Why are Android phones so unreliable?

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biggles

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This past week alone:
1. Failure to write file error when snapping picture or video to micro sd card.
2. Android.process.acore error when using gps
3. LG Urbane smartwatch bluetooth disconnecting when using the device in front of clients.

Phone is Verizon LG G4 which bootlooped and was replaced 6 months ago with refurb.

Other Androids previously owned have had lots of other issues:
1. LG G2 headphone jack had loose connection
2. Samsung Droid Charge forced lock screen into landscape mode, preventing entry of pin code
...and more.

Am I unlucky, or are Android phones unreliable devices?

My wife has an iPhone and it has been much more reliable in comparison.

I need to get this resolved because it is harming my contracting business. Maybe I have been selecting the wrong manufacturers.

Perhaps the unlocked LG G6 I ordered last week will be better. Hoping so.
 
The current LG phones are absolute trash.

My LG G4 died a couple months ago... was using it and it just went dead completely out of nowhere.

One of my family members has a LG V10 that died a couple weeks before my G4 died. They sent the V10 in to LG to fix and it took them 3 times of sending it back to get a fully working phone back.

I decided it was not worth my time or money to even bother trying to get my G4 fixed, especially since I got it on a sale+rebate deal and ended up only paying about $50 total for it in the first place.

Just look up the LG boot loop issue and probably some other issues they are having in mass with their current phones.

I will never buy an LG phone again.
 
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Well I have posted asking about which Android manufacturer is most reliable but there was not a consensus on this topic. Having said that, my wife previously owned 2 different HTC phones that ran fine. And going back to the original Motorola Droid (the one with the keyboard slide out, remember that?), the Droid was very reliable.

For the current situation, I have eventually managed to solve most of these problems. But it has been taking a lot of hours when you add up each of these small items. As a contractor billing by the hour it is causing lost income.
 
While they are not perfect I think you have had a run of bad luck. So far all of mine have worked very well. Minor issues here and there but nothing debilitating or really angering.
 
The issues don't appear to be related to Android most of the time (yes in some instances mentioned but the minority), they're hardware issues with the phones themselves so, that's a whole different thread to be honest. Apple iPhones are made under pretty exacting conditions, with 1 or 2 made per year, tightly controlled from start to finish, with an OS that is tailored to that precise hardware because of it's narrow profile nature aka not a whole lot of different models/chipsets/cameras/batteries/etc and it provides a more reliable platform overall.

That's not to say iPhones are perfect, because they simply aren't and I personally have no use for them whatsoever but that's just me I suppose. All phones have issues if you're paying attention, but again I'd say the issues the OP has more often than not are hardware related and Android has nothing to do with it.

If you want reliability that you have to depend on (note I didn't say "can depend on..." which is something entirely different) then give an iPhone a shot, maybe it'll work for you, maybe it won't.

As for "Android manufacturer," that's Google and Google alone as they created and produce the OS itself - even the Pixel smartphones are still not manufactured by Google directly (that's HTC and the Pixels ain't perfect either) so I suppose the topic might have better been stated as "Which manufacturer makes the most reliable phones?"

I got no beef with LG, currently using yet another G4 (date code 505 which means it's one of the first production models made in May of 2015) and it works fine, no issues. I'm not the original owner but so far it's been running great. Yes it's entirely possible that at some point it could just crap out and die on me because of the now rather infamous bootloop problem but that's a hardware issue and it has nothing to do with Android. I still consider it to be the best smartphone I've ever used and still the best camera assembly of any smartphone made so far producing the best image quality I've ever seen (personal opinion based on testing out most every major flagship including the Galaxy S8 models) so, if it does up and die I'll contact LG about getting it repaired and if they say no for whatever reason then it'll just be another device I add to my current claim in the class action lawsuit over the bootloop issue.

Then I'll go find another one. :D
 
Heck, out of the Android manufacturers for reliability, I think that HTC and Motorola probably run circles around everyone else.
 
I'd probably say the problem is LG. Not really known for reliability. My HTC 10 is doing pretty great though.
 
