Why are Android phones so unreliable?

[SultanGris]

In the past 6 years, I've owned 2 smartphones.

Motorola Atrix 4G
HTC One M8

The Atrix wore out 2 batteries, then finally it's screen digitizer died in year 3. There was no point in fixing it at that point so I upgraded. It was stable the entire time, but ate through batteries quickly needing a charge once a day. It got insanely hot when putting it under any processor load (game, video, etc.) but still never faultered.

The HTC One M8 has been the best phone I've ever owned. Subpar camera and software, but otherwise amazing. I also cannot replace the battery, but I've never needed to. It's design with the slim edges and curved back make it slicker than snot, but a case fixes that. I've disable most of the Sense UI stuff, but I keep the weather and clock widget. The Battery Saver Mode does very well in making the phone last 3 days on a charge with some minor usage of the internet and text messaging.

I've had ONE software bug with the HTC, that's it. The clock and weather widget rely on a data connection. If you set it to update constantly, it will chew through 500mb of data in a month BY ITSELF. You can tell it to update every few hours instead of constantly and it works better. However, if you have your phone auto connect to a WiFi hotspot, and that WiFi requires a secondary login through the browser (which you forget to do), the phone will insist on re-sending the data requests over and over again while failing to get a reply. The widget didn't seem to have any sort of time out programmed into it. This resulted in increased battery usage and the phone starting to get rather warm. This required me to spend some extra time remembering to log my phone into the company WiFi hotspot at the beginning of my shift or I would be dealing with a dead battery and a phone hot enough to scald within 3 hours.

This bug didn't manifest itself until year 2 after a software update and no amount of clearing cache or doing a factory reset would fix it. This bug somehow got fixed with an update 6 months ago (Android 6.0 I think?).


My Fiance has had 5 smartphones in 6 years, all Samsung.
1. Samsung Continuum
2. Samsung Continuum Refurb Warranty Replacement
3. Samsung Note 2
4. Samsung Note 2 Refurb Warranty Replacement
5. Samsung Note 3, Refurb Warranty Replacement
Notice a trend?

The Continuum was the biggest piece of shit ever. Unstable, had to be charged 3 times a day, and rebooted just as often. The secondary screen that worked like an RSS feed was probably the source of most of the problems. Both phones eventually stopped charging and the USB port became loose. I'm surprised the warranty replacement didn't catch fire, the battery was bulging when she upgraded to the Note 2. Replacing the USB cables did not fix the charging issue as the issue was the plug's on the phones.

The Note 2 was neat, but after a few updates it too began eating through batteries needing a charge twice a day. This also meant extra wear on the USB port. It too eventually stopped charging due to a worn out USB port, however it's battery tested fine. The Note 2 Warranty Replacement #1 had the same issues as the first Note 2. Asurion sent her the Note 3 because there was no longer stock of the Note 2. So far it has outlasted all of the other phones and she still has it. However, it still eats through batteries and has to be charged twice a day. To be fair though, she is on the phone constantly doing facebook, youtube, and games. The Note 3, like all the other phones before it, has also developed a loose USB port. Replacing the USB cables again did not fix the charging issue as the issue was the plug's on the phones. However, I switched cables to Magnetic charging cables to lessen the wear. Her phone often gets hot and locks up, so I opted not to upgrade it to wireless charging. Despite all her issues, she has fallen in love with the Stylus and massive screen on the Note series. As an artist, she loves having it as her mobile sketchpad.

Conversing with all of my co-workers who have Samsungs, they have all experienced the same issues. Software updates causing phones to chew through batteries thus needing charge more than once a day and USB ports wearing out. One co-worker's S6 and her warranty replacement decided to stop fast charging altogether, no matter what she did...cable replacement, charger replacement, wireless charger replacement, clearing cache, factory reset, etc. The only co-worker I've had that did not experience these issues was also the only one that rooted his phone, installed Cyanogen (until they stopped updating it), and used the samsung wireless charger.

worn out usb port? Bet you 100$ its just full of pocket lint. I thought i had a bad usb port once so i ordered a new one, they cost like $5, but it turned out it was full of pocket lint, used a small paper clip to dig it out and good as new! Been using the phone for 3-4 years and had to dig it out a couple times, still original usb port.

Note 3 is good phone, i have one on verzion and i still use it sometimes, it still works great. Though i have missed a few OTA updates with it, pretty sure i blocked them. In my experience OTA updates do you no favors no matter what phone you have. Ive had not problems with my samsung notes that werent caused by updates, since ive started blocking them, no more problems!

