PC Authority Reliability and Service Awards 2006
Nick Ross
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Sep 20, 2007 10:52 AM
We’ve examined the data from more than 8000 readers to reveal exactly what sort of reliability, customer service and satisfaction you can expect in 2007.
The 2007 PC Authority Reliability and Service Awards are on again! Vote for the products that have served you well (or slam the ones that have made your life difficult) over the past year to win your share of $40,000 in prizes!
PC Authority’s Labs testing has established itself as the best and most vigourous in all of Australia, but there are some things we simply can’t check ourselves. It’s all very well to say that a product is packed with features, performs great and is good value, but what if it has a habit of falling apart as soon as you get it home? What if its manufacturer consistently tries to wriggle out of warranties? These factors and more should make a big impact on whether you buy a product in the first place, but we are normally left to rely on hearsay and brand reputation as guides to a product’s reliability or a company’s service. This month we cut through the gossip and find out what products are really like to live with.
What makes this survey so special is that it’s based on your feedback alone. Every single star rating you see beside a manufacturer’s name is founded upon your buying experiences. To even qualify, we demand that at least 100 readers must have bought a piece of equipment from each manufacturer. So rather than rely on a single word-of-mouth recommendation for a manufacturer, rely on 100 recommendations – or warnings in some cases
It’s the biggest and most-comprehensive tech survey ever done in Australia and we’re publishing the results in full: warts and all. It means that if you’re considering a purchase from any of Australia’s major manufacturers, if you’re wondering whether you can trust online shops or if you’re wondering which ISP will give you the least grief, you’ll be able to see at a glance how they’ve performed over the past two years.
How we test
We take the same vigorous approach to testing customer satisfaction that we do when we test new products in a group test. While other magazines call their surveys ‘customer satisfaction’ when all they really ask is ‘who is your favourite manufacturer?’, we ask a series of in-depth questions to discover the real-world experiences our readers undergo.
The principle is simple enough: whether a PC, notebook or peripheral, we ask who you bought your IT equipment from and then dig deeper. How satisfied were you with reliability? How satisfied were you with customer support? For a general customer satisfaction score we ask the killer question, ‘Would you buy a product from the same company again?’ and factor in respondents’ perceptions of ‘value for money’ if pertinent to that category.
We then analyse all the data to create a set of statistically valid results, which we convert into star ratings:
Notebooks
Winner: Asus
Highly Commended: Apple
Retailers say that notebooks are now outselling PCs 60-40 and our survey in part agrees with their point of view. However, our desktop survey shows that many people build their own PCs these days and that desktops are hardly a dying breed. So in a way it’s more important to know about the reliability and service of a notebooks because you’re unable to build one yourself and are at the mercy of a company you probably only know by brand, hearsay and reputation.
Over 5300 notebooks were bought by our 8000-plus readers and most of Australia’s major manufacturers received the minimum 100 votes required to compete. Results varied a fair bit.
In terms of reliability, Apple, Asus, Sony and Toshiba saw around 90% of customers say they were satisfied or very satisfied with their notebook's reliability (the latter two scored lower because they had slightly more decidedly dissatisfied customers). Dell, the only company to break 1000 responses, followed with 85% along with IBM. HP and Compaq saw 81% positive response rates and Acer trailed with 77%.
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An average of 74% of respondents were satisfied or very satisfied with customer support. Apple was some way ahead of this mark with 84% with Asus following closely behind with 83%. Dell, Sony, Lenovo and Toshiba rated in the 70s, Acer dropped to 69% and HP and Compaq dropped to 66% and 64% respectively.
In terms of complaints, an average of 5% of respondents said getting through to sales people was a problem. This dropped to 2% for Apple and Lenovo but rose to 7% for Compaq and Dell. A troubling 12% (average) of respondents claimed they had difficulties getting through to support personnel. This dropped to 7% for Asus and 9% for Apple, Lenovo and Toshiba respondents. But it rose to 14% for Acer and Compaq and peaked at 16% for HP customers.
On average 9% of respondents had trouble understanding the sales and/or support people, but results varied widely across the manufacturers. Kudos to Apple: not a single respondent had difficulties here. Only 3% of Sony customers had these problems, 5% of Asus and Lenovo customers did as well and 6% of Toshiba customers did too. More troubling was 13% of HP customers complaining and 17% of Dell customers doing likewise.
Telephone courtesy caused 6% of respondents to complain (on average) though Compaq was higher with 10% and HP worst again with 12%. Repairs taking longer than promised was generally high at around 10% with Acer and HP rising to 14 prcent. Dell was best with 7%. Suppliers trying to wriggle out of warranties troubled 5% of respondents, though Dell and Lenovo saw only 3% complain here while a worrying 12% of Sony respondents complained.
