BRANDS YOU CAN TRUST

Whenever you buy something in the coming year, why not draw on the experience of thousands of discerning buyers?

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We're so used to glancing at star ratings on websites when deciding whether or not to make decisions, it's almost W become second nature. It's the modern shorthand for "what do other people think?", but the trouble is that you don't know who those people are. Some may be genuine, but others were given the products for free - and some will simply have been paid to write a positive review.

PC Pro has always offered a different route, basing our reviews on our own tests and our knowledge of the sector. But every year we do something that wouldn't otherwise be possible: we ask thousands of people about their buying experiences. Not whether the product turned up on time (unless it's part of our analysis of online retailers), but what happened when something went wrong. Were they happy with the service they received? We also ask about how happy they are with the performance and quality of the products they've bought. And would they buy from the same company again? This gives us something unique in the UK: a deep dive into people's happiness when it comes to technology.

We couldn't do this without the support of our readers, so allow us to send out an individual message to each of you as you read this: thank you for taking part. If you didn't win one of our prizes, hopefully the data-packed tables over the next few pages will be ample reward.

BEST PC MANUFACTURER

While you can glean a lot about a company from the table alone-whether for Best PC Manufacturer or any of the other categoriessometimes you need to hear direct from people to fully comprehend what makes it stand out. And for Scan, joint winners of this year's award, it's not merely about speed or reliability, but customer service.

"Scan are amazing!" wrote Benjamin Harris, echoing many others' exact same sentiments.