 

[Glyphic]

Had a S3. Was a piece of crap, had a retarded issue where GPS would stop working when the screws came loose. Had to constantly tighten the screws under the battery cover to avoid getting stranded when I used to drive around a lot. Had an s4, nothing special. Then moved to a note 5. I've had mine for about 2 years and now it's shitting bricks. My wife on the other hand has had her note 5 replaced FOUR TIMES. The very first day she bought it, it fucking bricked as soon as we turned it on. I'm so done with Samung phones. I'm considering an LG G6 or an IPhone at this point.

 

[CaptNumbNutz]

worn out usb port? Bet you 100$ its just full of pocket lint. I thought i had a bad usb port once so i ordered a new one, they cost like $5, but it turned out it was full of pocket lint, used a small paper clip to dig it out and good as new! Been using the phone for 3-4 years and had to dig it out a couple times, still original usb port.

It wasn't pocket lint. I tried using needles and a magnifying glass on them to clean them out. They were legitimately loose and you could wiggle a brand new cord side to side.

 

[Deleted member 245375]

On a brighter note picked up LG G6 unlocked version (model us997) about a month ago and it has been perfect so far. Fingers crossed. Up until that point my experience as shown in this thread was poor. It was possibly just bad luck. Wife had several HTC phones before switching to ios and her experience was much better.

Congrats, now go to LG's website and register the damned product PRONTO to lock in that 2 year now-extended warranty they're offering just in case something does go wrong. If you did already, good job, congrats again, but if you didn't, SHAME ON YOU, you don't deserve such a fine piece of tech.

 

[Vermillion]

Congrats, now go to LG's website and register the damned product PRONTO to lock in that 2 year now-extended warranty they're offering just in case something does go wrong. If you did already, good job, congrats again, but if you didn't, SHAME ON YOU, you don't deserve such a fine piece of tech.

Registered my G6 the day they announced the 2 year warranty. Absolutely love the G6. I have been lucky has I had V10, G5, V20 and now G6 and I have had zero issues with all of them (then again with T-Mobile and the original JUMP I swap every 6 months lol).

The G6 though is a phone I may just hang onto for awhile. It's that damn good. But who knows. Something better always comes along.

 

[biggles]

Yes, registered at LG website for 24 month warranty the day it was announced. G6 owners need to be aware of the fact that in order to receive the extended warranty they MUST register. If not they only get 12 month warranty.

 

[rudy]

Sometimes the grass always seems greener on the other side of the fence. I have alot of family members I deal with and I experience ALOT of phones. IME there are a couple odd phones that are pretty bad but the error rates and problems on most of them are fairly similar. I actually find more correlation with the user being the problem. Some people just jack phones and computers up constantly and somehow manage to make the impossible go wrong. When something is not working well for you try something else, it doesn't matter what it is, just anything else. Maybe its an iPhone maybe its a windows phone or maybe its a different brand. You basically have a thing for LG products and then you blame the problems on Android, but looking closely at your problems they seem to be largely hardware. Which is all in LGs camp. I suspect you have something against Samsung. But one thing Samsung and Apple have over all the other guys is they sell millions more phones every quarter, and because of this if anyone is going to make hardware or software they are going to try to make it work with those 2 phone makers. It just means on average you get more bug testing worked out. It's the same reason I buy windows just way more software, hardware and support on all fronts for it.

I have been using Samsung phones pretty heavily ever since they started building the most capable devices with the most features hardware wise which is since HTC had its falling out and made that awful 4G LTE phone with the sealed up battery ironically. I haven't had problems that stop me from using the devices for mission crticial. Yes hardware breaks it happens but IME at no higher rate than any other phone maker. As for Samsung's battery fiasco it happened, they owned up to it and ate billions in costs to get those phones back. Now lets put that in perspective, best I can figure far under 500 phones actually over heated millions of notes were sold chances are you are more likely to die in your car today then get an overheating note 7. And chances are a lot of other hardware problems happened with those same phones at much higher rates that had to be returned. So IMO you should give Samsung a shot. I know, they do sealed batteries and have made poor decisions to exclude microSD and these glass backs on the phones are a cracking nightmare. But on the other hand no one makes a more capable device than the note series.