But these problems didn’t always translate to customer dissatisfaction. This rating was measured using one-third of respondents’ ‘value for money’ satisfaction response and two-thirds that of their ‘would you buy from the same company again’ rating. Not surprisingly 91% of Apple users said they would buy an Apple notebook again but Asus wasn’t far behind with 90%. Of the Dell users, 88% said they’d buy Dell again.
But many customers weren’t happy with the value they were getting despite high scores elsewhere. Only 78% of Apple customers were satisfied or very satisfied with their value for money; Lenovo was worse, with only 70% satisfaction and Sony was bottom with 62%. All of these manufacturers traditionally come at a premium over the competition for various reasons so it was impressive that 87% of Asus customers were satisfied (or better) with value for money.
Asus spent the last year aiming to become a premium brand in Australia with its Lamborghini and leather-bound notebooks leading the charge. On this showing we can say it has succeeded, because with top marks across the board, it’s the surprise winner of our inaugural notebook award. Apple follows very closely behind meaning it wins a Highly Commended award. We recommend Acer, HP and its Compaq brand take a look at their support structures.
PCs
Winner: Dell
Highly Commended: Lenovo
Notebooks are officially outselling PCs, but our survey distorts the picture. 7600 people who entered our survey bought a PC in the last two years while almost 5300 bought notebooks. However, two-thirds of home users built their own system. It’s far less simple to build your own notebook so, not surprisingly, branded notebooks outsold branded PCs.
With so many PC manufacturers in Australia it’s not surprising that of the 4400 branded PC purchases registered in our survey, half the votes were spread out among the plethora of Australia’s white-box manufacturers who didn’t attain the 100-votes minimum required to compete.
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Of the finalists, a clear complaint was customer support: only 68% of respondents were satisfied. Specific complaints were in similar proportions across the manufacturers: 11% of buyers had difficulty in getting through to a support person and a similar amount complained about repairs taking longer than promised. 4% complained about telephone courtesy, 4% complained about difficulty getting through to sales people and 4% complained about suppliers wriggling out of warranties (less than 2% for Dell here). There was a larger fluctuation across manufacturers with people having difficulty understanding sales and support people: on average, 8% complained here but only 5% of Lenovo customers did whereas Dell and HP were higher at 13 and 14% respectively.
Most eyes were on Dell – Australia’s dominant PC manufacturer. 71% were satisfied or very satisfied with customer support – second highest behind Lenovo’s 74%. Acer trailed with only 63% Dell came top in reliability with an 82% positive response. The rest of the field was close behind but Acer trailed again with 71 prcent. At this point Lenovo was doing well but it scored low in overall satisfaction – only 55% were satisfied with value for money. 74% thought Dell PCs were good value for money and 83% said they’d buy a Dell PC again. Everyone else scored in the 70s here but only 63% of Compaq customers said they’d buy Compaq again. As such, Dell wins the award for good ratings across the board but Lenovo wins Highly Commended for its support and reliability scores.
LCD monitors
Winner: Samsung
Highly Commended: ViewSonic, Chimei
2006 was the first year PC Authority didn't review a CRT monitor. With flat-panel displays being supplied with even low-end PCs, and mid-range models matching CRTs for colour-accuracy and brightness, the rise of LCDs is almost complete.
The 6390 responses in this category ensured that all of the major players received the requisite 100 votes to be judged. Of these an impressive 92% said they were satisfied or very satisfied with image quality. Of particular note were Samsung, Philips, ViewSonic and budget-manufacturer, Chimei all recording scores of 95% in this area. Next was Sony (94%) followed by BenQ (93%) and Dell (92%).
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Reliability scores were even higher. ViewSonic and Samsung led here with a massive 96% of respondents claiming they were satisfied or very satisfied with their monitor. Indeed, only HP, Acer and IBM dipped below 90% satisfaction here and the latter two only dropped to 87%.
However, the fact that modern LCDs’ quality and reliability are so high doesn’t seem to be lost on our readers whom, it seems, don’t expect to be paying high prices for their products anymore. The budget specialists did very well: 97% of Chimei’s customers were very happy with the value on offer. BenQ’s 90% was the second-highest rating. This ‘value’ rating helped influence our satisfaction score along with lower-than-usual ‘buy again’ scores which suggest price is often more important than LCD brand nowadays. Despite impressive quality and reliability results, only 85% of Sony users wanted to pay for the marque again. Conversely 95% of ViewSonic, 93% of Dell, and 92% of BenQ customers would buy from their manufacturer again. Chimei and Samsung finished top with 96% of respondents wanting to buy again.
