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Consumer Reports loves those MacBooks

By
Philip Elmer-DeWitt
Philip Elmer-DeWitt
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By
Philip Elmer-DeWitt
Philip Elmer-DeWitt
Down Arrow Button Icon
May 5, 2009, 9:32 AM ET

In an embarrassment of plaudits, Apple (AAPL) swept all three laptop categories in Consumer Reports‘ latest study of personal computers. The reader survey, published Monday, is the cover story of the magazine’s June issue.

In all, five Apple notebooks made the cut. In one category –13-inch notebooks — Apple won the top three places.

In that category, the 13-inch aluminum MacBook was No. 1, the solid-state MacBook Air No. 2, and the white plastic 13-inch MacBook No. 3.

The 15-inch MacBook came in first in the 14- to 16-inch notebook category.

And the 17- to 18-inch notebook category was taken by the 17-inch MacBook. The 17-inch HP (HPQ) Pavilion made famous by Lauren De Long in the first Microsoft’s (MSFT) Laptop Hunter ad, came in fourth in this category behind Dell (DELL) and Lenovo machines.

Apple also took first place in tech support. Its desktop machines did not fare quite as well. The 20-inch iMac came in second after the Dell XPS One 24 in the standard desktop category. The Mac Mini also made this list.

Below: Consumer Reports’ laptop rankings. (Click to enlarge.)



About the Author
By Philip Elmer-DeWitt
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