If there's anything we like more than quantifying electricity-powered gadgets that cost a lot of money, it's making the brands that make those products compete with each other, and today our sister site Laptop Mag combined those passions by publishing its new Best & Worst Laptop Brands 2019 report.
This year's report saw HP overtake Lenovo, which held the top spot for two years in a row, as Laptop Mag's best laptop brand. Most of the 12 brands involved in the rankings actually dropped from last year: Lenovo, Acer, Microsoft, Apple, MSI, and Samsung all dropped between two and four places. Dell, Alienware and Huawei ended up in the same places they did for the 2018 report. The only companies to rise were HP, Asus and Razer.
This was HP's first ever victory in this annual report, and the lowest point ever for Apple, which won every year until 2017, followed by two crowns for Lenovo.
The report is based on a 100-point scale broken up into five categories: Reviews, Design, Support & Warranty, Innovation, and Value & Selection. Those categories aren't graded evenly--brands can earn 40 points in Reviews, 20 points in Support & Warranty, 15 points each in Design and Value & Selection, and 10 points in the Innovation category. (Which makes sense, considering that is the hardest category to objectively quantify.)
Laptop Mag offered more information about why each company was placed where it was, how it allocates points for each category, and how each company scored in the individual categories on its website. We're particularly keen on the part where they go undercover and bother these companies on every major support platform to see how they behave when people who they think are customers are trying to resolve an issue.
