Undercover Report Names Best and Worst Laptop Tech Support

We've all been there: you call a tech support line hoping for help with your laptop, and suddenly you're on the phone for a miserable few hours of hold times and useless answers. That's why our sister site Laptop Mag goes undercover every year to find out which laptop makers offer great customer support and which ones you should avoid at all costs.

The results for Laptop's Tech Support Showdown 2019 are in, and Apple has taken the top spot for more than five years running. Apple's high score was largely attributed to its fast, friendly phone agents, useful support website and strong Twitter presence, though the company did lose a few points by not offering tech support over Facebook.

Other highlights include gaming laptop giant Razer, who jumped from second-to-last in 2018 to second place overall in 2019. This is thanks to the company's knowledgeable phone agents (Razer offered no phone support at all during Laptop's 2018 report), speedy live chat service and smart use of both social media and Reddit.

Huawei debuted on Laptop's annual report thanks to a string of strong laptop releases including the MateBook X Pro, but the company landed at 9th place overall due to it giving too many incorrect answers across both the phone and social media. And in what's become a trend for Tech Support Showdown, MSI has once again fell to dead last due to a difficult-to-navigate website.

For Laptop's complete rankings as well as a breakdown of how individual brand performed -- long hold times, creepy remote access sessions and all -- be sure to check out the full Tech Support Showdown 2019 scorecard.

Credit: Laptop Mag

Michael Andronico

Mike Andronico is Senior Writer at CNNUnderscored. He was formerly Managing Editor at Tom's Guide, where he wrote extensively on gaming, as well as running the show on the news front. When not at work, you can usually catch him playing Street Fighter, devouring Twitch streams and trying to convince people that Hawkeye is the best Avenger.