Android has suffered a serious knock with news that it is more unreliable compared to the iPhone and BlackBerry.
In a study conducted by WDS, a company that provides specialist managed services for the wireless industry, it was discovered that Android phones were more likely to suffer from hardware problems compared iOS, Blackberry and Windows 7 devices.
The study was conducted over the course of a year and focused on customer service support calls. About 600,000 tech support calls were part of the study. Of that number, 14 percent were calls for Android phones that suffered a hardware failure. This is followed closely by Windows phones, which accounted for 11 percent of the calls. Apple and its iOS powered iPhone came in third at seven percent and lastly, there is BlackBerry, which had six percent of the total calls. The trend here is obvious – it is the operating systems that do not manufacture hardware that are accounting for majority of the hardware failure support calls.
WDS did clear up the study findings by presenting other facts. For example, Android is the most popular OS of the four mentioned, so by sheer number it is accounting for the highest number of tech support calls, including those involving hardware issues. Additionally, the study did not include any figures regarding the cost of repairing the units or refunding the users.
Finally, it should be mentioned that the problems here are based on hardware failures and not on the failure of the operating system, a fact that is not within the control of both Android and Windows – it is only Apple and BlackBerry that manufacture hardware and develop their OS.
Originally posted on November 4, 2011 @ 9:47 am
