Apple constantly finds itself at the top of our laptop brand evaluations, but you shouldn't just take our word for it. A recent survey of Consumer Reports' 58,000 subscribers reveals that Apple's MacBooks are far less likely to fall apart than their Windows-based competitors are.
According to the survey, which factors in readers who bought laptops between 2010 and 2015, Apple's MacBook Air has a 7 percent estimated failure rate, while the MacBook Pro is close behind at just 9 percent. Apple's closest competitor is Gateway's NV (13 percent), which is trailed by popular product lines such as Lenovo's ThinkPad (15 percent) and Dell's XPS (15 percent).
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These results are no fluke -- Apple is the winner of both our Best and Worst Laptop Brands and Tech Support Showdown face-offs for 2015. We rated Apple this year's best overall laptop brand thanks to the high-quality hardware and useful built-in software found on every MacBook. Taking a close second place was Dell, due to the company's wider variety of products and price points.
Part of why Apple's customers are so confident in their products could be attributed to the company's excellent tech support. The hardware maker dominated our support showdown this year with an overall score of 92.75 (out of 100), largely due to Apple's enthusiastic and knowledgeable representatives, as well as its robust online troubleshooting resources.
While we already know how dependable the MacBook Pro and MacBook Air are, we're eager to see how Apple's new generation of products hold up. The company ventured outside of its comfort zone this year with the 12-inch, single-port MacBook as well as the tablet/laptop hybrid iPad Pro, and the MacBook Air is rumored to receive a significant design revamp for 2016.
