Dan wins PC Which? Hunt

Dan is the number one PC brand that customers would recommend to their friends, and Time is bottom of the list, according to the latest Which? survey.

The consumer watchdog polled customer brand perception, reliability, quality of service and more in its November issue, and came up with the best and worst brands of the year.

Responding to the query, "Would you recommend your brand?", Dan, Apple and Dell led the field, while the tail-enders included Dixons Group stalwarts Packard Bell, Advent and Time.

Under brand reliability Compaq, IBM and Apple ruled the roost, while Tiny, Fujitsu-Siemens and Time lagged behind. Dan came up trumps in quality of service as well, along with IBM and Evesham. Not faring so well was Advent, Mesh and Time. Dan also won the 'speed of answering' poll. Another question posed, "How easy was it to set up?", put Apple in pole place.

But companies dealing with high street first-time buyers, such as the Dixons' chains, Time and Tiny, always fare badly in these kind of surveys. If you're PC literate, you don't tend to buy from them. If you don't know what you're doing with your computer, your view of your PC supplier can be a bit jaundiced.

The results of the survey, completed in May and June, were compiled from over 7600 respondents. Here are some more results:

Would you recommend your brand?

• 
  
• Dan - 83%
  
• Apple - 79%
  
• Dell - 71%
  
• Evesham - 63%
  
• Gateway - 56% *
  
• IBM - 55%
  
• Viglen - 51%
  
• Fujitsu-Siemens - 48%
  
• Mesh - 46%
  
• Compaq - 43%
  
• Hewlett Packard - 40%
  
• Tiny - 28%
  
• Packard Bell - 26%
  
• Advent - 25%
  
• Time - 14%
  

* Gateway has since exited the market.

How reliable is your brand?

• 
  
• Compaq - 89%
  
• IBM - 89%
  
• Apple - 86%
  
• Dell - 86%
  
• Gateway - 83%
  
• Packard Bell - 83%
  
• Dan - 80%
  
• Evesham - 80%
  
• Hewlett Packard - 80%
  
• Mesh - 79%
  
• Tiny - 77%
  
• Fujitsu-Siemens - 75%
  
• Time - 72%