Before you buy anything, or renew any contracts, discover how all the big brands performed in our unique satisfaction survey – and who won our products of the year
As regular readers will know, the Excellence Awards winners are not chosen out of thin air. Nor are they decided by a “vote for me” contest, where all that matters is having the most customers. Instead, the awards stem from you, our readers. Every rating you see is based on what you said about your transaction with a company, good, bad and in between.
Over 9,000 people took part in our survey this year, and that’s a voice worth listening to. In total, almost 50,000 buying experiences from people like you: technology enthusiasts who don’t make their buying decisions on a whim but after plenty of research. That’s why we urge you to keep this issue of PC Pro to hand over the coming year: it could be the difference between you buying a shiny new product or not.
Focusing so much feedback into a handful of pages is always a tough challenge, but the key thing to digest and keep to hand is the tables. These provide an at-a-glance rating of reliability, of how satisfied people are with the customer service they receive and (arguably most crucial of all) whether they would buy from that company again.
As ever, we would like to thank everyone who took part. Without your input, this invaluable guide wouldn’t exist. Even if you weren’t one of our lucky prize winners, we hope that your reward comes in the collective wisdom from you and everyone else who took the time to take part in our survey.
CONTRIBUTORS: Barry Collins, Tim Danton and 9,138 of our readers
BEST PC MANUFACTURER
WINNERS CHILLBLAST, CYBERPOWER • HIGHLY RECOMMENDED CCL, PCSPECIALIST, SCAN
If there’s one clear message that comes from this year’s survey – in relation to desktop PCs, at least – it’s that British companies continue to stand out. Reading through people’s responses, it’s screamingly obvious why: the level of customer support you receive, whether working out your perfect spec or troubleshooting problems, is second to none.
While CyberPower is a brand born in the US, it’s the British arm of the company that wins this award, and Andrew Small’s story is a great example of why. “As a gaming PC luddite, trying to choose the right computer for my daughter was a challenge. I found CyberPower to be excellent in explaining the key choices and options to meet the brief set by my daughter,” he wrote. “The PC
