Report: Xiaomi Redmi 4 and Apple iPhone 6 were the 'worst performing' smartphones of 2017

Research firm Blancco has conducted a worldwide survey on the State of Mobile Device Repair and Security for Q4 2017 and has recently published its findings. The survey highlights some of the facts of the current usage trends and the failure rate of Android and iOS devices. Some of the highlights of the survey include —

• Older Android Versions Are Sticking Around, While iOS Users are Quick to Update
• Majority Using Secure Erasure Methods to Address iOS & Android Devices
• Failure Rates Similar for Android & iOS Overall, but Vary Significantly by Region
• Failure Rates for iOS: iPhone 6 & 6S Continue to Disappoint
• Failure Rates for Android: Samsung Models Stand Out as Problematic, but are Getting Better
• Androids & iOS Share Headset Issues; Other Problems Vary
• Diagnostics Tests: Average of 15 Tests Performed 11 for iOS & Android Models Worldwide 

From Blancco's findings, we see that iOS and Android devices have the least failure rates in North America but Europe tops the number of failures followed by Asia. The firm infers that the huge disparity in numbers could be due to the higher retention of older devices in Europe and Asia compared to the US where consumers tend to frequently upgrade to newer models. Among iOS devices, the iPhone 6 had the highest failure rate in 2017 at 26% followed by the iPhone 6S (14%) and iPhone 6S Plus (9%). The iPhone 8 Plus and iPhone 5 were at the bottom of the table at just 2% failures. For some reason, the iPhone 6 models were truly problematic with even Apple recently acknowledging that it had prior knowledge that the phones could easily bend. The iPhone 6 models were also Apple's best selling iPhones worldwide so that reflects in the increased number of defective devices.

On the Android side of things, Samsung took the top spot for the OEM with high failures (34%) followed by Xiaomi (13%). Not surprising, considering the fact that Samsung and Xiaomi are huge sellers in the Asian and European markets. Interestingly, the Xiaomi Redmi 4 was the device with the highest failures (9%) but it is significantly less than the iPhone 6. Blancco says that mobile resellers and support centers must be aware of this fact.

Going into specifics of the reasons for these failure rates, it is seen that for iOS devices Bluetooth and Wi-Fi were the main culprits (3%) followed by headset and mobile data issues (2%). There were no performance issues reported for Apple devices. For Android, however, performance was the key issue worldwide (27%) followed by camera (5%) and microphone (4%). This is not too surprising as it is rare to find Android phones getting timely security and performance updates from OEMs. Also, the open nature of Android means that over time the phone can get slower when used extensively due to outdated software and misbehaving apps. Apple is very restrictive with iOS and even older iOS devices from 2013 such as the iPhone 5S are slated to get the iOS 12 update shortly. 

The report also delves into a lot of other variables such as OS distribution, the number and kind of diagnostic tests users perform on Android and iOS, etc. and is well worth a read. Hit it up at the source link below and tell us what you think.

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