With such consistently high scores, Chimei and ViewSonic walk away with Highly Commended awards. Dell just misses out. The clear winner is Samsung. Its LCDs impressed us greatly over the year and its outstanding three-year, fault-free warranty on virtually all of its panels, make it a worthy winner.
Inkjet printers
Winner: Canon
Highly Commended: Epson, HP
It was interesting to see that just over half of inkjet printer owners (51 to 49%) used all-in-one devices instead of standalone printers but, with the plummeting in price of the former, it wasn’t surprising. We count the two together as all-in-one inkjet engines come from their standalone counterparts.
In this category, print quality and reliability are obvious factors and we derived a satisfaction score by asking whether readers would buy from the same company again and whether they were happy with the running costs of their device.
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Long-term readers won’t be surprised at the top three. Canon, Epson and HP have all provided us with fantastic products over the past few years, while Brother, Lexmark and Dell (which uses Lexmark printers) have often lagged behind.
But it was Canon which scored top for quality with 94% of respondents claiming to be satisfied or very satisfied with their results. By comparison, HP and Epson users rated 90% while Brother dropped to 85%, Dell dropped to 80% and Lexmark fell to a poor 73%.
Canon also led the reliability stakes, and by some margin. 90% said they were at least satisfied with their Canon printer’s reliability. The chasing pack consisted of Brother, HP and Epson (82 to 83%), while Dell trailed with 77% and Lexmark brought up the rear with 71%.
There was an across-the-board revolt against running costs. Brother, Canon and HP were the only ones that managed to scrape above the 70% satisfaction mark (Brother was best with 75%) while Epson saw 67% satisfaction, Dell saw 63% and Lexmark respondents recorded a dreadful 54%.
But this didn’t influence users’ overall satisfaction too much: 89% of HP customers said they would buy from the manufacturer again, and 85% of Epson buyers said likewise, giving them high overall marks and Highly Commended awards. Only 78% of Brother users said they would buy Brother again but this was better than Dell (70%) and much higher than Lexmark (64%).
But the star of the show was again Canon. An amazing 94% of almost 1800 respondents (HP were the only other company to break 1000 respondents with 1049) said they would buy from Canon again making it a clear winner this year.
Laser printers
Winner: Canon
Highly Commended: Fuji Xerox, HP
With the expense and mission-critical nature of laser printers in the office, a combination of good reliability, running costs and satisfaction with support and quality are vital when considering a new purchase. Thankfully, a number of suppliers meet all three of these criteria according to this year’s survey responses. Only two of the manufacturers that met our 100-response threshold received an overall score of less than five out of six, and no manufacturer was found wanting. However, out of the group, three are worthy of special attention.
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HP laser printers score top marks for reliability, with only 5% of respondents claiming to be dissatisfied or very dissatisfied with their printer. Print quality was well received too, with only 1% finding grounds to complain. HP’s only stumbling block concerned running costs. Despite this, HP scored a joint-best ‘buy again’ rating, at an impressive 94%, leading to a Highly Commended Award.
Fuji Xerox was another top performer, with over 99% of its customers stating they were pleased with the print quality of their Fuji Xerox laser. Furthermore, 95% of respondents had no grounds for complaint with Fuji Xerox’s reliability, and 91% of people said they’d buy another printer from it.
But this year’s winner, Canon, storms into first place with an overwhelmingly positive response across the board. More than 91% of Canon laser printer owners said their product was reliable or very reliable, while only 1% had any reservations about print quality. With 94% of users saying they would buy a Canon laser printer again. Canon can confidently claim to lead the field.
Digital Cameras
Winner: Canon
Highly Commended: Nikon, Panasonic
It wasn’t long ago that film-based compact cameras dominated the market and their digital equivalents suffered from horrendous battery lives and low quality. How times have changed. Not only have digital compacts become practically ubiquitou, but high-quality digital SLRs can be bought for just over $1000. The digital camera has reached maturity.
The downside is a market bursting at the seams with a massive array of new models from dozens of manufacturers: finding out which one is right for you can be a time-consuming experience. Fortunately, our survey takes the guesswork out of the equation.
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Nine manufacturers made it onto the long list of contenders. Of those, Fujifilm, Kodak, Nikon, Olympus, Panasonic and Sony were all owned by several hundred readers each while well over 1000 readers registered owning a Canon camera.
Most manufacturers scored highly in terms of customer satisfaction with at least 90% of owners saying they’d buy from the same company again. Only Kodak (81%), Casio (81%), Fujifilm (85%) and Pentax (87%) dropped below this figure.
