Top Complaints and Shortcomings of Popular Smartphones Detailed in Report

If you've recently bought a popular smartphone and are having trouble with it, Fixya's July update may have information on solving your headaches. The blog lists data on devices as recent as the Samsung Galaxy SIII, and details common issues with the iPhone 4S, Nokia Lumia 900, HTC Titan II, Galaxy Nexus, and the BlackBerry Curve (for the six people out their using one).

The breakdown of issues is rather interesting. Microphone problems top the charts for both Samsung devices. With the Galaxy Nexus, which has been out for awhile, there's a list of ROMs or software programs that may fix the problem. S III owners are comparatively out of luck, the best the blog can offer is to look for Android updates and restore the phone back to factory settings.
iphone problems

The most common complaint about the iPhone 4S remains its battery life (a complaint we can attest to), while the two Windows Phone devices top the list for an oddly-tinted purple screen (fixable) and the less-than-ideal 800x480 screen resolution on the HTC Titan II (sorry folks). Application compatibility is the thread that ties these two devices together -- people who buy into Windows Phone don'th have as many available applications as those who opt into other environments.
Galaxy SIII Problems

Fixya's data is presented well, but we take some issue with the way "battery life" is listed as a flaw with basically every device, save RIM's anemic, unwanted, BlackBerry Curve. This is more-or-less a fact of life with modern smartphones -- fancy graphics and powerful processors suck down the juice. Windows Phones sometimes use less power, thanks to lower-end hardware, but if you can get a day out of a modern smartphone, you're doing pretty well.

That doesn't mean we like the trend, but there's a difference between "My phone gets low battery life" and "My smartphone has an abnormally short battery life. FixYa doesn't break out that data out, and it probably should. If you want a phone that'll last more than 16-24 hours of use, you either buy a second battery, buy a case with an integrated charge pack, or you don't buy a smartphone.