Leading Mobile Phone Manufacturers Are Losing Their Touch, According To Analysis Of Genuine Customer Reviews

o Reevoo.com research shows that touchscreen manufacturers will have to listen to customer reviews if they want to compete with iPhone
o Half of the lowest rated phones are touchscreen models

Mobile phone manufacturers risk losing their customers as they race to incorporate touchscreen features into their phones in a bid to copy Apple’s success, according to feedback from shoppers collated by customer review website, www.reevoo.com.

More than 19,000 buyers of phones were asked by Reevoo.com to score and assess 226 phones against a range of criteria, including style and function. Reevoo.com’s analysis of feedback from customers shows that 5 out of ten phones in the bottom ten are touchscreen models [see top and bottom rated phones in the tables overleaf].

In contrast, only 2 of the top ten phones are touchscreen. The top-rated phone with a score of 8.8 out of ten is the Nokia 5220 XpressMusic. The phone features a conventional key pad. Apple’s iPhone is the highest scoring touchscreen phone with a score of 8.3 out of ten.

Jo Reale, mobile phone category manager from Reevoo.com said: “Manufacturers are keen to jump on the touchscreen bandwagon but most of the current efforts are just not pushing the right buttons for shoppers. We love the look of touchscreen phones, and the ability to watch videos on a large screen, but touchscreen phones are hard to get right and many shoppers are complaining that touchscreen interfaces are just too fiddly.”

Reviewers offered the following criticisms of current touchscreen phones:

“Touchscreen is a little hard to use if your fingers are not slender and pointy.”
“The ‘virtual’ keyboards are rubbish, takes ages to type anything…you could always employ a five year old with small fingers. They should have used a stylus.”

“Jerky software, not fluid. Crashes often.”
“If you have nails can be a bit tricky on the keypad as it is heat sensitive and so must be pressed with the finger tip as a nail will not make it work.”

“I found the touchscreen hard work and the physical ‘pressing’ was made more difficult by the fact that your finger, however slim or fat, tends to ’spread’ when you have to press.”

While manufacturers invest millions of pounds and R&D resources into faster mobile web browsers, and more intuitive software, the average consumer is still in the main just looking for a good looking phone.

The most important phone feature is its style, according to respondents, with 15.3% rating style highest. Next most favoured characteristics are being compact (14.1%), having a good camera (10.4%) and being good for music (7.7%). Lowest ranked criteria for customers are web browsing (1.5%) and email functionality (1.2%).

Jo Reale added: “If mobile phone manufacturers want to make an impact in the touchscreen arena, they need to listen to what consumers want and address the issues shoppers have with current touchscreen models.”

The top ten phones by customer score:

1. Nokia 5220 XpressMusic
2. Nokia E71
3. Sony Ericsson W595
4. Nokia 2680
5. Nokia 3110 Classic
6. Samsung M150
7. Apple iPhone 3G 16GB – touchscreen
8. LG KC910 Renoir – touchscreen
9. Nokia 6600 Slide
10. Nokia 3600

The bottom ten phones by customer score:

1. HTC Touch Diamond – touchscreen
2. Sony Ericsson T303
3. Samsung Armani – touchscreen
4. Sony Ericsson C702
5. Nokia 6124 Classic
6. BlackBerry Storm 9500 – touchscreen
7. Samsung i900 Omnia – touchscreen
8. Nokia N96
9. Samsung U600
10. Samsung F490 – touchscreen

¾ Ends ¾

Notes to editors / further review data:
Analysis based on data from the last 12 months.

About Reevoo.com
Reevoo.com harnesses the power of genuine customer opinion to help shoppers decide what to buy – and to buy with confidence. Independent and impartial, Reevoo.com collects hundreds of thousands of authentic post-purchase reviews from European shoppers every month.

All reviews, favourable and critical, are published on Reevoo’s website, www.reevoo.com, and on retail partner websites adjacent to the products.

In addition to reviews, Reevoo.com offers shoppers comprehensive product information and price comparison data to make finding and buying the right product as simple and convenient as possible.

More than sixty leading retail brands including Tesco Direct, Vodafone, Currys and Ann Summers already use the Reevoo.com service, sharing more than half a million reviews on more than 40,000 products.

Reevoo.com has offices in London and Paris, was founded in 2005 and is backed by Eden Ventures and Banexi Venture Partners.

Shoppers can find up-to-date news, tips and reviews on Reevoo’s blog www.decidewhattobuy.com.

Reviews for specific touchscreen models:

HTC Touch Diamond touchscreen
Positive – “This phone looks good, and has some clever features”
Negative – “It is very un-user friendly, the battery does not last long 36 hours at most, the screen lock is very ineffective, causing you to inadvertently divert or cancel calls. Typing text messages with predictive text is a nightmare, often putting the word in twice, does not appear to come with hand writing recognition and therefore when using the onscreen keypad, it takes nearly 3/4’s of screen so that you cannot see what you are typing. It is a very disappointing purchase, would not recommend.”

Positive – “Reviewer left no comment”
Negative – “It won’t let me call without adding a number as a contact, needs charging overnight, every night, WiFi is unreliable, synchronises all the time and messes up contacts, internet is poor – takes ages to load and doesn’t keep website layout, touchscreen buttons aren’t big enough for male fingers.”

Positive – “Very good software”
Negative – “The touchscreen is so sensitive my ear kept disconnecting me in phone calls.”

Positive – “Looks great, but that’s it!!”
Negative – “Horrible to use, hard to master, everything just takes more time, touch screen is a joke and it keeps stalling, some software problems I think, but even with them sorted, looks great but after recently going back to a ‘normal’ phone, I will never get another smart phone.”

Samsung Armani
Positive – “It looks good, decent battery life”
Negative – “Nightmare touchscreen, terrible camera, integration with memory card is terrible too”

Positive – “not much”
Negative – “the camera is rubbish the phone is awkward over sensitive”

Positive – “It is a beautiful phone, I adore it and it has lots of useful features BUT…”
Negative – “it’s annoying! the touchscreen gets confused, this leads to text messaging taking far too long so I’ll only text if i need to. Likewise for the other features…”

Samsung I900 Omnia
Positive – “Weight, look, touchscreen”
Negative – “Difficult to do simple things like text and make a call, quiet ringing, camera.”

Samsung F490
Positive – “Looks smart, good camera”
Negative – “Having to use side button to unlock keys all the time – during calls, to hang up etc. Trying to read text messages on front screen – touchscreen never seems to work.”

Positive – “Slim and Classy looking, packed with features”
Negative – “Fussy touch screen controls (particularly the automatic “touchscreen lock” during calls”)

Jo Reale
Reevoo
020 7654 0341
joreale {at} reevoo(.)com