I mean, no offense but your 3 phones are

A: One with known, massive issues
B: One that was easily fixed but still 4 years old
C: One that's 6 years old and was never highly regarded in the first place as being a "reliable" phone.

Sorry man, I think you can chalk it up to A: Shit luck and B: picking the wrong devices.
 
entropism said:
I mean, no offense but your 3 phones are

A: One with known, massive issues
B: One that was easily fixed but still 4 years old
C: One that's 6 years old and was never highly regarded in the first place as being a "reliable" phone.

Sorry man, I think you can chalk it up to A: Shit luck and B: picking the wrong devices.
Click to expand...
you got such a wonderful way with words. LOL
 
Only LG products I like are their TVs. Looking to snag an LG OLED in 2017-18.
 
auntjemima said:
You have had issues with both a G2 and then a G4 so you ordered a G6? Good luck to you.
Click to expand...
While buying another LG may sound unwise:
*Samsung just had a phone that caught fire,
*HTC has been doing poor financially and may not be around much longer,
*Motorola is perhaps the best alternative and, even though I am uninterested in the modular stuff, this would be worth it if I knew they were more reliable.

So I go back to the point of wishing we had hardware reliability stats like for laptops, computer monitors, etc (kind of like Consumer Reports car reliability). I believe there is a big need for this type of data and that it will become available sooner or later. Heck, the extended warranty folks like Squaretrade must be capturing these stats, but I have not seen the data shared publicly.

And then there are a whole bunch of other companies I would like to try but can't because they are incompatible with Verizon (ZTE, OnePlus, Huawei, etc).

Oh, and today the LG G4 gps locked up while driving to a fitness class. Driving on the highway I had to restart the device, enter pin, re-enter fitness class address. Sigh.
 
"Consumer Reports"

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

My parents used to buy based on consumer reports ratings.

Pretty much every single thing they bought based on the best ratings didn't last very long at all before breaking.

If anything, "Consumer Reports" gives the best reports to the companies that pay them the most for ratings.

That company is a joke to me and I will not read their scam reports.
 
biggles said:
While buying another LG may sound unwise:
*Samsung just had a phone that caught fire,
*HTC has been doing poor financially and may not be around much longer,
*Motorola is perhaps the best alternative and, even though I am uninterested in the modular stuff, this would be worth it if I knew they were more reliable.

So I go back to the point of wishing we had hardware reliability stats like for laptops, computer monitors, etc (kind of like Consumer Reports car reliability). I believe there is a big need for this type of data and that it will become available sooner or later. Heck, the extended warranty folks like Squaretrade must be capturing these stats, but I have not seen the data shared publicly.

And then there are a whole bunch of other companies I would like to try but can't because they are incompatible with Verizon (ZTE, OnePlus, Huawei, etc).

Oh, and today the LG G4 gps locked up while driving to a fitness class. Driving on the highway I had to restart the device, enter pin, re-enter fitness class address. Sigh.
Click to expand...
let's start that company, then you and I could start getting freebies to review. LOL
 
biggles said:
the original Motorola Droid (the one with the keyboard slide out, remember that?),
Click to expand...

More than remember. Crowdfunded a keyboard mod for the Moto Z family (Moto Z Play for $250 from China) . If the ThinkPad Retro comes out in October then 2017 will be the end of a five year long keyboard winter. Last laptop with a proper keyboard: ThinkPad x20 family in 2011 but you could hack them into the x30 family in 2012, last smartphone with a proper landscape keyboard was the Droid 4 in 2012. I was so anxious this mod will fail with the high target but it didn't. I can only hope Lenovo will deliver too. We have waited long enough.

And yes, I have a Droid 4 and a Nokia N900 on the desk, ready to be used, to this day even if most of the time I use a Nexus 7 2013 LTE -- I can't use anything smaller how can you all type on a touchscreen that small? Even on this behemoth it's a literal pain and so slow so if I anticipate any more typing than a few words on the go then either of those go in the backpack.