Alternatively there is HTC, they made some great interfaces, I still think their dialers back in the day were the hands down best of anyone, and you can still go to the play store and see that millions of people want widgets to imitate HTCs flip clock weather widget.

Also I think its a pretty big overstatement to say that iPhone just work. I have seen lots of people have lots of problems. Had a friend at work and his wifi just quit working after an apple update he took it in to an apple store and they wouldn't do anything because he didn't have apple care, but it was their update that killed his wifi. I have many other examples. All these phones are made in China at similar factories they all break, they all have software problems or just plain inability to do something which is what I find happens more often on iPhones. Sorry you just CANT do that. Which maybe you don't care about.

TL;DR grass is greener on the other side of the fence, branch out there use some different phones and you will probably find they all have their problems.

 

[lcpiper]

I don't think this is really an Android problem. I think it's more about the Manufacturer and even the Provider and their implementation of Android.

That being said, all my smart phones have been Android devices and although I wouldn't say I was biased, I would have to agree that my experience is limited because I have never owned the competitors, MS or Apple.

Still, I can say that my old Motorola Droid Turbo has been a tank of a phone. My only real complaints with it was a little slow and the camera was slow, the photos often are not focused well.

 

[Deleted member 245375]

Still, I can say that my old Motorola Droid Turbo has been a tank of a phone. My only real complaints with it was a little slow and the camera was slow, the photos often are not focused well.

If you think the Droid Turbo is a tank, get a Droid Turbo 2 then throw it at a brick wall... multiple times... and pick it up, then use it to smash the Droid Turbo you have to a pile of small pieces, then smile and go back to doing whatever you were doing on the Droid Turbo 2 as it survives all that with barely a mark on it.

I REALLY miss the Droid Turbo 2 I had, and the brick wall thing, I did that a few times to show it off for people that just didn't believe how damned incredibly tough those devices are, even naked with no case at all. Yes I did buy it used for a good price, but after seeing all the videos on YouTube of people doing nearly everything they could to kill a DT2 when I finally got one I had to do it myself and I have no regrets, it never failed, got a few nicks in the metal frame, some very light scratching on the display surface (because it has a very tough clear plastic coating that is replaceable, it is NOT a glass display, it's a multi-layered composite POLED hence it being effectively shatterproof).

Dammit, now I'm wanting another DT2, shit.

 

[lcpiper]

The Turbo was tough enough for me, I got the blue Kevlar back and yea, I always carried it naked it's so tough.

Now how's the camera, same slowness and poor focus or did they make real improvements to the camera on the DT2 ?

 

[Deleted member 245375]

I never had any issues with the DT2 when I owned it, not one, but then again I don't focus on things (pun very much intended) like how long it takes to snap a pic, but the actual quality of the images did seem to be better when I took some sample shots in well lit areas for comparison. I'm not a pro photographer by any stretch of the title but I'd take a shot with the DT and then the DT2 in the same situation with the same auto settings/defaults and the DT2 quality seemed to be better to me than the DT, just my own personal opinion on that. Sharpness was better or again it seemed to be when I would zoom in (on my laptop's display) and then look for particular aspects of the images, the DT2 had a slight edge (again, pun very much intended) in sharpness and clarity.

They're both fantastic devices, but I always wanted to get the Moto X Force which was the world version of the DT2 and had a bootloader you could unlock for custom ROM/etc duties. Because it was never sold in the US getting it imported from somewhere else was just too costly to bother with so that kinda disappointed me. Thank you, American cellular carriers, you greedy fucking scumbucket bastards, for ruining any real fun some of us could have if we could just customize OUR devices as we'd like.

I swear, those fucking carriers, geez.

 

[biggles]

Actually Rudy I am neutral on LG. Options are limited when it comes to Verizon. Also neutral on Motorola.

Favorite Android brands are HTC and OnePlus. For HTC I have been concerned the company would collapse given its sales failures. Had I known the HTC U11 would be that great probably would have gotten that instead. And of course OnePlus is not fully compatible with Verizon.

There is an exciting world of MVNO's out there and there is a good chance I will switch to a GSM carrier in the future. There are so many cool phones out there I want to try but can't (ZTE, Huawei, OnePlus, Alcatel, etc).

The one company I hate is Samsung, mostly because of Touchwiz and the way it slows down phones.

 

[rec0d3]

All of my Androids have worked really well in the past. However, my iPhone has worked better. I recently just went from the iPhone 7 Plus to Google Pixel XL, and I could not be happier.