Consumer Reports says smartphone performance is down to personal taste
A US consumer magazine’s rating of leading smartphones has perhaps predictably put the iPhone 3G S in top spot. But the surprising aspect of the rankings is just how close the performance of the various handsets was.
The rankings come in Consumer Reports, the magazine of Consumers Union, a group which tests products and lobbies on behalf of buyers. It rated phones on a 0-100 score, with the top ten models all ranking within seven points of one another:
- 73 points: iPhone 3GS
- 70 points: iPhone 3G, Samsung Omnia
- 69 points: BlackBerry Bold , BlackBerry Storm 9530, Samsung Epix, T-Mobile G1
- 67 points: BlackBerry Curve 8900, Palm Pre
- 66 points: LG Incite
According to the magazine, the results of the test show that although the phones are all very close overall, they clocked up their scores in different ways, meaning its particularly important to pick the phone that best suits your needs.
The magazine says the iPhone clinched top spot for features such as multimedia, web browsing and battery life. However, it tips the Blackberry range for those more interested in messaging and the Palm Pre for multitasking.
The testing methods changed slightly from previous years to reflect changes in the way people use phones. The magazine put less emphasis on talk time and voice quality this year because phone calls are becoming a less significant feature to many users. This change meant previous high scorers such as Blackberry’s Pearl Flip and Samsung’s BlackJack II dropped in the ranking.
Signal reception – for which the iPhone 3G has had some criticism — didn’t play a role in this year’s testing. The magazine says the increasing complexity of phones and the wider range of network types means it wasn’t able to come up with testing methods which reliably reflected real-world use.
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