(Credit: Ian Moore; kirill_makarov, Shutterstock)
Buying a phone or a computer comes with the expectation that the manufacturer will help you when you need it. That’s why we always ask about the service you receive when we do our annual Readers’ Choice surveys about laptops, desktops, phones, and tablets. It could come in the form of tech support (the kind of remote help that you get via emails, chats, or phone calls) or full repairs the manufacturer performs on your equipment.
Of course, not all brands provide the same level of tech support or offer the same quality of repairs. That’s why we compile our survey tech support and repair scores into this special report. Here, you’ll see which companies consistently score the best in these categories that may be key to your informed purchases. Read on to see which brands you should buy from if future fixes and support are important to you.
The Best PC and Phone Brands for Tech Support and Repairs
Laptops: It's All About Apple
There aren’t many laptop vendors in the running for tech support and repair awards this year; just the four biggest PC brands in the USA. Many smaller brands (like last year’s winner here, MSI) don't earn enough responses to be included in our results. But of those big brands, there's a clear standout: Apple. The company's stellar repair and tech support services earn a handful of scores in the 9 out of 10 range—a feat that no other vendors achieve this year.
Apple’s numbers this year are even higher than they were in 2023, and the company's ratings for repairs are up significantly, from 7.8 to 8.5. For tech support, Dell and Lenovo are also a bit higher than before. Only HP has numbers that went down. According to a recent Gartner report, Dell, HP, and Lenovo are the top sellers of personal computers. But obviously, if you care about support and repairs, you should check in with Apple first.
For more, read Readers’ Choice 2024: The Top-Rated Laptop and Tablet Brands.
Laptops for Work: Apple Aces Tech Support, While Lenovo Leads for Repairs
Work-related laptops come in different flavors. You might buy a notebook computer for yourself to work on, or the information technology (IT) department at your organization might supply you with one.
But regardless of who supplies your computer, when it comes to work laptops, Apple is the best vendor for tech support, again with scores in the 9 out of 10 range. For repairs, the top slot goes to Lenovo. Both are repeat winners in these categories, and both improve on the ratings they earned last year.
Lenovo, in fact, is so highly rated for repairs this year that it might very well have beaten Apple in this category—if only Apple had earned enough responses.
For more, read Business Choice 2024: The Laptop Brands Our Readers Recommend.
Home and Gaming Desktops: Apple Users are Happy at Home While Gamers Prefer MSI
Apple’s desktop systems range from tiny Mac Minis to huge Mac Pro towers—and they're all backed by Apple’s stellar tech support and repairs. The company's scores for desktop computers aren’t as high as they are for laptops, but they’re more than enough to outshine all of the Windows-based PC makers on this list.
There's one area of the desktop service world that Apple doesn't dominate, though: gaming PCs. Apple doesn’t make the cut in this category, but MSI does, earning an impressive 8.5 out of 10 for both tech support and repairs.
In 2023, Dell was the only company to earn enough responses for a tech support score, so there was no winner. This year, however, there are multiple companies in the results, and Dell isn't among the top scorers. It earns lower ratings than MSI, and even comes in behind its own subsidiary, Alienware.
In our desktop survey, we also ask readers to rate their self-built PCs on a range of different factors. Interestingly, when it comes to tech support and repairs, people who built their own computers rate themselves quite high. So high, in fact, that self-built PCs earn a higher repair score than MSI. That’s some true self-confidence.
For more, read Readers’ Choice 2024: The Desktop PC, Peripheral, and Component Brands You Trust Most.
Desktops for Work: IT Appreciates Lenovo and Dell
We’re not giving an award to any one manufacuturer for work-from-home desktop PCs this year, as only Dell and HP managed to make it to the final round, and with C-level grades at best. But you can see in the graph below that self-built PCs get much higher scores for tech support and repairs. It seems that when it comes to computers used for work, many people prefer to fix things themselves.
For repairs and tech support on IT-provided desktop computers, the big three Windows-based PC vendors stand out above all the rest. It's a close race between Dell, HP, and Lenovo, but ultimately Lenovo comes out on top for tech support and Dell takes the lead for repairs. HP comes in last place for both categories, but only by a hair.
For more, read Business Choice 2024: The Best Desktop PC and Monitor Brands for Work.
Phones: Google's Repairs and Apple’s Support Earn Awards
This year's survey results for smartphone repairs and tech support are astonishingly similar to last year's. Once again, Apple nails the win for tech support with an impressive score of 8.3 out of 10, and Google clinches the win for repairs with an 8 out of 10—even higher than the score it earned in 2023.
But while Apple earns top marks for its tech support, its ratings for iPhone repairs are among the lowest in this category—just barely above those of Motorola, which finishes last in both categories. Samsung’s ratings are in the middle of the pack, putting it just slightly ahead of OnePlus.
For more, read our Readers' Choice 2024: The Top Mobile Phones and Wireless Carriers in North America.
Phones for Work: IT Prefers Samsung Support
This year, we concentrated our survey questions on work phones deployed and maintained by IT staff. This reduced the list of phones to only the big names: Apple and Samsung. While you might expect the iPhone to be on top again, our survey data suggest that IT prefers to manage the Galaxy line from Samsung.
Samsung manages a tech support score just into the 8 out of 10 range, which propels it into our winner circle. The company also has the highest score for repairs in this category but receives no award since it is below our 8.0 threshold. Conversely, Apple’s 6.8 for repairs is the lowest score of any vendor in our charts across this entire collection of data.
For more, read Business Choice 2024: The Best IT-Managed Mobile Phones and Carriers.
Tablets: iPad Wins for Apple Support
In addition to earning standout tech support scores for laptops, desktops, and phones, Apple also outclasses the competition when it comes to tech support for tablets. Giving customers the option to call a hotline or visit a Genius Bar to get help with their iPads continues to pay off for the company.
Samsung is the runner-up on tablet tech support, but it's a full point behind Apple, and Amazon is a point and a half lower than that. The gap is a little too wide for comfort.
There’s no tablet repair winner this year, but only because Apple is the only company with a score here, a sign of its dominant market share. The same is true for work-use iPads—Apple is the only company with any results when we asked about using tablets in the workplace.
For more, read our Readers’ Choice 2024: The Top-Rated Laptop and Tablet Brands.
About Our Expert
I've been writing about computers, the internet, and technology professionally since 1992, more than half of that time with PCMag. I arrived at the end of the print era of PC Magazine as a senior writer. I served for a time as managing editor of business coverage before settling back into the features team for the last decade and a half. I write features on all tech topics, plus I handle several special projects, including the Readers' Choice and Business Choice surveys and yearly coverage of the Best ISPs and Best Gaming ISPs, Best Products of the Year, and Best Brands (plus the Best Brands for Tech Support, Longevity, and Reliability).
I started in tech publishing right out of college, writing and editing stories about hardware and development tools. I migrated to software and hardware coverage for families, and I spent several years exclusively writing about the then-burgeoning technology called Wi-Fi. I was on the founding staff of several magazines, including Windows Sources, FamilyPC, and Access Internet Magazine. All of which are now defunct, and it's not my fault. I have freelanced for publications as diverse as Sony Style, Playboy.com, and Flux. I got my degree at Ithaca College in, of all things, television/radio. But I minored in writing so I'd have a future.
In my long-lost free time, I wrote some novels, a couple of which are not just on my hard drive: BETA TEST ("an unusually lighthearted apocalyptic tale," according to Publishers' Weekly) and a YA book called KALI: THE GHOSTING OF SEPULCHER BAY. Go get them on Kindle.
I work from my home in Ithaca, NY, and did it long before pandemics made it cool.
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