PC Authority Reliability and Service Awards 2007

$40,000 in prizes; now with bonus True, Terrifying Tales of ISP support!

Let us begin with A Terrifying And True Story.

A certain Atomican had moved into a new place, but was tragically deprived of Internet access. This travesty should have lasted mere hours, as an appointment had been made with an ISP and a technician would be around any minute to install a brand spankin’ new broadband connection.

He waited, and waited, then did some more waiting, followed by a bout of angst-ridden waiting that spiralled into a wait of Great Vengeance and Furious Anger. It was the end of the day; the technician had not arrived. Calls were made, schedules set, appointments missed, excuses made, plans changed, updated and missed. And missed. And missed.

Finally the Atomican could stomach no more. Calls to his friends were made, as was (eventually) one to the ISP’s ombudsman, who set him up with free internet access. It was an apology for the week’s worth of leave that the Atomican had needlessly taken from work while waiting the wait of the damned and internet deprived.

He continues to tell the tale to this day, and that’s where he thought it had ended.

But it was only just beginning.



There are thousands of you with similar tales of technology related frustration (or even contentment) that stretch from ISPs to components and beyond. You’ve told them to your friends. You’ve slagged off and praised companies for their products, reliability and their service. But the next step is to throw your opinions at our sister magazine PC Authority to see which companies are standouts and which you think are rubbish in this year’s Reliability and Service Awards.

The awards are this country’s biggest snapshot of your opinions of the technology industry. They cover everything from the hardware you know and love, to the retailers that sell it to you, to the service you get once the honeymoon’s over. We'll get the results to you in December.

As with any nutcase survey, a nutcase assembly of prizes is in order. You’ll be glad to hear that we have one of every Nvidia-based Albatron card as entry prizes. Dell has given us an XPS system to give to somebody and it is so new that even we haven’t been given its specifications yet. We have two Fujitsu Laptops and a Nikon D40x SLR to give away. There’s also a copy of Adobe’s Creative Suite 3 Master Collection; which contains so many programs that if we were to list them all we would take up the entire internet.

That’s a mere sliver of what’s on offer though; the pool contains over 60 prizes and comes to a rather tasty total of $40,000.



Slag off (or praise) that evil (or awesome) computer company, product or service.

Win some serious booty.

Slay the Dragon.

Rescue the Princess.

Nail her.

Enter here.