And naturally, as smartphone usage goes up, the market for used phones and repairs will also inevitably spike up. Among all the consumer gadgets, the upgrade cycle of the smartphone is one of the shortest ever and it’s good to know how they hold up over time. But which smartphones have the highest failure rate? These results may surprise you.
The State of Mobile Device Repair & Security
Blancco, a company that specializes in mobile device diagnostics and data erasure, has just released its Mobile Device Repair & Security Report for the last quarter of 2017. The information on the report is based is on data collected from smartphones that were brought to carriers and device manufacturers for diagnostics tests and data erasures in North America, Europe, Asia and Australia from October 1, 2017 to December 31, 2017.
Worst performing Android phones
According to Blancco, the worst performing smartphone model (read: highest failure rate) for the fourth quarter of 2017 was the Xiaomi Redmi 4. This model had a failure of nearly 9 percent followed by the Motorola Moto G (5S) Plus at 6 percent. Another Xiaomi model, the Redmi Y1, cracked the Top Ten list at 2 percent, enough to get 8th place on the list. Other models that are on the Top Ten include the Lenovo K8 Note (3rd place at 5 percent) and HMD Global Nokia 6 (4th place at 4 percent), However, the company with the most phones on this list is Samsung. A whopping five Samsung smartphones made the Top Ten for Android failure rates – the Galaxy S7 (5th place at 3 percent), Galaxy S8+ (6th place at 3 percent), Galaxy S7 Active (7th place at 3 percent ), Galaxy S8 (9th place at 2 percent) and the Galaxy S7 Edge (10th place at 2 percent). As expected, Samsung also grabbed the top spot for the brand with the highest rate (34 percent) followed by Xiaomi (13 percent). While it may sound like Samsung is in a bad place, this figure is actually a huge improvement from its previous marks, which were at 61 percent in Q2 2017 and 53 percent in Q3 2017. Samsung and Xiaomi are also two of the most popular Android brands in the world so having them figure this high on these lists is not surprising.
These are the most common issues for Android smartphones:
Performance – 27 %Camera – 5%Microphone – 4%Headset – 4%Speaker – 3%
According to the report, some of these performance issues can be fixed by updating to the latest Android software but “Android fragmentation has always been an issue.” With so many different gadgets running different versions of Android, it is hard to implement standard performance fixes across gadgets. Adding to this problem is the fact that a lot of Android users also tend to have trouble updating nor are they aware of when new updates are released. In effect, over half of all Android devices are more than two years out of date with their software updates.
Worst performing iPhones
On the iPhone side, Blancco outs the iPhone 6 as the worst performing model with a 26 percent failure rate. At second place is the iPhone 6S at 14 percent and at third place, the iPhone 6S Plus at 9 percent. The iPhone 6 and 6S families were the most popular models in the latter half of 2017 so these figures don’t come as a surprise. However, Blancco noted that articles and posts from online forums suggest that iPhone 6 models do have more hardware issues than most smartphones. The report also didn’t include the newer iPhone models (the 8, 8 Plus, and the X) since there’s not enough information yet but we’re expecting these models to appear on the 2018 reports.
The top issues for iPhones are as follows:
Bluetooth – 3%Wi-Fi – 3%Headset – 2%Mobile Data – 2%Receiver – 1%
As you can see, unlike Android, performance issues didn’t even hit the top five list for iOS users. Well, for one, iPhones don’t suffer from the same fragmentation issues that Android has. Apple has control of both hardware and software so iOS updates are pushed out regularly to supported gadgets, along with all the system optimizations that come with them. Click here to read Blancco’s full report. But what do you think? Are these smartphone figures accurate? Do you have any of the listed models? Drop us a comment!
