The Best & Worst Laptop Manufacturers

Buying a laptop is a very important decision. After all, you’re hopefully buying a computer that’s going to last more than a year, and you don’t want to buy something that will be completely outdated as soon as you plug it in for the first time. You also don’t want to buy something that’s going to fall apart during its lifetime. With so many brands and models out there available for purchase, how do you decide which laptop is best for you? Thankfully, you don’t have to do all of the investigative work all by yourself. The folks at Square Trade did some surveying in 2012 and were able to figure out just which computers went up in smoke more often than others. The results are pretty surprising – have a look at them below.

From Worst To Best

Let’s get the bad news out of the way first. The following list shows the computer manufacturer and the failure rate of said brand. Brace yourself, as some of the results are hard to believe.

1. HP: 25.6%

2. Gateway: 23.5%

3. Acer: 23.3%

4. Lenovo: 21.5%

5. Dell: 18.3%

6. Apple: 17.4%

7. Sony: 16.8%

8. Toshiba: 15.7%

9. Asus: 15.6%

Yes, you are reading that correctly. HP has the worst failure rate among laptop computers, and Asus has the least rate of failure. If you currently own an HP laptop, I am sorry for your troubles. It sure doesn’t bode well for HP’s future if their laptops currently have a 25% rate of failure. It sounds like it’s time to go back to the drawing board.

Like anything else, these are just statistics. You could buy an Asus laptop today and have it fail tomorrow; or you could have an HP laptop last you 5 years. However, these statistics are pretty telling and shouldn’t be taken too lightly. If nothing else, they serve to tell you what brands to steer clear of.

What do you think of the list? Have you had similar problems with your laptop(s)?

[Image via kezj]

SOURCE: http://lifehacker.com/computer-manufacturers-ranked-how-to-pick-a-laptop-tha-1467145338