All in all Canon, Nikon and Panasonic can take great credit from our survey results while Kodak may question why 700 respondents rated them significantly lower. Panasonic wins Highly Commended because more than 97% said they were satisfied with reliability. But it was Canon and Nikon which slugged it out for the overall award and only a whisker separated them. A slightly higher proportion of Nikon owners were happier with image quality and reliability but fewer were satisfied with value for money. But what really swung it was that of the enormous number of Canon users (over 1700 voted – more than double second-placed Kodak) an astonishing 96% said they’d buy from Canon again. With loyalty like that, the future looks rosy for Canon.
PDA/Smartphones
Winner: Palm
Highly Commended: Nokia, Dell
Email has had a profound impact on our working and personal lives and over the past two years, there’s been a proliferation of devices to help us check it on-the-go. Furthermore, where PDAs and Smartphones were once the strict domain of the office they've now become commonplace at home: over 1300 readers used their device at home compared to 400 readers who said their device was mainly for work.
The results were notable in that, unlike other categories, no manufacturer had 90% of users wanting to buy their products again. Nokia came close with 88% but most manufacturers were in the low 80s with O2 dropping to a poor 70%.
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Indeed, O2 picked up a wooden spoon in this category. 41% of users weren’t happy with their battery life, whereas other leading manufacturers saw complaints below 30% Only 22% of Palm users weren’t satisfied with their battery lives.
It was a similar story in terms of Reliability with O2 again trailing with 37% of non-satisfied customers. Conversely, 82% of Palm users and 81% of Dell users said they were satisfied with their products’ reliability with Nokia and HP following closely behind.
We added both BlackBerry and Sony to the overall results because a PDA/Smartphone survey would be incomplete without them. However, their results are a general guide as neither company attained 100 votes.
We were rather disappointed with the middling performance of i-mate, whose devices have seen it adorn the A-List this year. Battery life was the main killer but its reliability rating could have been higher. HP did rather well with only its old Achilles heel, battery life, coming back to haunt it. It was a similar story for Dell and Nokia, but superior reliability from the former and a high satisfaction score from the latter pushed both into award contention. But there was no stopping Palm. Not only does the company’s reputation for battery life show no signs of abating, its devices were deemed most reliable.
Wireless Routers
Winner: Billion
Highly Commended: Linksys
Despite nearly 4000 people buying wireless routers over the past two years, only six manufacturers gained the 100 votes required to register: not surprising in a market which has so very many brands. Fortunately, most of the key players were well represented with Netgear almost receiving 1000 votes alone.
The first question we asked was how happy people were with their router’s speed and range – something that’s difficult for us to say for sure when performing a labs test. The results were surprising. Of Billion respondents 90% were satisfied or very satisfied with their wireless router’s range and speed whereas only 73% of Belkin customers were: a reversal of last month’s Labs results. Also scoring highly was Linksys with 89% while everyone else hovered around the low 80% mark.
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Reliability can be an enormous issue in this category with some routers we’ve had in for testing not working properly without a firmware update. Indeed, tales of flaky routers are legendary so it was good for our readers to tell us what’s really going on. As such, 85% of Billion customers were satisfied or very satisfied with their reliability, Linksys followed with 82%, and the remainder floundered around the low-mid 70% mark except for Belkin which sank to 66%.
Not surprisingly, things didn’t get much better for Belkin in terms of general satisfaction. Only 69% said they’d buy another Belkin wireless router compared to scores of 92% from Billion and 88% from Linksys. The proportions were similar for value-for-money ratings which made up a third of the satisfaction score. With the rest of the field hovering around the middle, the two clear success stories are Billion and Linksys. The across-the-board success of Billion makes it the winner, but Linksys pulls in a deserved Highly Commended award too.
Graphics cards
Winner: Hightech (HIS)
Highly Commended: Gainward
Those who know about the graphics card business will realise it can be tricky to rate in terms of reliability as many ‘manufacturers’ simply receive products from Ati and Nvidia to configure and rebadge. Furthermore, everyone uses Nvidia and Ati’s websites to update drivers – not manufacturers’ own sites. However, most manufacturers offer additional proprietary and third-party software, and are obliged to service and support their products. If any differences between brands exist, then more than 7000 customer responses would highlight them. And they did.
But first there’s the difference between Ati and Nvidia. Nvidia buyers accounted for two-thirds of graphics cards respondents – not surprising considering Ati only returned from the wilderness a year ago with its X1000 series. There was almost no difference in terms of reliability and satisfaction between the two. For post sales support, 72% of Nvidia customers were satisfied or very satisfied against Ati’s 71%. For reliability, 88% of Nvidia users responded positively compared to Ati’s 86%. Value for money saw Nvidia score 80% to Ati’s 79%. Both manufacturers commanded immense brand loyalty: 98% of Nvidia customers said they’d buy Nvidia again. And 97% of Ati’s customers reciprocated.
