iPad tops tablet satisfaction charts

NEW YORK: Apple's iPad and Amazon's Kindle Fire are the tablets delivering the best customer satisfaction ratings among US buyers, according to new figures.

JD Power & Associates, the insights group polled 1,985 people who already owned such devices. Using a 1,000-point scale, respondents awarded the gadget they used an average satisfaction score of 832 points.

The iPad posted 848 points on this metric, ahead of the Kindle Fire on 841 points and Samsung's Galaxy Tab on 827 points.

Tablets manufactured by Acer logged 811 points here, in front of Barnes & Noble's Nook on 803 points and the range of offerings made by HP, on 790 points.

When assessing which factors were most important in shaping their perceptions, 26% of interviewees chose performance, beating ease of operation on 22%, design on 19%, features on 17% and price on 16%.

Three-quarters of tablet owners revealed they were the sole decision-maker when choosing between the various options to buy, and 37% expected to complete another category purchase in the next 12 months.

Among the panellists awarding their tablet a maximum rating in terms of satisfaction, exactly 90% agreed they were likely to acquire additional electronics products from the same company in the future.

Current tablet users spend 7.5 hours a week on the web, watching video, listening to music or reading ebooks on these gadgets, compared with 9.6 hours a week engaging in the same activities using a PC.

Participants possessing a tablet and smartphone typically spent 40% more time surfing the net on the former device than the latter, a total rising to 56% for those utilising gaming apps.

A further 61% of contributors reported that they shared their tablet with at least one other person, and 25% deployed this appliance for business purposes.

Overall satisfaction scores reached 857 points among those who watched video on these devices, some 45 points higher than those who opted not to view this material.

Moreover, 91% of people streaming at least three hours of video a week via this route were likely to remain brand loyal when making their next category purchase, falling to 81% for those who did not.

"As tablet computing, multimedia, display, and application offerings continue to evolve, their impact on usage patterns will continue to grow," said Uma S. Jha, senior director of mobile devices at JD Power & Associates.

Data sourced from JD Power & Associates; additional content by Warc staff, 17 September 2012

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