Readers of our blog are mostly getting high-quality service from Apple's Genius Bar. That's more than I can say after three trips to my local Apple store, but our contrasting views raise an important question for computer and consumer products: Is support from the likes of HP -- the world's top PC vendor -- superior to Apple's? Or is the opposite true?I've had considerable experience in the past nine months with HP's phone-based support, thanks to a problematic laptop I bought in early 2007. Most recently, its copy of Windows XP became corrupted and I had to wipe the hard drive clean three times. When the OS became corrupted a fourth time, I contacted HP, which diagnosed a faulty hard drive and promptly shipped a new hard drive along with a set of recovery disks. Everything arrived sooner than expected and despite a few challenging support calls, HP saw the repair through to completion. In light of the experience, here's how I'd rate HP's performance:

• Product quality: Negative in this instance; two other HP laptops have performed far better.
• Promptness of service: Excellent
  
  

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• Quality of service: It wasn't easy, but they got the job done

• Accessibility of service: Call anytime and someone picks up; you can't ask for much more

A major PC repair isn't directly comparable to my Genius Bar experience, since the laptop is a more complex product than an iPod and my laptop had more serious issues. Still, I'd give a nod to HP's model in this case. And this experience was definitely more positive than my last go-round with HP.

That's my view. I'd love to hear what readers think about the HP phone-based model vs. the in-store, hands-on experience of the Genius Bar.