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Interestingly, four of the top six manufacturers were dedicated partners to either Nvidia or Ati. Ati specialist, HIS emerged with top ratings and won the award with 84% of readers saying they were satisfied or very satisfied with post sales support, 93% saying similar for reliability and 93% saying they’d buy from HIS again. All of these were top or joint-top marks. Also noteworthy is that HIS is one of few manufacturers to modify cards’ reference designs with its IceQ proprietary cooling system became Ati’s reference design for the X1950 XTX.
Also of note is Nvidia-dedicated Gainward which scored joint top for reliability and had 95%of respondents say they’d buy Gainward again. Asus and Gigabyte receive honourable mentions for being the best suppliers of both flavours of card, but just miss out on awards.
Motherboards
Winner: DFI
Highly Commended: Asus, Gigabyte
As one of the core components of any PC, it’s crucial to choose a motherboard that’s well supported in terms of driver and BIOS updates, as well as after-sales service. This year three companies stood out from the crowd. With there being a 50-50 split between AMD and Intel based respondents we’re glad to see that all three winners, ahem, swing both ways.
Out of more than 7500 purchases, 10 major brands achieved our 100 response threshold with Asus and Gigabyte zooming beyond the 1000-respondent mark to register 2243 and 1831 responses respectively. But it was high-end specialist DFI which grabbed the award from these two behemoths. The win is thanks to a consistently-high level of satisfaction for the various types of support and reliability and that 93% of respondents said they would buy again from DFI.
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Keeping your motherboard’s BIOS and drivers updated ensures support for the latest CPUs and irons out any wrinkles in compatibility. Over 81% of respondents who used DFI’s website support and forums said they were satisfied or very satisfied with their responses, downloads and updates. 90% were satisfied or very satisfied with their board's reliability. Even though DFI products are renowned for their premium performance, very high feature sets, and overclockability that would suit the most demanding tinkerers, 81% were happy to pay the extra and declared themselves satisfied or very satisfied with value. With no weak point, it was a clear winner.
But kudos to Asus and Gigabyte. Both companies kept their armies of customers happy over the past two years. A best-on-show 95% of Asus customers said they’d buy Asus again and Gigabyte scored 92%. Both companies attained near 90% reliability satisfaction and 85% value satisfaction. Where they fell down was in terms of after-sales support. It was enough to cost them the laurels but both deserve their Highly Commended awards.
An honourable mention goes to ASRock for great customer satisfaction but EPoX needs to examine why, by comparison, its scores are so low.
Hard disks
Winner: Seagate
Highly Commended: Samsung, Western Digital
We already knew from our reviews that Samsung makes exceptionally quiet and good-value hard disks, so we were pleased to see that 91% of respondents found our A-Listed choice to be reliable too.
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Indeed, reliability is the key consideration when choosing a hard disk, as no-one wants to lose any precious data because of a failure. Because of this Seagate nudges ahead as, out of almost 3300 purchasers (six times the number of Samsung respondents), 92% said they were satisfied or very satisfied with reliability. A staggering 96% of these people also said that they’d buy a Seagate hard disk again which is why Seagate takes the hard disk award this year.
But Western Digital (WD) wasn’t prepared to simply make up the numbers. 94% of 2700 respondents said they’d buy WD again and 90% were satisfied or very satisfied with reliability. As such it joins Samsung in claiming a Highly Commended award.
Best ISP
Winner: Internode
Highly Commended: Westnet
We were very interested to see the ISP results not only because almost 8000 people voted in this category, but because it’s a survey like this that is the best way to judge which ISP you should plump for. And our results put a whole bag full of virtual, caffeinated cats amongst a great many particularly-excitable pigeons. In the key customer satisfaction question of ‘would you recommend your ISP to someone else?’ results swung from a winning 97% of respondents saying yes to a dreadful 50%.
And there’s no prize for guessing who achieved that dubious honour. Telstra BigPond drew more respondents than anyone else at 1600. Of these, a pathetic 28% said they were satisfied or very satisfied with BigPond’s value (one third of the satisfaction score). A terrible 26% said they were very dissatisfied. Only 54% said they were happy with BigPond’s customer support and 68% were happy with reliability. This combined with a 50% recommendation factor from so many people means that we can only warn people away from BigPond as an ISP. Its scores are so bad that it picks up the wooden spoon for the entire survey and, based on our results, we feel justified in saying Australia’s biggest tech company is also the worst.
