Dubious study tries to allege 1 in 7 cellphones faulty
posted August 5th 2005 7:00AM
Now, there are dubious studies and there are
dubious studies but this — this is one dubious study. The
UK's Which? magazine (The one on first base…) surveyed 5000 mobile customers, found 1 in 7 of them to have had very
vaguely specified "problems" with their cellphones, and extrapolated the results to suggest that 2 million out of 18
million cellphones sold in the UK last year could have been faulty. But it gets even better when mobile operators with
not even thinly veiled agendas get on board to defend themselves, such as video phone operator 3 (vying for Which?
magazine for this year's coveted "Worst Business Name Evar" title) who contends that it's unfair to compare 3G
technology, "which is complex and new," to GSM technology. Right, whatevs — just answer the question: does your gear
work, or not?
[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
If that includes the 6600 from Verizon... it's probably even higher than that.
I've gone through 3 MPX220's since I got my first back in November '04... I'd say that faulty equip has been my normal experience with Motorola
3 MPX220's
4 V600's
3 T720's
Although they were all covered by warranties
Motorola warranty only for the MPX220
And Best Buy warranties for the V600/T720 (although the warranty program at Best Buy is trash now)
I'll agree with #2. My V600 was crap uptill the point I voided the warrantee and flashed it myself. Now it's perfect. Better reception, doesn't hang or reboot. Why they could have offered a bugfix for the phone, I'll never know.
i have used 3 and can say that i have 4 or 5 phones from them in a 2 year period all of witch had problems (now on orage). also my girlfriend has a spv c500 which crashes 1 or twice a week orange say there is nothing wrong with that!!!!
I just got a Motorola E815 and there is a serious problem with the speakerphone and bluetooth headset. There are several dozen people on howardforum that have come forward with the same problem and i am sure there are hundreds more that have not realized yet that it is just their phone. it seems as if motorola never tested their phones after production.
I stopped buying Handspring and Samsung handsets. I had three Treos fail in a six month period - all covered failures. I then switched to a Samsung flip. Four of those failed in the next eight months, again, under warranty. Next, they sent me a Samsung camera phone. Two of those failed, and then I sold the last replacement Samsung, took the money and bought a new Sanyo, which fixed everything.
I can believe these numbers. I think the situation is worse. Most of my phone problems were software, and I think many don't come to light because most phone users only use their phones for voice calls.
Actually it is a perfectly valid comment for 3 to make since they only sell 3G phones, which, in case no-one had noticed, are more intrinsically complicated with newer technology and therefore more liable to break and/or have problems.
Operators such as Tesco and Virgin take significantly older phones by which then the majority of production and software issues have been ironed out.
Actually the biggest flaw of this article is breaking them up into operators since all of them sell a broad cross-section of makes and models. As such, this data is generally meaningless.
The best information is the reliability on a per make and model basis, the former isn't detailed enough and the latter is non-existant.
#1, have u updated the firmware to the latest version on audiovox.com?
Ya, theres still some issues even with the new software update... But really simple ones that would take a couple lines of code to fix (like the the soft ringtones)
Hah.. I never thought I would have to "reboot" my cell phone regularly. I had two Motorola t720s. Both had problems with charging, and the ringer would randomly break. I got in the habit of restarting it regularly.
My Motorola V710 has been even worse. First, the carrier broke the bluetooth functionality so I have to run hacked firmware to grab pictures off of it. It goes silent randomly and has to be power cycled. The camera is horrible. The Charging port on my 1st phone broke in 3 months.
I will not buy a 3rd Motorola!
I got a motorola v551 in december and im on my 4th replacement phone right now. One could not hold a charge and the other two had faulty speakers. You think they would test and make sure replacement phones were not defective before they sent them out.... f you motorola
How can you tell if your cellphone is faulty? If it says Motorola on it then there is something faulty in it.
I just got my letter from Cingular. My A845's will be EDGE only some time this month and in November they'll send me one of their sucky "freephones" to replace my pair of $300 w/2year commitment A845's since they will totally stopworking then.
Total service life for 3G UMTS July 2004 to November 2005. I think that is a record.
Apparently in November they will have the "real" 3G UMTS. If the phone is as faulty as the A845 even free isn't a good deal.
I'd believe it. more than 50% of my cellphones over the years have had manufacturers defects. Add to that everyone I know that has a phone has had to get warranty service on their phone at least once if not more.
Nothing that dubious about Which? - It's the UK's Consumer Association. If you do read their reports, the methodology and analysis is subtantively more rigourous than most other publications. Read the report rather than just the press release :)
I believe "Who" is on first...
7. You have just about repeated what Which? said there report states as found on http://trial.which.co.uk/audio_visual_equipment.php?m_id=80&source_code=j8uw04
states
The 3 network has the worst record for faults - around one in three mobiles on this network developed a problem within 12 months.
This may be because the brand-new, hi-tech products offered by 3 are prone to teething problems.
Networks offering more of the longer-established models in their ranges, such as Virgin and Tesco, fare better for handset reliability.
Some handset brands themselves have more problems than others. Motorola and Sony Ericsson handsets were the most likely to go wrong; about a fifth of owners reported faults.
Nokia and Samsung were the most reliable, although about one in ten users still had faulty phones.
I belive this also answers your critisms though basing the survey on make should make no difference because it is the manufactors manufactoring processes and Quality Control that make the difference.