Also note that I use a vertical mechanical keyboard. That's about space age compared to the cambrian experience of scraping a piece of glass to type.
 
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For anything that isn't a direct hardware failure, I default to blaming OEM skins/frameworks like TouchWiz and LG's UI. Guilty until proven innocent, as far as I'm concerned. Why? Because my experiences using OEM skinned software on HTC and Samsung phones I previously owned was laggy and buggy, whereas the software experience on my Moto X Pure has been virtually flawless for 18+ months. This, despite the fact that Motorola is a "lesser" OEM and this was a "mid-range" phone at the time of purchase. Nexus/Pixel seem to have very few major bugs (at least, ones that don't quickly get patched), as well.

Of course, some of what's being discussed is clearly hardware-related, which is another issue. Unfortunately, it's probably true that the variety offered by most Android OEMs increases the chances of issues with any one model, compared to Apple's forced 1-2 model selection.
 
Never had any issues with LG's UI on various devices (their double-tap-to-wake/sleep is to me the greatest damned thing, I swear every smartphone should have that at least as an optional thing in their respective mobile OSes). It's always been fast and smooth to me except in situations where they use the side-bar crap off to the left side of the display aka "Smart Bulletin" which is something I disable pretty fast - in fact I only have one Home screen on my devices, just never had a reason to have more than that. I had an LG V20 recently but didn't really feel it was worth keeping around for a variety of reasons and the one thing that I changed fast was the new idea or practice of having no "app drawer" and instead just providing access to the apps installed by swiping up from the bottom of the given display - that's just not me, so I'm glad LG did include the ability to go back to the traditional app drawer style way of accessing and managing apps on their device.

I've used HTC Sense UI (from all the way back to the rather awesome HD2) through their modern line up, I've used Samsung's Touchwiz UI incarnations and for me personally (gotta state that clearly) the LG UI is faster, smoother, and less intrusive overall in terms of using the device in hand but again that's my personal opinion on the matter based on my own experience with oh, 100+ devices in the past few years as I go through devices almost as fast as a YouTube reviewer more than likely. :)

Sure, a pure Android aka AOSP ROM on a device with no muss, no fuss, no bloat, nothing that shouldn't be there and even with the most minimal of Google apps like just the Play Store and Services framework and absolutely nothing else (because they can be downloaded as desired) is awesome and fairly damned snappy in terms of responsiveness but most hardware OEMs producing Android smartphones just can't leave that shit alone. They create these UIs that are problematic, make things more difficult, and if you do find one you like and get used to it there's no guarantee that the next model coming down the pike won't drastically alter all of the things you've developed habits into using.

On this G4 that I got a few days ago (T-Mobile H811 model) I was thankfully able to unlock the bootloader (w00t!) and then install TWRP recovery then I went straight into the official Lineage 14.1 aka Nougat 7.1.2 ROM and it runs fantastic. I installed a really Llama Sweet Kernel (literally that's the name, no joke), then used Kernel Adiutor Mod (no, that's not a misspelling, it's accurate and has a Latin heritage meaning "helper" so it's not "auditor") to do some tweaks to reduce overall battery usage which is now fantastic while still providing very smooth and snappy responsive performance all around.

So yeah, locked down hardware is a complete bitch, so are the somewhat locked down UIs. I tend to try and get devices that can be bootloader unlocked and have a large community of customization support behind 'em, luckily the G4 has such a community but not every model can be cracked open like this one I finally got ahold of, thankfully.

But yes, it could die at any moment too, it's a 505 (May 2015) model so one of the first ones off the production line (actual production date of this specific phone I have is May 29 2015 so just shy of 2 years old) and that's fine. It'll piss me off if it does but I'll get LG to fix it, not a problem. :D
 
Sense UI is famous for being as smooth as stock if not smoother, except for one early version of Sense UI.
 
Well after disabling a bunch of Verizon bloatware some of the error messages have disappeared. So I suspect carrier bloat is one source of problems.

