" by others that like the attention an anti-apple story brings in.

Oh, and to the person that said he'd rather his power lead came out when someone tripped over the wire, I think you'll find most power leads do that. And as for backlit keyboards, you've obviously never used a Thinkpad with it's thinklight :-)

I started to loathe Apple as a company when they didi their 'Mitchell and Webb - I'm a PC' campaign. It was the smuggest most refutable advertising campaign i'd seen. I build PC's and game on them. I know Apples are great at certain tasks (and so too are PC's) but the whole PC's are boring and dull and Macs are exciting spin was reprehensible misadvertising. If anything from the above comments from Apple chaps themselves, Apples are for serious work and PC's are for games.
I'm sorry Apple people but Apple created this stink and the fundamentalist fans made it worse.
I'm off to play either Left for Dead 2 now or Modern Warfare 2....

Sometimes I wonder if these articles are just to get a bunch of clicks. I'll agree that it interprets the article in the wrong way, but it's still funny reading all the apple fanboys get so defensive about their products.

Can i use CSSEdit, Espresso, Coda, or even Transmit on Windows, nope i can't there is no Windows equivalent to these applications other than Dreamweaver which is not even close in functionality and available on OS X as well.

Complain to game developers if they don't port there games to Mac OS, also complain to Sony that you can't play your PS3 games on your Xbox.

Or god forbid if you buy a Mac for work or home tasks you can still install Windows for games which no one will disagree with Windows is good for games yet i am happy with Bioshock, Lego Batman, Sims 3, Warcraft, and Command and Conquer 3 on my Macbook Pro just now.

Thanks for the article, it was interesting enough.

The Apple drones are a nice bonus too. :)

Like Nick's way of putting things down. Always entertaining to read.

And having worked on Apple's in general, they are no more reliable than PC's, but holy cow, hardware repair and replacement costs are pretty ridiculous! Thats just my experience.

Can I play Crysis on a Mac? Is Batman AA available for OSX yet? What games are available that I might want to spend 2K to play at a mediocre to dismal frame rate?

This article is clearly poorly-researched flamebait. I came here after seeing this on Google News. We can all help out by reporting The Inquirer as a low-quality "news" source to Google:

http://www.google.com/support/news_pub/bin/request.py?contact_type=report_an_issue

Tom, you are right in your title, Reliability is not the only fruit. Other factors to weigh in are software compatibility, useability - e g games, price/vs usability/quality.

Please, simple change request time, can you add the authors name/initials next to the article on the front screen to save me reading any more of my cousins rambles.

Asus; rock solid and also invented the netbook.

Seeing as the apple internals are the same as most other laptops this doesn't really come as a surprise.

What your paying the extra for is some white paint and some other innovations, some are good, some are average.

Another piece of incendiary trash journalism from someone who clearly hates Apple.

HP was hit pretty hard by nvidia-gate, though; The dv6000 and dv9000 series were really big sellers.

I tried a multitouch touchpad on a mac the other day and it was pretty neat. Luckily other companies have picked up on the idea, didn't Dell just recently release an expensive lappy with multitouch too? Hope it becomes standard.

I've been using a Mac Book Pro since summer '09 and I have never had a better computer.

Apple computers are the very best of high quality.

Firstly you are fixated on Apple i mentioned two brands there that compete directly or did mention of Sony completely pass you.

Now onto the points addressed.
Dell Latitudes and ThinkPads are usually made from quite a durable plastic though i have seen too many broken latches and missing keys.

The back lit keyboard may seem like a gimmick but try using one on a plain or train or indeed any other low light conditions and you will quickly love it.

I would rather my power adaptor popped out when someone trips over it than watch my laptop take a fall. There has been many moments i have been glad of this and my Gran tripping over my old Samsung laptop was the death of it due to the hard smash onto the wooden floor. Gimmick till you need it mate.

While many multimedia laptops may now have optical digital out, it is much rarer to find one with optical digital in.

When i refer to a usable trackpad i mean one that actually works, i have used Dells and Acer's and there horribly unresponsive and go nuts if you have another finger resting on it or god forbid a biscuit crumb.

The multi touch track pad in no means a gimmick, try it out in a working environment such as Photoshop and see how much time it saves you when you want to rotate the canvass or activate exposé.

Long battery life is indeed software dependent but also dependent on the size of the battery Apple gives more per square inch.

In reference to the long lasting battery it is not a 3 year warranty but a 1000 cycles before degradation starts due to a new Apple developed technology. All other laptop batteries last 300 cycles before they start to degrade which is typically 1 year. And yes as with all batteries your milage may vary depending on usage and care.

Quite running laptops are not the primary goal of mom and pops $300 Dell, but it is one of the goals of Apple and Sony as there user expect more. In Apple's case all the aluminium laptops run silent even with heavy load due to the entire thing essentially being a big heat seek and clever design of the cooling fans.

