Android Phones Most Likely To Have Hardware Problems [Year Long Study Shows Android Phones Most Likely To Have Hardware Issues, And You Won't Believe Who's Least Likely]

Posted on TFTS by Steve Anderson on Thursday, 23. June 2011 under: Mobile/Cell Phones

The results of a year-long study of 600,000 tech support calls has revealed some very interesting information about what phones are most–and least–likely to break down. And while as it turns out the most likely to have a hardware issue is an Android, the rest of the results might be surprising.

Over the course of the 600,000 call study, following calls made from June 2010 to May 2011 across four locations–Europe, North America, South Africa and Australia–fully 14 percent of issues involving Android phones could be traced to a hardware fault. Following that up was Windows Phone 7 devices at nine percent, Apple devices at eight percent, and the lowest of all with just 3.7 percent hardware fault was Blackberry.

Now, it’s interesting to note here that the study did not reflect how many total calls were received by brand, so just because Blackberry came in dead last in the hardware fault stakes, a distinction under normal circumstances, they may not have had near as many calls in the first place, which would skew the records. Moreover, it’s also interesting to note that there is only one real Apple phone–the iPhone–but there are several varieties of Blackberry phone and Windows Phone 7 phone. And of course, there exists a huge number of Android phones out there, from amazingly high end pieces like the Nexus One all the way down to lower-end phones from makers you’ve never even heard of. There are at last count fully 35 OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers) licensed to use the Android operating system.

Still though, I was definitely surprised to see where Blackberry turned in in this particular analysis, though considering Blackberry’s reputation as a business phone (and that they build their own devices like Apple), it’s not so surprising to see the hardware’s in place.

What do you guys think about this survey? Poorly done? Statistically insignificant? Or do the various side factors involved skew the numbers out of any useful proportion? Or is this a pretty good indication of which way to go if you’re looking for a reliable cell phone? Hit the comments section and tell us what you think!

David Fields
I’d like to see that broken down even farther–brand by brand and based on number of calls at each brand or carrier.
I realize with some phones, the cheaper ones especially, those phones may simply get tossed rather than a service call or the service call will be to a carrier not a manufacturer. Any chance a one-for-one kind of comparison across the board could be attempted?

http://nexus404.com/Blog Steve Andersen
Agreed, David. While the study here really can’t be called invalid–650000 is a sufficient sample size for most any naysayer–they really didn’t take the formatting nearly as far as they could–or should, for that matter–have.