You may call HP-Compaq merger a financial success however the tech giant recently scored very poorly in PC Magazine's yearly manufacturer reliability survey (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=562&e=4&u=/ap/tech_s_best_and_worst) in the desktop PC category. The survey consisted of 18,000 subscribers to the print publication.

HP and Compaq desktops both got an 'E' the lowest possible grade along with those by Acer Inc., eMachines Inc. and NEC Corp. In the other hand, Dell and Apple received an impecable A-plus, Sony and ABS Computers (a lower scale OEM) both received an A.

I bought a HP DVD writer, and so far I’ve been pleased with the tech support. I guess customer support can be hit-or-miss.