Regarding LG G4 bootloops, main thing is I should have kept a spare Android phone lying around while G4 is being replaced. I sold the wife's HTC One M8 about 9 months ago and that would have made a good backup. Verizon got the replacement phone delivered in a few days, and I hear folks that had to deal directly with LG had to wait a lot longer. I do not have a home or work phone and so depend 100% on mobile. So the few days of being without phone communications resulted in lost income due to losing contact with clients.
 
Having a spare phone around is a very good idea nowadays for anyone at any time and I don't specifically mean you have to carry your primary device as well as the spare one at all times, just having it available with a SIM card swap when needed is my point. At the moment I have two G4's actually, both 505 models (first production run and the ones that fail the most based on reports) and they work fine for the moment. I grabbed a G3 from someone on craigslist a few days ago, they'd mucked up the SIM card tray somehow so I just ripped out all the metal housing aspects, lifted the leaf contacts just a bit with a razor blade (to add some tension to them), put a T-Mobile SIM card in the proper position then slid a microSD card in on top (it's got one of those stacked microSD/SIM card trays) which forces the SIM card down onto the leaf connectors, voila, working G3 for $15.

And I'll always have my trusty BlackBerry Z10 just in case, I suspect that thing will still be working fine a decade from now. But having a spare around just in case, can't recommend that enough. Doesn't have to be a flagship device or high end, just something that does work, and the used phone market is loaded with stuff that works just fine as needed for often times pretty low costs.
 
Tiberian said:
Having a spare phone around is a very good idea nowadays for anyone at any time and I don't specifically mean you have to carry your primary device as well as the spare one at all times, just having it available with a SIM card swap when needed is my point.
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Yeah.. there's reasons I haven't sold or given away my old LG G2 and have been dragging it out and re-flashing it every once in a while to keep it up to date. (been getting hard to find roms given it's the sprint spec version)
Though that wouldn't be a sim swap but same diff. Keeping a backup around in case my Nexus 5x shits the bed. (whee! bootloops, same as the G4 and quite a few other phones from LG)
 
Well, the Sprint G2 is capable of being GSM unlocked, I've owned three of those models (because they tend to be available in the used smartphone community pretty cheap meaning the Sprint variant) and getting it GSM unlocked is not even a hassle at all really, especially since I've done it several times. It might not be an LTE speed demon on GSM networks but it does actually work as a phone which is pretty much the whole point, right? :D
 
My G3 has been going strong for years now no issues. Compared to the plastic Samsung s5 at the time i felt like i could crush in my hand there didn't seem to be anything else worth buying, however my sister got a droid turbo around the same time, pretty rugged. i think she still has it.
Happy with mine though, bought it outright 300 bucks so got my moneys worth. Will see if it lasts as long as my nokia which is still going strong 10 years now :D
 
I do tech support for one of the big carriers.. And in the past 2 years I am on smartphone number 14 right now. And not a single one was a replacement for defective hardware (I just like my toys). So here is my take on the major brands.

Samsung - Absolutely gorgeous hardware, but software sucks ass. I swear to fucking god they cant push an update without breaking something else.

HTC - Very few left around & overall fairly decent hardware, but about 2/3rd of the calls I get on them results in downloading something off the play store to replace the stock HTC crap.

Motorola - Unlike the previous 2 with crappy software the hardware is normally the issue here. Sub par screens & the micro usb ports are made out of tissue paper.

LG - Overall my first choice. Hands down I have had the best luck with LG. Yes they absolutely did make a Defective G4 & V10 (the reported bootloop cases I can find online of everything else is in no higher numbers then bootloop issues on devices from other manufacturers). The UI while not completely stock is fairly close & not too buggy. The stock messaging app is garbage on Nougat, but no stock messaging apps are actually really good from anyone. They have pushed innovation more then anyone else the last few years which I think accounts for some of the fit & finish issues. Samsung for example has been doing a metal ring with glass front & back for 3 generations as of the s8 and in that same time LG has had a plastic phone with a curved screen (curved into the user top to bottom, instead of away to the sides like Samsung) in the g4, then a metal phone that was covered in bondo & paint to make it look metal with the battery that drops out the bottom, Oh & it had "friends" in the g5, and now the g6 which is glass with a metal ring like Samsung has been doing. Not saying the design choices were smart or wise, but at least they were trying new stuff.

