Sometimes it pays to choose the cheapest option
I’ VE SPENT THIS MONTH poring over the results from our annual service and reliability survey. This is where we ask PC Pro readers to give us feedback on the products you’ve bought, and thousands of you have done just that – so thank you. Whether it’s your work laptop, your home broadband or the NAS drive you bought to sort out your backups ( see
p44), you’ve let us know how satisfied or dissatisfied you are, and the results are in the tables you see from p30.
My only fear is that those numbers are too easy to flick past in the rush to read about the latest kit. That would be a shame: these results are no random number, but the sum of a vast crowd’s experience. Not only Jerry from down the road who’s warned you off a particular brand of laptop forever because he once suffered a problem; this is like walking down a road of 5,000 people and asking each one in turn about the products they’ve bought.
Viewed like this, it’s advice that’s impossible to ignore. And I don’t. I’m acutely aware of what PC Pro readers report, and use that information to guide my own purchases. I don’t always get it right: I’ve been meaning to leave my broadband supplier, BT, for months, but a combination of lethargy and inertia has so far prevented me from switching. Perhaps I’ll take the advice in our feature “11 reasons to switch your broadband ISP” ( see
p40), and report back next month. If I’m investing in a new laptop, phone or router, however, I always factor each company’s rating into my buying decision. It isn’t the only factor: for example, when the time comes to upgrade my Moto phone, I’ll probably choose the Asus ZenFone 5 I review on p71 – in part because, having used it for a month, I’m going to find it darn difficult to go back to a phone with a 5in screen. Why not go with Google, the top-rated phone manufacturer? One word: price.
Of course, price isn’t the only consideration. Take a look at our ratings for tablet manufacturers on p32. The two traditional suppliers of cut-price Android tablets are near the bottom. Clearly, going for the budget option doesn’t always leave you with a happy feeling inside.
Conversely, look at our results for mobile data. Giffgaff is a virtual mobile network operator, which means it uses someone else’s infrastructure. In this case, that someone is O2: indeed, O2 owns Giffgaff. Yet the virtual operator’s ratings for speed and overall satisfaction are higher.
It’s this perception that I’m interested in. Giffgaff customers pay less than O2 customers, so probably have lower expectations of the speeds and customer service they receive. Here, saving money makes sense – and a price difference of £10 per month works out to £240 over the course of a two-year O2 contract.
That’s why this issue of PC Pro is worth keeping. Read it wisely and it will point to where you can save money, and where scrimping is a false economy. For example, when it comes to laptops there’s little difference between the top-rated company and the lowest, so you needn’t fear plumping for the machine you’ve had your eye on.
If you’re looking to buy, we also pitch 12 thin-and-light laptops against one another in our Labs from p76, plus the new Dell XPS 15 on p62. Which would I choose? Well, it may not come top of the reliability charts, but I miss my slim Dell XPS 13. And it happens to win the group test, too.