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But it’s not alone in poor feedback. Dodo Internet was poor across the board, with only 35% of users satisfied with support, 55% satisfied with reliability and only 50% willing to recommend the ISP to a friend. Keep away.
But there is good news. Westnet scored top marks for customer support, with an amazing 95% of customers saying they were satisfied or very satisfied. An impressive 93% said likewise about reliability and 90% of its customers said they’d recommend the ISP to a friend. The only mark against it was that only 66% said they were happy with the value for money. However, it’s well deserving of a Highly Commended award.
But there was a clear winner. 89% of customers said they were satisfied or very satisfied with Internode’s support and 88% felt positive regarding its value. But what won Internode this year’s ISP award was having 97% of its customers saying that they were satisfied or very satisified with the ISP’s reliability and a similar proportion saying they’d recommend it to a friend. That’s winning form if ever we’ve seen it and we’re happy to declare Internode the Best ISP of 2006.
Bricks & Mortar Retailer
Winner: Jaycar
Not surprisingly our bricks & mortar retailer award drew a huge response: over 9000 customer experiences were proffered. We all use these shops and generally know what to expect when we go into them. It’s notable that nobody did really badly here but Radio Rentals’ scores were distinctly average when compared to everybody else. Harvey Norman drew most votes with two-and-a-half thousand and was found to be generally good although, not surprisingly, it wasn’t highly-regarded for its low prices. Retravision looked to be doing well but only 69% said they were satisfied or very satisfied with customer service. Harris technology offered a slight improvement here but only 58% said they were happy with the value on offer.
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The clear winner was Jaycar. 89% said they were satisfied or very satisfied with customer service and scores weren’t much lower for delivery reliability and value.
Online retailer
Winners: PlusCorp, Secret, Mega PC
Highly Commended: PC Maniacs
Assessing online retailers is what actually started the ball rolling for the whole Reliability and Service awards. As you know, PC Authority is the only magazine to quote real-world prices in its reviews as you can’t assess value for money (properly) when referring to RRPs. Not surprisingly, when we made this switch a little over a year ago it ruffled many feathers in the industry. The common rallying cry was, ‘You can’t trust online retailers’. Or can you? Finally, we’ve provided some answers.
Over 13,000 customer experiences were related in our results – 4000 more than with bricks and mortar stores. This is a sure sign that the online retailer market in Australia is more mature than many people give it credit for. However, as our readers will know, Australia has a great many online shops and not all received the requisite 100-votes to register. That said, we still managed to provide ratings for 29 vendors.
What may surprise many is that when the online and bricks & mortar results are viewed together, Jaycar comes 15th out of 37. This doesn’t surprise us. We know that the best online stores must be good – they could succeed in such a competitive market otherwise.
But are there any you should be wary of? GameDude came last, but how does it compare with a known benchmark like Harvey Norman? 51% of respondents said they were satisfied or very satisfied with GameDude’s online customer service compared to 57% of Harvey Norman customers (Harvey Norman rated slightly higher overall because a larger proportion were neither satisfied or dissatisfied). 65% of Harvey Norman customers were satisfied or very satisfied with deliveries while only 48% of GameDude customers were. However, only 44% of Harvey Norman customers were happy with the value on offer while 73% of GameDude customers were. This, and other results (like from MSY) suggest that there is some truth in the statement that famously-cheap online shops can struggle in terms of customer service.
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We were well aware that many online stores helped promote this survey. However, all were under strict instructions not to offer incentives for positive voting and after extensive monitoring and scrutiny we were satisfied that no major skulduggery took place. Promotion seems to have paid off as all of the 'promoters' drew very good feedback from their customers – validating their confidence in their customers’ experiences.
As such, the competition was incredibly tight and we simply couldn’t separate the top three: Pluscorp, Secret and Mega PC all rated excellent across the board with over 90% of respondents saying they were satisfied or very satisfied in every area. PC Maniacs followed closely behind and wins a Highly Commended award.
We’ll be monitoring the online shops closely over this year, please feel free to write in and relay whether your experiences match the ratings our survey has delivered. Hopefully our winners will be rewarded with a boost in sales, but they’ll be under even greater pressure to deliver now.
Editorial Awards
Computing isn’t all about reliability, it’s also about desirability. This year, PC Authority picks out the products and services that have most impressed us over the past 12 months.
With hundreds of products to consider and only eight awards, winning one of PC Authority’s Editorial Awards is an immense achievement as we reward the companies whose excellence has made them stand out from the crowd.
