Which smartphone, laptop and tablet brands break down the most? | Hacker News Reader

Which smartphone, laptop and tablet brands break down the most?

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29 pointsvanpythonista18 comments

Lenovo. Or let's put it like this: The hardware works but the software isn't getting updated so despite the hardware still working the tablet is unusable.

Same with Samsung or really any smartphone or tablet.

It's all built to fail so you have to spend another absurd amount of money on the next thing 4 years later.

When people post snark about Apples pricing and margins, they always forget that their products as a whole have market leading build quality, customer satisfaction levels, and the benefits of having a Genius Bar nearby where it’s not unusual to get free out of warranty repairs for things that aren’t your fault.

Of course one wonders how much bigger the difference would be if not for that damned butterfly keyboard

> Genius Bar nearby where it’s not unusual to get free out of warranty repairs for things that aren’t your fault.

Is this sarcasm? You can pick basically any video on Rossman's channel and come across a case where Genius Bar either refused to repair a known device defect (without charging the customer for a logic board replacement), or botched a repair. Genius Bar is the last place you should take your Apple device for repairs.

Apple customer support's only advantage is that it actually exists.

Cherrypicking a few videos from a random YouTuber (Rossman has whatever credibility you choose to ascribe to him; at the end of the day he is just an independent repairman) also does nothing to tell the full story. Don't Genius Bars deal with thousands of cases every day? Simple probability shows that at least some of those cases should end with unhappy customers. It doesn't automatically mean that those customers would have had better experience elsewhere, and certainly doesn't mean that the customer support is bad.

> Apple customer support's only advantage is that it actually exists.

Sometimes showing up to the race is all you need to do to win.

Well, it’s happened to me so...

Would generally agree but the previous generation of MacBook Pro were complete garbage, primarily due to the keyboard and rubbish thermal design. Have been using Mac since they went with Intel and never experienced such a poor quality product.

Phones though have tended to last many years with few defects apart from physical damage. YMMV though of course.

What? It's been extraordinary rare to even get a geniouse to fix a laptop for me at all. They wanted $800 to fix an issue I repaired myself for $10 with a keyboard ribbon.

They have tried leveraging and taking advantage of my elderly mother on several occasions.

I'm often unsatisfied by apple and avoid them when I can. LG Gram is such a better computer imho.

I didn’t know hp was in good standing on ifixit. I know somebody who had a good hp laptop once where the thermal paste dried up. It was a dangerous day long process to get the thing open enough to get at the cooler and involved dismantling almost every part of the laptop until they just decided to give up and get a new laptop. The person in the video tutorial they were following cut themselves in the process on some sharp metal and was super tense about shocking themselves. So if hp laptops are easy to repair now, that’s a nice change

For me it's Dell's Xps Laptops. My colleagues and I have some and they are always broken. We got replacements for the screen, fans (so many broken fans...), motherboard, docking Station, battery (swelled),... Don't by it!

I have experienced the same. What did you move to? Everyone seems to recommend XPS, especially for linux support.

I would want to know this as well, latest Thinkpads are not as user serviceable anymore, Lenovo said they will support Linux on some models. I wish Panasonic Toughbook 55 were officially supporting Linux, that's a great looking modular machine.

I have an extensive recent personal history with looking to people like linus tech tips for laptop reccs, buying a dell xps as they suggest and then experiencing they are awful compared to anything made 10 years ago

Had a same issue with their Studio line a few years back. It was a ship of Thesus situation. Each and every part was more or less replaced.

I have a Thinkpad T450s and there's been no issue in the past 5 years of owning it.

Not a single chart in the entire article.

HP Envy. Broken functions right out of the box, no fixes or refunds offered. Battwry drains overnight if no plugged in, touchscreen must be switched off for PC to be useable, etc. Still broken 5 yrs later. Was told on all counts it is user error.

Is there any kind of quality long term data available on this topic? I believe self-reported data isn't too reliable in this field as many of the listed products are considered to be lifestyle items and status symbols. Consequently, people develop a very emotional relationship towards them which skews the results.

We are buying old E series Dell ... used :) much better and Intel did not do anything anyway in the last 5 years.

My experience is that Acer laptop screens start flickering and going black when touched within a year of purchase, going back several product generations.

ASUSes don't seem to fail much.

Lenovo used to be good but achieved badness.

Dell is always hit or miss. You can get lucky.

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