Business Choice 2023: The Laptop and Tablet Brands Our Readers Recommend

pcmag.com:

The PC industry has changed considerably over the past few years, as the pandemic forced so many of us to work from home. While many of us are still working remotely, plenty of employees are back in the office at least part of the time. Decreased demand for work-from-home computers has caused PC sales to plummet.

Still, plenty of us need new computers for the workplace. To ascertain which brands are best for work, both for laptops and tablets, we conducted a Business Choice survey. This year, we did so with the help of our colleagues at Spiceworks(Opens in a new window) and its Aberdeen Strategy & Research(Opens in a new window) division. The results of our co-sponsored effort (the first business-focus survey for laptops and tablets since 2021) are below.

Apple’s first official Business Choice award for laptops was awarded in 2016; before that, we included business laptops in our Readers’ Choice results, which Apple won regularly. The brand's overall-satisfaction score in 2016 was 9.0, a number it equalled in 2021. Now, two years later, Apple is back on top—this time with a rating of 9.1. Apple is the clear winner in the category; MacBooks are loved by those using them for work.

Apple’s Achilles' heel is the price of its products. The company earns its lowest score for cost (which isn't the lowest cost rating among the vendors in this survey, thanks to Microsoft). In almost every other category, Apple’s scores can’t be topped. In particular, it garnered exemplary ratings for ease of use, setup, reliability, and screen quality.

The other area in which Apple earns a second-place score is repairs, which is not surprising for a company (among others) that has fought the customers' “right to repair”(Opens in a new window) for