Laptop magazine went through the painstaking process of calling the tech support of every major notebook manufacturer. And they timed their waits before asking one of two very basic questions. The results may not surprise you.
Apple scored the highest with an A overall (that's a combined score of online and phone tech support). HP, Acer and Dell tied for lowest with C- each.
The good news: Most techs were able to answer basic usage questions after hold times within 5 minutes...with the exception of Dell, who maxed out at 19 minutes before connecting Laptop to a line that was "full of static and hissing" only to be transferred through one of those seemingly infinite tech support loops.
The bad news: While some problems across manufacturers varied, like Acer claiming that a computer was beyond its warranty date (despite not having even been manufactured by its alleged expiration), others were fairly common, like the low call quality from overseas lines.
Of course, we're just skimming the surface of Laptop's results, so hit them up and read the whole story on the current state of online and call-in technical support. [Laptop, Image, it's actually a 911 call center in NY]