A recent report created by Blancco shows how frequently mobile phones broke down in the first months of this year. According to the “State of Mobile Device Repair & Security” document, 18.9% of Android phones have failed, compared with just 15.1% iOS devices.
Of these, most problems were encountered on Samsung smartphones (27.4%), followed by the iPhone 6 (22%) and iPhone 6s (16%). The issue of the iPhone 6 and 6s has been known since 2016, when many users started reporting the touch screen spoof because of a horizontal gray line that appeared on the display.
Oh, and there’s Apple’s decision to slow down the performance of older iPhone models in order to save battery power, which led to a real scandal involving the American manufacturer, many users suing the company.
But Samsung is not the only one, other Android phone manufacturers with high failure rate are in the list: Xiaomi (14.2%) and Motorola (9.6%).
The study included phones sent to the company for testing and resetting between January and April 2018. Of these, over 74% of iOS phones were running iOS 11, and 52% of Android models running Android Nook.
In the iOS phones included in the report, most problems have been encountered with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. On Android models, the reported issues were on the phone’s performance, followed by problems related to the camera, microphone, and battery charging. This year, 34% of Android phones had performance issues in the first months of the year, compared with only 10% in the same period last year.
In an abc.net.au article from 2014, it was stated that most smartphone manufactures have used a “built-in obsolescence” strategy for most of their products.
In other words, they were not meant to last, especially when a new product will be released the following year. The user needs enough reasons for the upgrade, right? The European Parliament had a long conversation on this topic last year, arguing that we need products that will have a longer lifespan. Also, they feel that these products should be easier to repair, especially since they are so costly. A study from the same year states that, if a choice is available, the consumer would love to repair their devices rather than buy new ones.
“We must reinstate the reparability of all products put on the market. We have to make sure that batteries are no longer glued into a product, but are screwed in so that we do not have to throw away a phone when the battery breaks down. We need to make sure that consumers are aware of how long the products last and how they can be repaired”, said Pascal Durand (Greens/EFA, FR), rapporteur.
Which smartphone has malfunctioned most often in recent months?
It is hard to pinpoint exactly which smartphone has been malfunctioning the most recently, mostly because the study mentions Samsung without naming a particular device. But, undoubtedly, Samsung devices have malfunctioned most often in recent month, with a 27.4 malfunctioning percent rate.
In the other camp, iPhone 6 seems to be at the top of the charts when it comes to Apple malfunctions. Users reported various problems with iPhone 6, including Touch ID malfunctions, battery problems, Bluetooth not working, unresponsive touchscreen, camera not working…
