Laptop's 2010 tech support showdown reveals ugly truth: you're (almost) on your own
By Darren Murph 
posted July 14th 2010 6:42PM
posted July 14th 2010 6:42PM
Dealing with warranties is one thing -- it's almost always a crap-shoot, and you're continually pressing your luck when trying to get something covered without any out-of-pocket expense. But how's about the tech support that's so whimsically promised with so many laptops these days? Our pals over at Laptop put in an inordinate amount of work in order to find out, pinging a full dozen manufacturers via phone and chat in order to measure hold time, level of support offered and overall satisfaction. Just about every major laptop maker was included (Acer, Apple, Dell, Lenovo, HP, Toshiba and Fujitsu, just to name a few), and an in-depth report of their findings was posted for each one. In general, though, they found that most companies wouldn't hang around long enough to answer those nagging questions that typically end up in forums ("How do I remove bloatware?"), oftentimes pointing the caller to a paid alternative that would actually take the time to address their issues. If you're considering a new machine, and you aren't exactly one of those nerdy go-getters who can troubleshoot everything yourself, you should certainly give the source links below a look. Just try not to get too depressed, cool?
*facepalm*
@NuklearPanda my bad, wrong article :(
@pple is poo
I hope you've learned your lesson! :D
@pple is poo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dohuX9Ij38
Yea... no.
@NuklearPanda
Seriously. Friggin' duh. Tech support is mostly useless. You're connected to someone across the world looking at a screen telling them their name, who they work for, and click through a set of pre-defined issues.
You're more likely to find better help by using common sense and GOOGLE. Seriously. Type in the best description of your problem possible and SEARCH SOME FORUMS. Most likely there will be official engineers and representatives talking there instead of low-paid workers.
Tl;dr: Crowdsourcing is infinitely better than calling tech support.
Apple got a "A" in over rating, that's awesome. I'm glad their tech support is still good.
@pple is poo
Funny. I was looking around the Apple Store a few weeks ago and tons of people in line at the "Genius" Bar with tech problems. Stop living in denial. Macs do not have immunity from software and hardware problems. Those PC vs Mac commercials sold people like you a bunch of half truths or flat out lies.
@VAVA Mk 2
The people in the genius bar line are usually tech illiterate people who can't figure out how to do something simple, most of their issues would be solved if they knew how to google stuff, but the apple support will gladly help you even if the only problem is that you were using caps on your email's password. I had a friend that worked at an apple store and would spend his day solving simple queries.
In the Windows world, guess what? tech illiterate people have nowhere to go to when they need answer to their computer problems! They come to you and me for help.
You stop living in denial and go read the source article.
@VAVA Mk 2
haha! Drago schooled your ass in his response to your nonsense.
@Jukah
Her first major complaint is she's mad because they referred her to drive savers for information recovery and it was so expensive? They then willingly were going to replace her HDD.
@Drago
"In the Windows world, guess what? tech illiterate people have nowhere to go to when they need answer to their computer problems! They come to you and me for help."
People need to learn how to use Google. You know the thing that helps you find out what time the restaurant closes? That little box will also help you find out what's the matter with your computer! I know, it's amazing!
The problem that I've found with tech "illiterate" people is that they have this idea beforehand that there is no way possible that they could learn about how their computer works and simple trouble-shooting tactics. They convince themselves of this and completely shut themselves off to any and all learning. Their eyes glass over if you even mention the words "monitor" or "hard drive".
The key is that you have to trick them.
Seriously, stay with me. Trick them into thinking about their problems logically. Instead of resorting to tech jargon, simply make tons of references to how things look and analogies to other more commonplace things. I once taught a person who convinced herself that she was completely illiterate tech wise why you had to defragment a hard drive (I used an analogy of an impatient cotton-candy seller throwing cotton candy at a merry-go-round....You can see where that's going I hope)
And she understood it! She was so surprised! THAT'S what I'm talking about people! Just quit it with the jargon and allow people to see that they CAN learn if they put their mind to it!
@Mike10010100
How do you Google something when your computer is broken assuming you only have one?
@Jukah It's not that bad what happened to her. She lost data on her hard drive. It should have been backed up, kind of her fault. They were going to replace her hard drive.
