By Claire Reilly
Consumers are turning away from traditional desktop PCs in favour of lighter weight laptop computers, with 57 per cent of retail customers who had bought a computer in the last 2 years saying they use a laptop as their primary computing device.
The research survey, conducted by consumer ratings agency Canstar Blue, also found that 77 per cent of younger Gen Y respondents have switched to laptop computers. In addition, Apple was chosen as the favoured brand by consumers over Acer, Asus, Dell, HP, Samsung and Toshiba, scoring the highest possible five-star rating in seven out of eight competencies for laptops, and six out of seven competencies for laptops.
In desktops, Apple scored five stars for Reliability and Performance, Technical Support, Design, Screen Clarity, Battery Life and Overall Satisfaction. In laptops, Apple received a four-star score for the additional rating area of Weight, while the brand was given four stars in both laptop and desktop categories for Value for Money.
Click here to sign up for our FREE daily newsletter
Follow Current.com.au on Twitter
A spokesperson for Canstar Blue, Rebecca Logan, said Apple was a “standout” among other brands in terms of its high rankings from customers.
The research also found that, while tablets are popular at a retail level, only 10 per cent of survey respondents used a tablet as their primary computing device – a number that increased to 16 per cent for Generation X consumers.
“For now it seems the laptop is the everyday computing item of choice for most,” said Logan.
The survey was conducted by Canstar Blue in association with independent research group Colmar Brunton, and took responses from 1,280 consumers who had bought a computer in the last 2 years.
Desktop Computer Ratings
(*Overall Satisfaction is an individual rating and not a combined total of all ratings. Source: Canstar Blue)
Laptop Computer Ratings
(*Overall Satisfaction is an individual rating and not a combined total of all ratings. Source: Canstar Blue)