The most reliable laptop brands

See the laptop brands that hold up best over time, as chosen by CHOICE members.

Steve Duncombe

Last updated: 20 July 2020

In our latest CHOICE product reliability survey, we asked how reliable your laptops are, how satisfied you are with them, and how you'd rate the laptop brand's customer service.

More than 6000 members took part in our 2020 reliability survey, and this year, 2817 people told us about their laptops.

Of the 6009 respondents, 69% said they have bought a laptop brand new. The information the survey respondents provided gives us a really good indication of how various laptop brands stack up over time – something we can't test in our labs.

About the scores

Reliability

Reliability figures are based on owner assessment, not test data. We use the data we collect from members to rate the most popular brands for reliability. We ask owners if their product has broken down in the past 12 months, taking into account the age of the products so we can compare brands in a fair way.

Owner satisfaction

We ask owners to tell us what they thought of the products they own, rating them from 'Excellent' to 'Terrible'. We've used this information to give each brand an owner satisfaction rating so you can see what people who use the brand, day in, day out, think of them.

The full results of our tech survey are available for members only.

Our guide to buying a laptop is free and packed with great tips to help you choose the best laptop for your needs. You can also check out our laptop reviews, where we pit laptop brands against each other in our computer test lab.

Our brand reliability scores helps guide you when choosing a product – with the knowledge that the brand is well regarded by CHOICE members for customer satisfaction and reliability.

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Stock images: Getty, unless otherwise stated.

The top performers

Most reliable: Apple

Highest owner satisfaction: Apple and Microsoft

Customer service satisfaction: Apple

The most common laptop brands among the respondents were Apple (29%), HP/Compaq (18%) and Dell (14%).
Apple had the highest score for reliability, owner satisfaction and customer service. Microsoft was close behind for owner satisfaction.
Large-brand Windows laptops all scored similarly for reliability, except Dell which scored the lowest.
Microsoft laptops have pretty average reliability scores, but owner satisfaction with the brand is quite high.
The 'Other' category performed the worst in customer service. This category includes Acer, Asus, IBM/Lenovo, Microsoft and Toshiba/Dynabook.

Laptop brand performance
Brand	Reliability score (%)	Owner satisfaction score (%)	Service score (%)
Apple (819)	84	91	86 (206)
Average (2817)^	76	84	78 (539)
HP/Compaq (504)	75	82	73 (78)
Toshiba/Dynabook (112)	75	80	Not available*
Asus (194)	75	82	Not available*
IBM/Lenovo (281)	74	80	Not available*
Acer (177)	74	76	Not available*
Microsoft (209)	71	87	Not available*
Other (135)	68	82	70 (170)
Dell (386)	68	81	79 (85)

Number in brackets shows the sample size. For the reliability scores, differences of 6% or more between brands are statistically significant.

*Not enough Acer, Asus, IBM/Lenovo, Microsoft and Toshiba/Dynabook users contacted brand support to supply reliable results for a service score. For the service score column, these five brands have been wrapped into the 'Other' category. ^The 'Average' is a category average of all laptop brands, not just the brands listed in the table.

About the survey

This year, 6009 members participated in the reliability survey. We asked them a series of questions on common household appliances and products – clothes dryers, air conditioners, cooktops, vacuums, smartphones, laptops, printers, sound systems and hearing aids.

Respondents who had bought any of the above products over the last 5–10 years were asked (depending on the product category):

about the product brand
their satisfaction with the brand
whether they faced any performance or reliability issues in the last 12 months
whether they faced any problems since purchase
whether they contacted support and services
the price they paid
to share their experiences with the brand.

We analysed the data to come up with a list of brands within each product category that our respondents said are the most reliable.

Only brands which had 50 or more respondents stating ownership made it to our score table. All other brands have been combined into the 'Other' category. The 'Average' is a category average of all brands – not just the brands listed in the table.

Stock images: Getty, unless otherwise stated.

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