I just had my first mac repair (this week) and it wasn't bad.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPtSSBd7K7c
My screen started going crazy so after 10 min on the phone I had made an appointment with an Apple store and they replaced my mobo and I had it back next day. 5 hours later the screen starts going crazy so another 5 min on the phone and a drive back to the apple store and they give me another screen. The time it took to replace the screen was the same time it took for me to walk to the food court and eat a slice of pizza. Only downsides were the driving (which I did because I wanted to get my MBP back ASAP) and I lost the signature of Steve Woz I had gotten on the back of my screen on the Ipad opening day :(
http://www.engadget.com/2010/04/03/ipad-line-watch-the-few-the-proud/
But overall I must say that I was pretty pleased with the speed and ease that I got my issue resolved.
P.S. Back up your data! I got 2 2TB drives for $216 ($108 each) from Frys. There's no shortage of bit storage. It's pretty easy.
@TomSawyer all he said is there not immune and in fact there not immune no computer or OS is immune to think any different just shows lack of intelligence. keep in mind i'm not dogging apple at all just stating facts also the only reason virus' are rare on Macs is because most people who make virus' want to target the biggest demographic possible which is windows users being at the top is a burden if Apple ever gets there or even close they will see same would happen to linux as well
@Xoy
Do you have a public library? There are computers everywhere, you just have to look for them.
At that point though, call your friend who knows technology. Offer to do him a favor in return if he could simply troubleshoot. Or money...
THEN and only then should you go to a seedy repair shop. Or if it's determined via the troubleshooting that there is something wrong with your hardware.
@Drago
Drago, what I am really trying to say is that for years Apple has masquerading in its PC vs Mac ads making the implication that buy a Mac as they do not have any problems, which clearly I have seen and my friend who uses tons of Macs have issues as his motherboard had an issue with relaying video to the LCD so he had to send it in for repairs for like 2 weeks. What I was trying to imply to the original poster who just said get a Mac and get Apple care is that this makes their whole crappy and misleading ads of recent years garbage. ALL computers, Mac and PC, have tech issues, even more similar now as Macs now run X86 based hardware just like PCs and practically have the same components, just different software and an OS kernel based on Unix, which will give them credit, has proven better than Windows file system which needs to be rebuilt from scratch. I am just pissed off with people acting like Macs are impervious to problems which is outright not true. Dead hard drives, motherboard issues, and software related problems exist on ALL computing platforms.
@TomSawyer
My post was not nonsense. I was talking about the first post saying by a Mac and Apple care and then you are done. What I was trying to say is that his post creates the misconception that there are no issues with Macs and that Apple Care is a God send. Apples, Windows, and Linux all can have issues. Is the nature of computing. I just get tired of the false truth that Macs do not suffer from issues or its totally a non issues whereas PCs do. I have never used Apple Support but if they are great, I commend them as I stated later here that Geek Squad should have class action suits for masquerading as gurus and only suggestion is to wipe and clean install when I have fixed family and friends computers on multiple occasions for free without that option and doing relatively simple repair steps. If Apple gives good customer support, I applaud them completely. I just am tired of the misconception Macs are impervious to anything after their M v PC campaign, aren't you?
@NuklearPanda
Amen to that. Standard warranty support is not for OS/software how-to support. There are separate service providers (or plans from some OEMs) for that.
Buy a Dell, run the hardware diagnostic, give the error to the tech over the phone, and the next day you get at home service.
Buy a Dell, download a virus or have some random software related question, don't call Dell. It has nothing to do with their product.
@blizz419
Totally what I was getting at. Thanks man. Not saying Apple care sucks and was not even saying Macs suck as I am getting a MB Pro for my fiance and a Mac Mini for our Living room as an HTPC. Just wanted to point out that just buying a Mac and Apple Care is no guarentee against issues which is what the original comment here implied. All computers suffer some sort of issue over time and if Apple Care is better than PC care at well, pretty much mom and pop tech place or Geek Squad (pissing money down the drain), then I applaud them and would be a breath of fresh air I wish could occur for PC users (MSFT really needs to get more stores nationwide). Was not trying to say Apple or Apple care sucked.
@VAVA Mk 2
Why is this a misconception? If he was arguing that Macs were perfect, wouldn't he say "don't waste your money on Applecare?"
No, he recommended that you buy both the system AND the extra-cost support add-on, and you'll be good. It doesn't mean no problems, it means that if you have problems, they will most likely be resolved.
Of course all computers have problems if you own them long enough, and of course some people have bad support experiences with good companies (and good support experiences with bad companies).
And TRULY the best bet in this day and age is to take a class if you're computer illiterate. You will learn to do things you didn't know were possible, and in almost ANY field that pays more than a pittance, you will interact with computers and need basic knowledge that can solve 99% of the issues you encounter.