And yes I did have an LG G4, actually kept it longer then anything else in the past couple years & sold it to my boss when I got my g5. No boot loop issues for me & my boss ran it through the washing machine a week after he bought it from me.

Currently I am rocking the g6 (actually my 2nd g6 since I traded in to take advantage of the recent g6 bogo deal) and so far have no complaints with the device itself. I am running stock software & have only changed the messaging app to Textra. Otherwise its basically fresh out of the box.
 
bastage said:
I do tech support for one of the big carriers.. And in the past 2 years I am on smartphone number 14 right now. And not a single one was a replacement for defective hardware (I just like my toys). So here is my take on the major brands.

Samsung - Absolutely gorgeous hardware, but software sucks ass. I swear to fucking god they cant push an update without breaking something else.

HTC - Very few left around & overall fairly decent hardware, but about 2/3rd of the calls I get on them results in downloading something off the play store to replace the stock HTC crap.

Motorola - Unlike the previous 2 with crappy software the hardware is normally the issue here. Sub par screens & the micro usb ports are made out of tissue paper.

LG - Overall my first choice. Hands down I have had the best luck with LG. Yes they absolutely did make a Defective G4 & V10 (the reported bootloop cases I can find online of everything else is in no higher numbers then bootloop issues on devices from other manufacturers). The UI while not completely stock is fairly close & not too buggy. The stock messaging app is garbage on Nougat, but no stock messaging apps are actually really good from anyone. They have pushed innovation more then anyone else the last few years which I think accounts for some of the fit & finish issues. Samsung for example has been doing a metal ring with glass front & back for 3 generations as of the s8 and in that same time LG has had a plastic phone with a curved screen (curved into the user top to bottom, instead of away to the sides like Samsung) in the g4, then a metal phone that was covered in bondo & paint to make it look metal with the battery that drops out the bottom, Oh & it had "friends" in the g5, and now the g6 which is glass with a metal ring like Samsung has been doing. Not saying the design choices were smart or wise, but at least they were trying new stuff.

And yes I did have an LG G4, actually kept it longer then anything else in the past couple years & sold it to my boss when I got my g5. No boot loop issues for me & my boss ran it through the washing machine a week after he bought it from me.

Currently I am rocking the g6 (actually my 2nd g6 since I traded in to take advantage of the recent g6 bogo deal) and so far have no complaints with the device itself. I am running stock software & have only changed the messaging app to Textra. Otherwise its basically fresh out of the box.
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Which carrier are you using the LG G6 on?
 
I've seen just the opposite...a few friends with iPhones are waiting for their contracts to end so they can each go back to an Android phone due to stability issues (crashing/freezing/etc) with iOS.

I've been chugging along with my LG G3 D850 since it was released and I've had no major issues...just some random reboots every once in a blue moon, but that hasn't happened since I dumped a lot of crap apps that I wasn't using anymore and did a factory reset. Been almost a year since that last reset, and I've not had any operational issues.
 
My S7 edge is nearly flawless. With the 7.0 grace upgrade it's even better. It's not perfect and I see stutters here and there but nothing major. All apps work as expected. Buy the right hardware can make all the difference
 
I had to move away from LG phones. Every generation they suckered my wife and I in with amazing stats, and ever generation at least 1 of the 2 we bought had major issues. Boot looping, overheating, etc.

This time we went with a Pixel XL (me), and an iPhone 7+ (her). We have both been very happy.

In regards to the SD card issue, this is because SD cards aren't officially supported in Android OS and the manufacturers have to roll their own support if they want them in the phone. These manufacturers are good at phone tech, but they aren't OS companies nor storage companies (I guess with the exception of Samsung), so they almost always do it terribly.
 
Nearly every Android phone has a catch. Be it hardware or software. There is no ideal model anymore. Moto was supposed to be, but Lenovo wrecked that.

