Desktop PCs

In our desktop PC ratings, Apple received better-than-average ratings on every question we polled users about – perhaps the best showing by any company in any product category in our survey. Meanwhile, Acer and eMachines repeated their shared (distant) second-place finish of a year ago, but with one above-average rating each instead of three each.

The big surprise this year was the improvement by Sony, which had been the worst performer in our desktops category last year, collecting three worse-than-average ratings and no better-than-average ones. This year, the tide turned in Sony's favor: The company received average marks on every measure for which we received enough data, except on the "any core component problem" criterion. On that measure, Sony earned an above-average rating.

At the bottom of the list, CyberPower, Gateway, and HP had pitiful scores. Gateway concentrated its three subpar ratings on service and support measures; while both of CyberPower's negatives came on reliability measures (the vendor didn't draw enough responses on the service and support criteria to receive ratings on them). HP's problems were more general: It collected four below-average ratings on measures ranging from general reliability issues to excessive hold times.

Even though laptops have tricky assembly issues, limited space for components, and various risks associated with being carried around, readers in this year’s survey rated desk tops as being significantly less reliable than laptops. Overall, users had 15 to 30 percent mare problems with desktops than with laptops, depending on which reliability metric we asked about: the disparity may reflect vendors' efforts to cut all possible corners to keep desktop costs at rock bottom.

HDTVs

The HDTV category saw a bigger shake-up in reliability and service results this year than any other category, with some of last year's top brands slipping and some of last year's also-rans moving to the fore.

Three of last year's reliability leaders – Sony, LG, and Samsung – saw their fortunes fade. Each had turned in numerous better-than-average scores in our 2009 report, but all three rated as merely average across the board in this study, leaving them jostling in the middle of the pack with such brands as Magnavox and Vizio. And Insignia, new to our report this year, bypassed all of those brands on the strength of one better-than-average rating.

The new champs? Panasonic, Sharp, and (in a major surprise) Pioneer, Earning two better-than-average scores each, Panasonic and Sharp simply maintained their ratings from last year while the previous leaders slid backward. Pioneer, however, leaped forward to tie them (after receiving all average ratings last year), and it garnered the only better-than-average mark in readers* overall satisfaction with their TVs. We were pleased to see JVC earn average scores across the board; last year it finished next-to-last, with three worse-than-average scores.

At the bottom of the HDTV heap, Hitachi, Olevia, Toshiba, and Westinghouse each turned in one sub-par score, while Mitsubishi again landed in the cellar, with three below-average ratings (that showing is still better than last year's, when Mitsubishi accumulated four below-average ratings). Still, 20.6 percent of Mitsubishi owners reported problems that were severe enough to stop their TV set from working. ''Help me actually get my TV functioning again," says unhappy Mitsubishi owner Michael Lys of Northville, Michigan. "My $3000 TV is now basically useless; I know it was after the warranty expired, but it seems like such a waste."

To be fair to Mitsubishi, a significant number of the complaints we received in our survey came from owners of Mitsubishi rear-projection HDTVs whose bulbs had burned out. Those bulbs, our readers tell us, can run anywhere from $100 to $250 to replace, depending on the particular TV model.

The reliability of high-definition televisions seems to be improving overall, though not by leaps and bounds. Only 1.7 percent of users reported problems with their TVs when they first unboxed them this year, and 4.7 percent of users reported severe problems during the lifetime of their sets. The correspond­ing figures last year were 2.6 percent and 5.4 percent, respectively Digital Cameras

Was it a fluke? Last year Fujifilm astonished us with an unexpected top-drawer showing, ranking alongside Panasonic as the most reliable camera brand on the market. This year die camera rankings shifted: Fujifilm sank back into the middle of the pack, and traditional category powerhouse Canon returned to the top of the list, where it had been a stalwart in prior years.

This year's camera maker on the move was Nikon, which jumped from second-to-last m 2009's survey to third place this year, as users cited few problems on arrival and praised the brand's overall reliability. Though it didn't match the showings of Canon and Panasonic, Nikon would have come even closer to the top two this year if our survey respondents hadn't rated its cameras harder than average to use. (This rating isn't altogether surprising, however, since Nikon sells lots of sophisticated, high-end cameras with inherently more-complicated controls.)

At the bottom of our rankings this year are Kodak and Samsung, both of which received worse-than-average scores for "overall satisfaction with reliability" compared to their peers in the camera market. Kodak owners report high satisfaction levels with their cameras' ease of use, but report a higher-than-average rate of significant problems. Samsung cameras don't incur any more actual problems than other brands, according to readers, yet owners of the cameras report lower-than-average satisfaction levels with the general reliability of the cameras.