A company called WDS has announced the results of a year-long study of Android smartphones that surveyed over 600,000 technical support calls. The study claims that of all the devices on the mobile phone market, ones powered by Android are most likely to have hardware problems. The study claims that 14% of all tech support calls for Android devices were related to a hardware fault.

That is compared to only 3.7% of Blackberry devices having hardware fault an, 8% for iPhones, and 9% for Windows Phone 7 smartphones. The study also claims that the instances of hardware faults are varied between OEM deployments with some brands having more of a tendency to fail than others. The greater tendency for hard ware fault according to the study is due to the platforms fragmentation across a broad range.

I have to think the fact that in many areas Android phones are more popular than the other devices and therefore have more users would also be a reason why the phones have hardware issues more. If you have more of one type of device in use then there is a bigger chance of failure. The study followed the tech support calls between June 2010 and May 2011.

8 COMMENTS

  1. Well phones like the Evo 4G and it’s blown speaker issues and the Evo Shift with the touchscreen commonly going out certainly don’t help. I have to say that other than Blackberries with the old trackball I rarely see issues with them. HTC made android phones seem to dominate in the service area followed closely by Samsung. We probably see iPhones going to service like once or twice a month compared to an Android phone going out like everyday despite the iPhone being the most popular sold smartphone for us.

  2. Well phones like the Evo 4G and it’s blown speaker issues and the Evo Shift with the touchscreen commonly going out certainly don’t help. I have to say that other than Blackberries with the old trackball I rarely see issues with them. HTC made android phones seem to dominate in the service area followed closely by Samsung. We probably see iPhones going to service like once or twice a month compared to an Android phone going out like everyday despite the iPhone being the most popular sold smartphone for us.

  3. Not really a fair study. You also have to consider that every iOS phone is being made by the same company that created the OS, and is as expensive as any Android phone. There are no “budget” iOS devices. Similarly with RIM, every Blackberry OS device is made by the company that made the OS. Same with HP and webOS.

    Meanwhile, Android is expected to work on phones/tablets from 50+ different manufacturers, at a whole range of build qualities not controlled or monitored by Google. It’s a miracle Android could compete at all in a study like this, frankly.

  4. Interesting because I’ve never had any hardware issues with my multiple android devices. That includes a still working G1, MyTouch 3G, MyTouch 4G, and Logitech Revue. All of them are working like they did on day one with the exception of decreasing battery life. 

    Meanwhile I’ve had multiple friends who’ve had to buy new phones because their iPhone has hardware and software issues with the battery causing random reboots, not allowing it to fully charge, and random shutdowns requiring restores. 

  5. If the number of calls for each group were equal I’d be impressed by the lower rate of non-hardware related Android problems.

    For non-hardware related calls Android had 86%, Blackberry had 96.3%, iPhone had 92% and Windows Phone 7 had 91%.

    Considering the variability in Android software based on manufacturer interfaces, more frequent updates, greater user customization and the greater scope of hardware platforms I find Android’s lower rate of non-hardware related problems impressive.  

    But remember that other than the 600,000 call number all the other figures are rates. Unfortunately the numbers are meaningless because they don’t say what percentage of the 600,000 calls fall into each group.  Sure, Android User may be 6 times more likely to make a non-hardware related service call than a hardware related one but that says nothing about how likely an Android user is to have to make a service call in the first place.

    What we have here are ambiguous numbers that can be presented to make anyone look as good or bad as the writer wishes.  Android Community just reprinted the WDS press release and should be ashamed.

    I just hope that no one comes away from this piece thinking that they’ve gotten any real information.

  6. “I have to think the fact that in many areas Android phones are more popular than the other devices and therefore have more users would also be a reason why the phones have hardware issues more.”
    Strange conclusion to reach. Maybe the fact that Android devices are rushed to market has more to do with it. I’m on my third Acer tablet in less than a month.

  7. 3.7% for Blackberry? Seriously when the Storm came out I went through over 10 of them. Lets not talk about the Bold were I went though 8 of them. The Moto OG Droid did not need any replacement till after the two year mark after my wife was using it for over 6+ months. 

    Now lets talk about the amount of Blackberry’s that fer replaced every single day due to HW issues where I work. It is a joke. Where did WDS get their numbers? I am thinking they reached really deep into their sweatpants felt underwhelmed and made up a number…..

    I would also love to have see what search criteria they used for those 600k tickets they looked at..

    This company did not impress me with those numbers or what they allegedly found in their research. 
    The Blackberry number alone is so far off that it is a complete joke.

    Out of the 7 Android phones I have that my wife and I switch from when we want a change has has never had any replacements done except for the OG Droid and that was a reception issue.

    My Device are from Moto, HTC, and Samsung. I would have to say Moto has the best build quality out of all of them. Let not forget about the 2 tablets I have also that have not had any HW issues.

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