For the other 1%, type the error into Google. Chances are extremely high that someone else has asked that question on a forum, and already gotten the answer on a fix. =)
@Ducman69
Hope your Dell experiences have been good. Was out of town when my fiance had issues with her Dell. She was teaching the next day and was on the phone with their support all night. Basically they charged her the price of a new laptop to tell her how to reinstall the OS and paid to download some not-so-great Dell diagnostic software. The PC industry, because PCs are fragmented by manufacturers and retailers, really needs a good repair solution. MORE MSFT STORES PLEASE! At least Apple has its own in store service (I give credit where deserved).
@UnixSystemsEngineer
Well I must say I have always been curious about their support. Geek Squad for my parents has been a nightmare for years (I end up usually fixing everything myself as I do not trust PC repair people and have gotten to the place where I can fix a large number of issues on my own, should any ever occur). But what has your experience with Apple care been like? I have seen the bad but am being genuine and really want to know what types of stuff you have had repaired, cost for their care packages, and overall experience. I really do wish the tech industry would have more trusted, regulated repair people as my folks need it constantly!
@Ducman69
THANK you. Seriously. I have no idea why I'm getting downranked when all I'm suggesting is that if people hate customer support then they should LEARN!
When did learning become evil and hated?
@blizz419 huge misconception. if it was so easy to create viruses for macs, then why do they not do so at def con? They DO create exploits for mac, however they ALL must be implemented with the attacker standing at your machine, not something that can be delivered via email or downloaded over the net. Granted the mac is not impervious and there are always risk factors, but the likeliness of an apple virus, as long as they stay committed to a Unix core, is tiny.
as for the people saying there are tons of people in line at a genius bar, of course, no mac is impervious to damage. its a machine. many times its physical damage, or a hard drive failure, or something else trivial. the point of the article is that support is there for you, unlike these other manufacturers. Backup your computer using the BUILT IN time machine software, defend yourself using BUILT IN firewall, and be smart on the net and you will run into 98% less issues than any pc owner.
@Mike10010100
People need something they know, like CNN or a trusted news site (mainstream) to give them a quick tutorial on free maintenance and safety solutions for their computer and safety tips for surfing the net. Once set up, keeping a computer safe isn't that bad or difficult plus cheaper external hard drives and setting auto back ups eliminates a lot of headaches. Just need reliable, safe, trustworthy media outlet to tell the general public how to do this (read: NOT Best Buy).
@Xoy Library.
@VAVA Mk 2
That's just it though! Best buy doesn't want to help you PREVENT problems! That doesn't make them any money! They don't want knowledgeable consumers! They want you to come in whenever you have even the simplest of tiny problems so that they can more effectively suck your wallet dry!
@Mike10010100
They on several occasions have removed great anti virus programs on my parents computers and turned off auto updates knowing they would come in with issues in the future and tell them simply to pay for a reinstall which is ridiculous. They also bad mouth great free programs like Malwarebytes, AVG, Avira, and MSE in favor of Norton and McAfee which we all know are dreadful, resource hogs, and cost a lot, but Best Buy is probably given a good chunk from sales of those. I really wish someone would make a class action against BB for misleading and sabotaging customer property for the sake of future business and sales which is clearly happening. A lot of the employees are not very savvy on products themselves. Such an awful, awful, unethical company.
@knightGeek incorrect there are virus' for the mac that can be unintentionally downloaded don't be stupid
@VAVA Mk 2
Why did my question about Apple Care get downranked? I was genuinely curious as to how their service is. Was not trying to say anything good or bad. Just wanted to know past experience with it from some people and if it was expensive or fast?
@Ducman69 It have everything to do with dell. they are paying for the OEM version of windows and they should support it! hardware manufacturers are simply abusing windows. because they know people will buy windows laptops no matter what, they don't do a good job in supporting in order to compete with others. just imagine if dell was making ubuntu based laptops, then they were forced to support it for competing with others and saving their brands, right now they will forward everything to microsoft image
@TomSawyer & Drago
Maybe you two Mac FANBOYS should start reading a few things yourself. VAVA has a very valid point. While I may not be a Mac fan, I am also not anti-Apple. I have two iPods (64GB Touch, and 16GB Nano), and am currently considering a Macbook Pro (which I would also run Windows 7 on). Just as PC tech support people are not "know-it-all's", neither are those working Apple's Genius bar. I have seen people go in, including my roommate, with fairly simple problems, to be told by the Genius bar "expert" that they don't know what the problem is, and that they can't do anything about it.
