VERDICT: THE APPLE FALLS FIRST! Crowd Crowns Apple Best PC Maker as HP Is Left Warming Up the Printer

Put the kettle on and sit down, dears, because the verdict is in. Asked which computer maker you can trust for quality and value, the crowd has picked Apple at 87% consensus. That's the shiny one with the fruit on the lid, the one my grandson swears he "needs" every couple of years, much like he "needs" a third pudding.

In second place is HP at 13%. It's a straight two-horse race, no third pie on the windowsill. HP is the sensible casserole dish of the personal computer world. It lives in every office, it gets the job done, and nobody writes poems about it. In my experience it's usually sitting right beside a printer that has just run out of cyan ink.

Now, you young people moved quickly. Trading opened less than a day ago, and already 11 traders have put $28,710 behind their opinions. In my day it took a whole church committee three meetings to choose a new tea urn. You lot settled on a computer maker before the bread had finished proving.

Here's my bit of kitchen wisdom for you. Buying a computer is like buying a good frying pan. The fancy one is lovely to look at and it costs a fair bit. The everyday one does the eggs just fine. The crowd says the fancy pan is worth it overall, build quality, support and all. I'll admit a well-made thing does tend to outlast its price tag, so I can't really argue.

These figures come from opinion markets on Morfi, where people back their views with real money instead of just grumbling over the garden fence. The percentages show how strongly the crowd believes in each side, not a headcount. If you think HP deserves better, or you're Team Apple and want to say so, go and join the market and tell them yourself. Mind you don't spill your tea on the keyboard.