A new survey from the Consumer Reports National Research Center found that people who buy an iPhone at Apple’s walk-in stores or from Apple.com had a “better overall experience” than shoppers at any other cell phone store.
According to the survey, when it came to ratings for checkout and service, only Apple’s retail store and online store received top scores for both.
Costco also received high marks in the Consumer Reports survey for service and pricing on cell phones, and Best Buy received the highest score of any retailer for the selection of its smartphones, which includes everything from high-profile smartphones to simple prepaid phones from different carriers.
The full ratings are based on 9,774 responses from Consumer Reports subscribers surveyed in July 2012 who bought a cell phone in the past two years.
Consumer Reports notes that the average American household spent more than $1,500 on phones and phone services this year, a 7 percent increase from 2011. Part of this spending came from owners who upgraded from basic cell phones to more expensive smartphones: about 70 percent of people surveyed now own a smartphone compared to a basic cell phone, which is up 50 percent from only two years ago.
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