Most wanted hardware
Winner: Dell UltraSharp 2407FPW
Highly Commended: Intel Core 2 Processor, Belkin USB 2 File Transfer Cable
The criterion for PC Authority’s Most Wanted Hardware Award is simple: which product would our editorial team be most willing to pay their own money for? Not surprisingly, this is one of the most fiercely contested categories.
Belkin’s totally-unsexy USB 2 File Transfer Cable is on our list of Highly Commended products. It won one of our very scarce Excellence Awards for being one of those things that you couldn’t believe hadn’t been invented yet – a cable for effortlessly transferring files from one computer to another. Almost everyone in the office wanted one of Intel’s new Core 2 CPUs so that joined it too.
But the team united behind Dell’s Ultrasharp 2407FPW. This stunning LCD blew away the competition in terms of performance, features and warranty at a price which was simply unheard of at the time. We found it very difficult to let go of once it was recalled back to Dell HQ. A fantastic product.
Best software
Winner: Apple BootCamp
Picking the best software is an ideologically tricky task, as some of the best tools are available for free. But that doesn’t mean the likes of Apple’s BootCamp have any less value to us than software that costs an arm and a leg. It was a unanimous winner from a short list which included OpenOffice 2, Acronis True Image 9 and Adobe’s Elements software which didn’t quite stand as highly in our regard as they were incremental improvements of previous, highly-regarded software.
Indeed, BootCamp came from out of the blue and kicked Apple right into the PC mainstream – unthinkable only a short time ago. It revolutionised the way Macs were regarded by the wider computer industry and helped make them legitimate alternatives for users who had been brought up with PCs. If the company could just stop with those ruddy adverts...
Best web application
Winner: YouTube
We’ve created this award in recognition of the rapid rise of online services; the number of tools given to us free of charge today is incredible. We can communicate via email or on the telephone, get directions or locate a bargain – all for nothing. Last year saw the likes of Flickr, MySpace and Google Earth all astonishing us with their offerings. This year Pandora, the free music site, proved popular around the office and Yahoo Mail pleased its users with new Outlook Express-like functionality.
Shopbot proved very popular with our Labs team and was deemed the best price searcher from a competitive field but, let’s face it, if you had to name one website which didn’t exist last year and is now one of the most popular in the world, it would be YouTube. Freshly bought by Google, YouTube finally brought web-based video to the masses. We watch several clips a day at PC Authority towers and we all love it. Long may it continue.
Technology innovator
Winner: Intel
Highly Commended: Seagate
There were some great advances in IT during 2006 and our shortlist was impressively stocked. Apple wowed us with BootCamp, its Intel-based Macs and new iPods. Thanks to Ageia, game physics became cool: when linked with a graphics card unheard of effects became possible. Sony’s stunning new, feature-packed notebooks were pricey but their levels of design and performance were exquisite.
But we’re a practical bunch at PC Authority and Seagate picked up a Highly Commended award for its perpendicular storage technology. This offers significantly larger storage capacities in standard hard disk sizes which is essential in an age so reliant on storage space for digital media.
However, the unanimous winner was Intel. Its desktop processors have been poor for so long that it was great to see Core and Core 2 provide gob-smacking performance at a reasonable price and low temperatures. Core was so good that AMD had to rethink its entire business and led to the purchase of ATI.
Best game
Winner: Oblivion
We were all set for a fight when it came to voting for the best game but everyone said a single name. Even those who weren’t fans conceded that it was the correct choice. Bethesda Softworks’ The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion was a unanimous winner. Call of Duty 2 was fun, but nothing prepared us for the breadth, playability and sheer adventure that Oblivion provided.
It’s basically an interactive version of Lord of the Rings which sees your wimp of a character get tossed into a massive world with only a few clues regarding a quest which will save the world. By completing missions or simply being a good citizen you can level up your character, all the while interacting with thousands of unique computer characters. Magic and real-time sword fights are frequent. If you’ve ever liked playing a computer game, and you haven’t played it, buy it now!
Labs award: PCs & notebooks
Winner: Dell
Highly Commended: Trinity International Computers
Winning the Labs Award for PCs & Notebooks is an immense achievement in design and consistency. To reach the shortlist, manufacturers must have submitted products for review or group test on five occasions and performed well in all of them.
To find the winner, we looked back through the 12 issues of PC Authority during 2006 and calculated the average scores for all the manufacturers. We then added bonus points for every Labs win and Recommended award. The final score was then divided by the number of times the company appeared in the magazine.
Three companies deserve special praise. Trinity International Computers’ PCs made five appearances with an average score of 5 stars and three awards won. With this in mind and noting that it’s our most successful white box manufacturer it deserves its Highly Commended Award.