At this point I won't bother with anything that isn't straight-up Google. My Moto X Pure was supposed to be the best of both worlds, but I've only seen 2 security updates in 2 years and I'm still on Android 6.0. Evan Samsung is doing better than that. On top of it, my battery is going south quickly. I can kill off 20% of my battery with nothing but 15 minutes of web browsing now. Even 6 months ago that same activity used to only drain 5-7%.

I've dealt with 2 Samsungs and that was more than enough. Horrible apps that replace the defaults, multiple stores/logins, a clunky pulldown, and a launcher that seemed to get a little slower every month.

Supposedly the Pixel 2 will have some basic waterproofing, which is one of the only reasons I haven't bought the current model. Well, that and the oversized bezel. If they can give me a waterproof model with a larger display, I'm in.
 
Domingo said:
Nearly every Android phone has a catch. Be it hardware or software. There is no ideal model anymore. Moto was supposed to be, but Lenovo wrecked that.

At this point I won't bother with anything that isn't straight-up Google. My Moto X Pure was supposed to be the best of both worlds, but I've only seen 2 security updates in 2 years and I'm still on Android 6.0. Evan Samsung is doing better than that. On top of it, my battery is going south quickly. I can kill off 20% of my battery with nothing but 15 minutes of web browsing now. Even 6 months ago that same activity used to only drain 5-7%.

I've dealt with 2 Samsungs and that was more than enough. Horrible apps that replace the defaults, multiple stores/logins, a clunky pulldown, and a launcher that seemed to get a little slower every month.

Supposedly the Pixel 2 will have some basic waterproofing, which is one of the only reasons I haven't bought the current model. Well, that and the oversized bezel. If they can give me a waterproof model with a larger display, I'm in.
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I am loving my Pixel 1, and if Pixel 2 has those feature I will instantly be upgrading.
 
entropism said:
I mean...

https://mobilesupport.lenovo.com/us/en/solution/MS118009

http://pocketnow.com/2017/04/26/android-nougat-for-moto-x-pure-edition

https://forum.xda-developers.com/mo...to-x-pure-edition-official-android-7-t3596712
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Read the comments on those pages. Take a look at the poll at the top of the XDA page. Mysteriously nobody has it other than the beta people. Those release notes are from the beta as well. All of this is covered in the giant Lenovo thread (and again in the XDA thread you posted). There are betas - that's it.
 
From my research, there's no actual 7.0 update available at this precise moment for the Moto X Pure even in spite of Lenovo's posting of the release notes, etc. The soak test aka beta release was of course given out to just those that were selected to participate in it but you won't find a working download anywhere of the actual Nougat release for that phone at this moment which is damned odd considering. Which of course begs the all too familiar question I ask various entities:

Lenovo, what the fuck are you people doing? :D
 
Domingo said:
Nearly every Android phone has a catch. Be it hardware or software. There is no ideal model anymore. Moto was supposed to be, but Lenovo wrecked that.

At this point I won't bother with anything that isn't straight-up Google. My Moto X Pure was supposed to be the best of both worlds, but I've only seen 2 security updates in 2 years and I'm still on Android 6.0. Evan Samsung is doing better than that. On top of it, my battery is going south quickly. I can kill off 20% of my battery with nothing but 15 minutes of web browsing now. Even 6 months ago that same activity used to only drain 5-7%.

I've dealt with 2 Samsungs and that was more than enough. Horrible apps that replace the defaults, multiple stores/logins, a clunky pulldown, and a launcher that seemed to get a little slower every month.

Supposedly the Pixel 2 will have some basic waterproofing, which is one of the only reasons I haven't bought the current model. Well, that and the oversized bezel. If they can give me a waterproof model with a larger display, I'm in.
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Given what happened with Kyle in the past several days I would put the Pixel in the unfortunate list of unreliable Android devices.
https://hardforum.com/threads/googl...sted-as-stolen.1935294/page-5#post-1043020288
 
But again, that's not a problem with Android itself.
 
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