Buying a computer is an investment. Even budget brands aren’t exactly cheap, especially if you’re buying a new, non-refurbished model. It’s easy to drop at least a couple of hundred dollars on a new laptop or computer — and that’s before you even get into buying any peripherals you might need, like a monitor, keyboard, or mouse. Whatever you buy, you want to know that you’re going to get your money’s worth, and that you won’t be spending big again any time soon. That’s doubly the case if you use it all the time, for working from home, gaming, or anything else you might see fit.

If you want to be happy with whatever computer you wind up picking, you probably don’t want to exclusively research the specific model or specifications of the device you have your eye on. You should also take a look at what people have to say about the make or brand of computer you’re planning to purchase from.

Per the data from 2025 shared by the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ASCI), hardware manufacturer Acer ranks as the singular worst brand for customer satisfaction, with a rating of 75 out of 100. They also held the same rank in data from 2024, but the company has fallen by a further four points since the last ASCI analysis, when it had previously scored 78 out of 100. For context, the overall satisfaction rating for all personal computers is 81, meaning the company ranks below average compared to others analyzed for the report.

The ASCI report itself doesn’t publicly state exactly why Acer ranked the lowest compared to other personal computer manufacturers, nor does it say why the company’s score fell from last year. However, there is a breakdown of which benchmarks are considered while assessing customer satisfaction, varying from technical considerations, to other factors like call center or website satisfaction, as well as a device’s design, the availability of compatible software or apps, how easy devices are to use, and what peripherals or accessories are available. The overall score given to Acer is lower than the average score for most of those benchmarks.

It’s also not just the ASCI report that suggests that Acer computers could be disappointing. A quick look at customer reviews and consumer forums leaves little room for surprise that it ranked so low in ASCI’s report. The Trustpilot score based on user reviews attains the company a Poor rating, with an average of 2.7/5. Similarly, customer reviews on the Better Business Bureau gives Acer an average of 1.2/5, albeit based on a small sample size of only around 20 reviews.

Meanwhile, an analysis shared by Which? revealed that after one year of ownership, around 4% of Acer laptops develop faults. The figure rises to 13% after three years of ownership, and 22% — so, almost a quarter of those sampled — after seven years. However, Acer isn’t alone with these figures. LG took the title of having the highest fault rates after three years, with 6%, and Acer tied with Dell for the amount of faults developed after three years. Similarly, the usually high-ranking HP also matched Acer’s fault rate after seven years of use, with Dell close behind.

When it comes to customer satisfaction, Acer ranks the lowest by ASCI’s standards — but some other brands are surprisingly close behind. Microsoft and Asus each sit two ranks above it, each with a score of 76. The next company above that is Amazon, with a rating of 78. It’s a close race, with only three points making a big difference in terms of rankings.

There are also only nine major companies that earn their own individual ranks on the podium. A category labeled All Others sits with the same rating as Amazon, which accounts for a collection of other, smaller manufacturers that don’t have their own public, individual scores. Above that is Lenovo, with 79; the last company to bag a below-average rating. The remaining four major computer companies — Samsung, Dell, Apple, and HP, in order — all received an average or above rating of 81 or higher. So, although Acer sits below average in terms of customer satisfaction, it certainly isn’t alone.

Something else notable about the ASCI data is that almost every company’s score decreased in the 2025 data compared to the previous year. The only two that didn’t lose points from the previous year were Dell, which increased its score by three points, and the All Others category, which scored exactly the same. Acer tied with Apple and Microsoft as the three companies to have dropped the most points in comparison to the previous year, with each manufacturer falling by 4 points. Despite the general downward trend for many companies, overall customer satisfaction with personal computers stayed stable, at 81 out of 100.