Hint: Its Black and tastes like fruit.
 Click to enlarge |
BlackBerry and HTC are the two biggest smartphone duds around, and the ones that break most commonly, says repair gurus Mobilion.
The Sydney based company should know as it repairs thousands of phones through its centres every year for companies like Zurich and Macquarie Telecom, who manage hundreds of Nokias, BlackBerrys iPhones and Android smartphones on their corporate networks.
So, what are the top faults on a BlackBerry?
The touchscreen on BlackBerry 9900 devices crash often and “don’t like low battery,” while the top faults on the 9780 and 9700 suffer from a loss of trackpad sensitivity and speaker malfunction.
But the 9800 and 9810 are pretty crappy also, a Mobilion exec told SmartHouse.
HTC devices experience a lot of software issues, often crashing and failing to reboot, which “happens a lot.”
Worse yet, If its not under warranty, repairs can set owners back as much as $70 to get fixed.
Apple’s ubiquitous iPhone is “pretty good” and hardly crashes at all, says the repair guru, although speakers and microphones are the top things that go on the much loved smartie.
But of course the top fault with all smartphones are cracked screens, which for an iPhone can cost $120 to $170 in other repair outlets.
Apple’s arch rival Samsung has “very good phones,” but are very expensive to fix.
The Galaxy S II can cost as much as $250-$270 to repair the screen alone, considering it has a high end AMOLED display. (Ouch).
Phone cases and covers won’t prevent the screen from cracking but will help, added the Mobilion guru.
Samsung are “killing it” at the moment say Mobilion execs, who reckon Apple has “lost it” as they have no TV, entertainment units to connect their mobile devices to, unlike the Galaxy maker.
“Samsung is killing it and Apple can’t stop it” he admits.
Comparing the iPhone 4S and Samsung Galaxy S III is like comparing “chalk and cheese”.
The Korean giant is “seasons ahead now which in the tech world is a long time” and compares Samsung’s popularity (recently emerged as the world top phone maker) to Nokia’s supremacy several years back with models like 6130 and Motorola with their early flip phones.
But companies are sticking to BlackBerry despite its “issues” due to BlackBerry’s enterprise server (BES) which gives good security and password functionality that other devices can’t match. (This writer also noted the Mobilion exec himself owns a BlackBerry).
BlackBerry is considered a work “tool” and can hold a lot of emails, whereas Apple iPhones and a lot of Android smartphones are seen more as toys, although Apple are making a lot of steady inroads with corporate clients within the last 18 months, he adds.
In addition, international calls are cheaper than ‘Droid or Apple due to BES and users can still take email and work communication while roaming, for free, as long as you don’t use data.
And BlackBerry devices can handle a lot more data and email than iPhone or other platform, which appears to be its saving grace.
iOS rival Android do make for good business phones but one major company recently knocked it back as a fleet device as it just “wasn’t secure enough.”
So how long should a consumer have to wait for a phone repair?
Mobilion have a 24 hour turnaround time but notes rival repair company Phonebiz, who does HTC and have just taken over Nokia official repairs, takes a “minimum” of 2 weeks, and are said to have a slow service.
Meanwhile, Telstra repair centres will fix a phone in as little as 5 days, while Vodafone and Optus repairs are slower and can take anything from 1 to 3 weeks for Optus.
