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iPhone scores well with consumer satisfaction

10 November 2008 0:27 by James "Dela" Delahunty | 4 comments

J.D. Power and Associates has conducted research in customer satisfaction of the most popular Smartphone models. Apple Inc. has ranked highest among the smartphone makers compared to Samsung and Research In Motion Ltd. (RIM). One in four of the smartphone users reported experiencing some kind of software problem. Seemingly, devices akin to small computers are also prone to the same problems as normal computers.

"These are mini-computers, and people do experience computer-like problems on these devices," said Kirk Parsons, senior director of wireless services at J.D. Power and the author of the survey results. "They have entirely different problems than a traditional cell phone."

The smartphones tested were rated out of a 1,000-point satisfaction scale. The iPhone scored 778 / 1000 primarily because users rated the smart phone highly in four of the five areas measured. "The iPhone's claim to fame is in the physical design area," said Parsons. "The appearance of the phone, the visual aspects, the weight and size of the phone, the size of the display screen. But it got very high scores in others areas, like ease of operation."

The 5 factors tested of the smartphone models were operation, operating system, physical design, features and battery performance. "They ranked the iPhone pretty low on the battery life," Parsons said. RIM took second place while Samsung took third with scores of 703 and 701 respectively. HTC, Motorola and Palm followed with scores under the smart phone industry average of 681.

"Apple has clearly differentiated itself from the competition in areas that are most important to business smart phone users," said Parsons.

Permalink to this article | Topics: MP3 & Digital Audio Phones

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bobiroc (Member) 10 November 2008 14:32
After having an iPod touch I decided to go with an iPhone. The touch was only 8GB and I was going to upgrade to a 16GB and give my wife the 8GB but since the 16GB touch and iPhone were the same price I decided to go the phone route. I have been very happy with it so far. It works as advertised and the application development is progressing well too. I even convinced my Boss to let me drop my Sprint/Nextel phone and take a phone allowance since I easily linked the iPhone with my exchange server at work and I can do a whole lot more on my iPhone than I ever did on my sprint phone. The allowance more than pays for the data package and I have to carry only one phone now. I am even exploring ways to link this iPhone with our internal instant messaging services and may be able to connect it to our VOIP system. If that is the case I can stop carrying my internal IP phone too. I actually only have couple complaints about the iPhone. 1. is the battery life. I have to charge it every night and sometimes a couple times a day if I use it a lot. 2. is the absence of memory expansion like a SD card slot. Some may say that this is not needed but I think it would be very useful if someone wanted to use the iPhone as picture viewer they could just take the SD card out of their digital camera and insert it into the iPhone and view the pics on a nice large screen. I am sure there are other uses but I am one that thinks this would be a nice feature. [ + quote]
kitty1984 (Newbie) 11 November 2008 3:25
iphone VS Samsung,of cause i chose the former one :) [ + quote]
salsa36 (Junior Member) 17 November 2008 23:02
As a "phone" it sucks, the apps and all the other stuff are amazing, but the phone function is very poor, many calls dropped. Just check the apple blogs......... [ + quote]
bobiroc (Member) 17 November 2008 23:10
*Originally posted by salsa36:* As a "phone" it sucks, the apps and all the other stuff are amazing, but the phone function is very poor, many calls dropped. Just check the apple blogs......... Mine seems OK. I have yet to drop a call and the audio quality seems good enough compared to my past phones. Besides dropped calls are more than the phone, environmental and location variables play a huge role. For example there is this part on a road I travel frequently and if I am on the phone when I pass this certain spot I almost always drop a call. The funny thing is the only thing around there is a couple old houses and a school. I figure since this has happened with every phone I and my wife have had for the past few years something in that area must be interfering with the signal. [ + quote]