To give a perfect example, my roommate had a software problem with his old iPhone 3GS (he has since upgraded to the new iPhone 4, including all its problems...just further prof that Apple products are NOT the best), just after upgrading to the most recent OS (ie. pre-iPhone 4 release), and it caused some "interesting" problems. He is quite knowledgeable when it comes to electronics, but couldn't figure it out, so, to the Apple Store's Genius bar he went, only to receive the above-mentioned response...after they spent 30 minutes looking at it. after arriving home, he called a friend of his, who suggested he reinstall the new OS, which he did. After reinstalling the new OS, the problem was completely solved. Considering how super-simple the problem resolution was, I wonder how Apple's "Genius Bar" people could have been so stupid.
To ALL people who actually believe that Mac's are better than PC's, and that Mac's have no real hardware and/or software problems, such as viruses, you are the computer living in a dreamworld. For those who love to quote figures, such as "Mac's have far fewer problems than PC's", then maybe you should also quote the percentages of Mac owners vs. PC owners. Within the U.S., Mac owners only comprise 3.5-4.2% of the market (depending on which report you read. Worldwide, the numbers are even less, with Mac's comprising only 2-2.3%. Windows-based PC's, on the other hand, comprise more than 90%. As the numbers show, it truly IS a PC world, and a Windows-based on at that.
Finally, as for tech support, not all PC manufacturers have their support outsourced outside the U.S. Since one company, Dell, was specifically mentioned, and unless they have changed this, and I am unaware, while the majority of their support has been outsourced to India & Ireland, if you purchase one of their XPS systems, or an Alienware system (being that Dell owns Alienware), you get good-ole U. S. of A. tech support.
Now, going back to Apple, even with all I have said above, I would, and still am, consider(ing) a Macbook Pro...either 15" or 17", with a Core i7 CPU. As I said, I am not anti-Apple. Mac's, as well as Windows-based PC's, have their uses, and there are always going to be certain things that one does better than the other. Macs are better for creating music, while PC's are better for gaming.
@VAVA Mk 2
Dell standard warranty support never has an extra fee. If it was a non-warranty software issue, they may have directed her to their extra-fee in house software support. No clue how expensive or sucky that is. As long as the user has internet connectivity though, Dells should ship with proprietary remote connection software so the dude in India can take over which should really speed things along.
For future reference, I'd teach her quickly how to load last known good configuration and system restore to any date prior to the problem, which is just a few clicks.
Dell diagnostics should be preinstalled on all the computers on a separate small partition. She just has to run them, if its a real warranty support issue.
For the reinstall, AFAIK all Dells come with a system restore disk that will reimage the machine to factory defaults very easily, but its obviously inconvenient.
Again though, if its not a warranty issue, Dell really isn't who you would call is the point I was trying to make. That would be like calling my home builder about fire-ant problems I'm having in my yard.
@Panther1968
"Macs are better for creating music, while PC's are better for gaming."
Sigh... Yes, Windows is better for gaming, but its not like there is a shortage of software for creating and editing music, movies, pictures, etc.
When you have over 90% of the OS marketshare, you don't suffer from software vacuums. If it exists for Mac, there is an equivalent for Windows.
@Ducman69
In regards to the "If it exists for Mac's, it exists for Windows", in the majority of cases, that is the truth, but there are also apps for the mac that are not available for the PC. one wonderful example would be Final Cut, and Final Cut Pro. While there are apps for the PC (including some that are also available for the Mac), some of the Mac-only apps are better. The same holds true for music creation. While Pro Tools is the industry standard for music creation & mastering, and while it is available for both Mac's & Windows-based PC's, if you were to go into every recording studio, you would find the great majority, if not all of them, running Pro Tools under the Mac OS, and not Windows. Such is part of the reason I am considering a Macbook Pro. In addition to using it for other things, I would be running Pro Tools M-Powered.
@VAVA Mk 2
Ducman69 has a very valid point, in regards to the restore, but I'd like to point out another, and far better option, which mostly applies to non-Mac computers, although it can also be used for Mac's. Invest in a good back-up app, such as Acronis TrueImage, or ShadowProtect Desktop, purchase either a large (1TB, or more) external drive, or an internal drive (if the computer is a desktop), and perform regular backups. If anything serious happens, you insert the boot disc as soon as you turn on the computer, and walk through the very simple steps to revert back to any of the back-ups listed. Additionally, and what I do, you can create a full back-up at the beginning of each month, and incremental (as in, only data that has changed since the previous back-up) back-ups each following week of the month. Each month, follow the same steps. Once you have 3-4 months worth of back-ups, before starting a new set, you would delete the oldest set. The great things about these dedicated back-up apps, as well as most others, is that you can program them, and they will perform the back-ups on their own. This should solve the great majority of problems that anyone might have, and thus eliminate the need of the majority of tech support calls.