But the overall winner was Dell. Its PCs and Notebooks averaged an unbeaten 5.1 stars and it won seven awards along the way. Such consistency from such a prolific company makes its win deserved.
Labs award: Peripherals & components
Winner: Samsung
Highly Commended: Canon, Western Digital
The Labs Award for Peripherals & Components is calculated on a near-identical basis to our award for PCs & Notebooks, but the competition is even hotter due to the much higher number of potential winners. 17 companies qualified for consideration this year by contributing products on five occasions or more.
Canon’s success with its cameras, projectors and printers earns the manufacturer a Highly Commended Award. 14 products were reviewed with an average of score of 4.9 stars each while six awards were won.
Western Digital’s success with hard disk-related products saw it average 4.8 stars across six appearances and four awards won.
But we like a clear winner and Samsung certainly was that. A five star average across 12 reviews and seven awards sees it come out on top. Considering the diversity of products: hard disks, LCDs, MP3 players and laser printers, it’s a deserving winner.
A-List award
Winner: Dell
Highly Commended: Adobe, HP/Compaq
55 companies can claim to have been A-Listed this year and we thought it would be good to reward the best of the best of the best. Adobe products made 22 appearances throughout the year making it the most successful software company. HP/Compaq came second overall with 45 appearances making it a great runner up. However, the winner was Dell, whose PCs, notebooks, projector and monitors contributed to a massive 61 appearances throughout the year. With such diversity and consistency, the future looks bright for Dell.
Well it was an horrendous task, but sifting through some eight-and-a-half thousand responses to a heck of a lot of questions is finally done. However, it was a labour of love and a very big thank you goes out to everyone who responded. It’s the biggest tech survey Australia’s ever seen.
There’s in depth analysis throughout the feature but it’s worth sifting through some of the results further.
For instance, a surprising loser was Lexmark. Lexmark’s inkjets haven’t done well in PC Authority for years, though signs of improvement suggest the company will be soon catching up with the competition. Its lasers are a different story though. There are two Lexmark lasers on the A-List. That’s because in the last year (the survey asked for two years’ of product information) that things have picked up for Lexmark in this area. Its printers started offering better quality, cost per page and a great new warranty: LexExpress. This offers an onsite, NBD swap-out for any faulty printer. As such, we believe that Lexmark’s showing will improve next time.
Another shock loser was Belkin in the wireless router award. However, the company acknowledged that it had a major issue with a batch of wireless routers which wouldn’t work out of the box (without a firmware update) which probably contributed here. We always update firmware when we test routers, but this should be a wakeup call to all manufacturers, because it’s the public’s first impressions that really count.
There were some very big losers in the ISP category. We rarely rate ISPs in PC Authority because so much of what they offer is dependent on customer service and reliability. If all we cared about was glossy, cheap packages then many of us would head straight for Telstra. But let our reader responses guide you. Eight hundred customers wouldn’t recommend Telstra BigPond to a friend – a damning indictment on what is arguably Australia’s largest tech company of all.
It wasn’t too surprising to see the PDA/Smartphone category see such unreliability. The whole mobile market seems resigned to producing products which don’t last a year and the general low scores here reflect that.
However, what we found most troubling was the support offered from Acer, HP and its Compaq brand. Leaving alone the companies’ mediocre performance in the LCD category, all three came in last in both the notebook and PC categories. None managed to satisfy a third of our respondents with its customer support in either. We’d like to hear more of your experiences in regards to this so please write in if you agree or disagree with the consensus.
But there were some great winners too. Asus can revel in its Notebook award – few people saw that one coming even though we’ve consistently noted that its laptops are very well built. Internode and Westnet were other striking winners, especially in the face of Telstra’s shame. We hope that both company’s see some increases in business as a result.
It was also good to see Samsung do so well with its peripherals. It not only won the Labs Editorial award for mathematically coming out on top of every company whose components and peripherals we reviewed but it won our fiercely competitive LCD award and Highly Commended in the hard disk category too. Canon winning both printer awards (and the digital camera award) runs along the same lines – it’s good to see such a popular company backing up its products with good reliability, service and support.
But what we’re most happy with here is the performance of the online retailers. It’s been a lonely battle sticking up for these guys from an embittered industry which blames them for dropping profit margins. Online stores have consistently been portrayed as shysters and, while we’re certain that some stores out there certainly are, our survey has identified some of the good guys.
If you disagree or agree with anything you read about this month’s awards, please let us know. Reliability and Service is very important and will affect our reviews from now on.
This article appeared in the
January, 2007 issue of PC Authority.