Nick you haven't done your homework, again incomplete info. jeeez man get some life and maybe you should give up this job you're not up for it

Off the coolaid:

Lighter - depends on model, several manufacturers make light laptops that still are far more reasonably priced.
Back Lit Keyboard - yeah this is a nice feature that more people should include.
LED Screen - Dell etc. have started and will continue to move but no one is jacking their prices as a result.
Long Battery Life - I've got a year old HP that gets 3-5hrs off a 6-cell and the laptop was less than 600US.
Long lasting battery - stop drinking the coolaid, I work in IT and have owned and worked on Dell, IBM, Compaq, Toshiba and Fujitsu laptops that were well into their 3rd year with no battery problems.
Quiet Running - quite true

Apple AND Sony products are still overpriced in my opintion. Those two just put together as many seemingly useful features as possible and people pay them the extra margin.

From my anecdotal experience the report is right, especially Acer and Toshiba.

I have seen these reports for years and saw this report yesterday.After buying a Imac I found tech report not much better than average.I dont buy HP anymore and my very pricey xps m1530 was still $1,000 cheaper than an apple with the same insides,(try to buy a Mac for $650.00 less than when on sale) for the most part.True some of the Apples are made from aluminum but the truth is there nowhere as dependable as they where a few years ago. What I do like better about Macs is the OS.Like almost everything else, there not the quality they used to be.Apple does seem to think memory is made from gold. My Imac came with 1gb ram. I bought 2 4gb chips for $85.00. Apple wanted $800. for the same,or to upgrade from 1gb to 4gb. $800. for 3gb of ram. It is the biggest joke I have ever seen.

Does he even bother to read the material he links to?

The first thing to note is that the report in question was put together by a company that flogs extended warranties. These warranties include accidental damage. About 10% of machines were dealt with under that clause inside of 3 years. The average hardware failure rate was 20%.

The next thing to note was that they showed a correlation between machine price and failure rates. Netbooks had a projected failure rate of 25%, entry level laptops 21% and premium laptops 18%. Apples numbers came in as better than average for a premium laptop.

Failure modes. No data was given about types of failure. The most likely failure is likely be be the hard drive, which is one of the simplest and cheapest to fix. On this basis the numbers will be skewed by the choice of drive manufacturer and their actual - as opposed to projected - failure rates.

Sample sizes and statistical significance. Only the total sample size was given (30,000 total) and not the breakdown of category (netbook, entry level or premium) and manufacturer. It's not possible to determine how accurate the numbers presented are on this basis.

What we end up with is the conclusion that we're looking at an advertising document selling extended warrantees that tells us a few useful facts. Firstly there's about a 10% chance that a laptop will suffer an accident in 3 years. Secondly cheaper machines fail more frequently. Thirdly avoid Acer, Gateway and HP. They have failure rates 30% or more above average.

Lighter - there are comparable laptops from several manufacturers that are as light as Apples
Stronger body - Usually aluminium - Dell Latitudes and ThinkPads are just as a strong for less price.
Back Lit keyboard - Gimmick. So I'm going to pay extra for a few dollars worth of LEDs in the keyboard? Oooh wow.
LED Screen - The only thing that is 'special.'
magnetic power adaptor (Apple only) - Gimmick. I don't know about you, but when I worked in computer sales nobody came in with broken connectors. And my brothers MacBook kept getting unplugged accidentally when he moved it, which was irritating.
Digital optical audio in and out - many multimedia laptops have this now.
Usable touch pad - what does this mean? So my laptops trackpad is not usable when I'm manipulating my computer with it?
Multi Touch (Apple) - gimmick, and mostly a software gimmick.
Long battery life - uh huh. Again, mostly software. You can blame Vista for the bad reputation if you want, but it's the same 6cell battery that's in every other laptop.
Long lasting battery (Apple 3 years, everyone else 1 year) - they may provide a warranty for 3 years (I don't know), but with reasonable use most laptop batteries with last many years with good power duration. Remember that Apple. Remember that Apple (as well as other manufacturers) will cite the best case scenarios as they 'stats.'
Quiet running. - rrrright. Unless you're using a desktop replacement, many modern laptops are not very loud and my brother's 2 year old mackbook is just as loud as my 4 year old latitude.

Same internals as any other manufacturer unless your scraping the barrel.
But the price difference with Apple comes from the some of the same reasons as sony.
Lighter
Stronger body - Usually aluminium
Back Lit keyboard
LED Screen
magnetic power adaptor (Apple only)
Digital optical audio in and out
Usable touch pad
Multi Touch (Apple)
Long battery life
Long lasting battery (Apple 3 years, everyone else 1 year)
Quiet running.

So wile it does not run faster more reliable than the other guys, they run cooler, longer, have more little features and added value.
Nether Apple nor Sony are overpriced there good value for money if you are shopping for more than just GHz,

"So much for you get what you pay for".

Computers have many dimensions of quality. Apple is generally admired for user-friendly hardware and software, ease of integration, and other such imponderables.

A brick is highly reliable, but falls short in the functionality department. Hence most users do not prefer bricks to Apples, even though they are less likely to go wrong.

Apple's gear isn't significantly less reliable than anyone else's: that was a poor angle to take on the story.

However, neither is Apple's gear significantly more reliable than anyone else's. That's where the premium price alarm bells should be ringing.

Nick, how in the world are you still employed??

You'd probably do better with a gig at TMZ or some other similar tabloid where truth in journalism is not a prerequisite.