@Panther1968
*double-sigh* Final Cut is an industry standard, so many pros are familiar with it, but its countered by Adobe CS5 and Sony Vegas 9.
The creative suite has fantastic integration working hand-in-hand with one another and the mercury playback engine just blows the competition out of the water at the moment.
Check out after effects on CS5, if you don't shit yourself, then... well, you probably just recently emptied your bowels. =p
@Xoy get a smartphone, OR TEXT GOOGLE
@VAVA Mk 2
I've been a Windows user since 1997 and I've always had problems of one kind or another. I switched to using OSX, last year, and I have yet to have a problem of any sort, and I have yet to visit the "Genius Bar".
Apple really does care about the User Experience and I hope they keep it that way. Microsoft... all they have ever cared about, until Windows 7, was Windows everywhere.
And one last note, while FC still rules in market share, its been losing ground rapidly, and while I'm not a fan of the movie, Avatar is a big recent example that was edited all with Adobe's Creative suite.
@abburks
Glad to see you have had a good experience. I guess the theme or moral of this post is there is and never will be one perfect solution. All computers have issues at some point and tech support varies from case to case. Oh well.
@Mike10010100
One of the more well thought out posts. Not sure who's downranking you, but not hard to guess :)
@DucmYea, tell me about it. I've read up considerably on Adobe CS5, especially Photoshop (currently using CS4 Extended). While I'm very much into photography (was Photography major at SFSU) & music creation, I'm not all that into video...yet.
I'm not sure why ASUS wasn't even mentioned in the Engadget post even though most of the other manufacturers were, but if you read the showdown they got an A- for phone support. The hold times were usually
@Drago Dude like the people calling Laptop tech support are also illiterate? so what are we talking about here?
@VAVA Mk 2 And Mike
I liked both your posts. I really don't know why so many people are so convinced about this supposed Mac superiority but may have an idea. I had to buy a laptop recently and after so much research I went for an Asus G series. Cheap, powerful and Asus has an amazing quality.
But, during my research time, I was drawn so many times into considering a MacBook Pro. Even when they have less powerful hardware for the price, they sell a quite logical and good quality package. Very good screen but not the best (except the 17inch which is gorgeous), good i7 M CPU with 2 cores only but lower power requirement instead of a very powerful QM one with high power draw, 4GB instead of 8 DDR3, but that is enough for most users. DVD instead of BluRay which is ok for most users also. And an excellent build with a very good look paired with a great battery life.
All in all, my new laptop is way better point by point to the MacBook except on a slightly lower battery life and maybe the looks which I really don't care.
My point is, Apple may not be the best of the best in a hardware level and a power user (I consider myself one being a games programmer but no gamer at all) may shun the price and look for more power. But it takes time to find a good hardware combination while Apple already gives you everything and saves the users the hassle of researching. I really think other companies should imitate Apple and go for an good overall solution and simplifying the user life. People loves that.
Luck!
Guimo
@Mike10010100 lets face it, their name is ''best buy''............ That's like buying a used car from ''honest john's auto'' or an electronic with a brand name ''lucky goldstar''
@NuklearPanda
I can't be happier with my Dell Complete Care service. Here's a typical chat in Dell's support site:
- Good evening.
- Hello.
- How can I help you?
- My GPU burned my motherboard again. You know, it won't boot and the lines in the screen and stuff.
- Oh, no problem. When can a Dell representative visit you to repair it?
- Tomorrow after 4 pm is ok.
They come, open my laptop, change the motherboard and that's it. (yes, it has failed twice :p). The once offered me to send me the piece so I could install it myself if I was in a real hurry.
@NuklearPanda
I build my own computers but recently I bought myself a nice Dell XPS16 back in March 2010, I had some issues with it, returned it for an upgraded one for slightly more money.
Two months later, past the return policy period, I contacted tech support and they pretty much refunded my money. Needless to say, I love Dell's customer support. Though i'm sure I probably got better tech support than the average Dell consumer being that I spent $2k on a fully spec'd laptop.