This is going to put a dent in RIM’s corporate reputation: a mobile phone warranty firm just released research showing the iPhone has half the failure rate of BlackBerry-branded phones.
Conducted over 12 months, the research covered 15,000 handsets included in SquareTrade’s insurance policies, revealing iPhones have a malfunction rate of 5.6% compared to 11.9% for BlackBerries.
Palm’s Treo range suffered even greater failures, with 16.2% breaking down in their first 12 months.
SquareTrade says the most frequent issues with iPhones related to their touchscreens, which accounted for a third of all problems with the handset. The “accidental damage” rate for iPhone is higher than rival handsets, however, at 12% compared to an average of 9% for all mobiles.
“It’s likely that any iPhone owner can guess the reason iPhone accidents are so common,” say the research’s authors.
“After two minutes of handling an iPhone, it’s impossible to escape noticing that the handsets are incredibly slippery. The form doesn’t help, either. The dimensions make for a difficult grip, especially for those with small hands.”
We’re not sure we agree with that. Having owned both the first iPhone and the iPhone 3G since their launch days, and never having dropped them once, we think it’s a bit of a stretch to say they’re “slippery”. Or maybe we just have gecko-hands.
