Over the holiday period, I read an article in the paper version of Mobile Today examining why cases of faults are rising as more smartphones and touch-screen devices hit the market.

Here are the parts that I particularly found interesting…

• So endemic is the problem that many consumers almost expect a new phone to have errors
• Some retail staff that Mobile spoke to say the hassle of handling returns make them think twice about selling a high specification smartphone that has just been released
• The clash of the manufacturer’s software with the operator’s settings and services is thought to be a major factor when it comes to the problems reported
• Rather than owing to technical faults, many within the manufacturing fraternity blame handset returns on high consumer expectation and a lack of understanding

I have personally seen that Handset OEMs spend a huge amount of effort testing both the hardware and software associated with their handsets. It’s frustrating to know that many of the problems are actually due to changes performed for (or by) the network operators. I see this as yet another reason why phones might better be sold more like PCs - as open, tested and working devices that can be attached to any network.

The high ‘handset returns on high consumer expectation and a lack of understanding’ is more concerning. It leads the the question whether these people really need such complex devices or whether the complexity can be reduced via a better user (retail and phone) experience.

There’s also an online version of the Mobile Today article.

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 28th, 2008 at 7:47 pm and is filed under Mobile, Phones. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.