Posted by masseur
PC mag article
A nearly year-long study of 600,000 support calls has found that Android phones are more susceptible to hardware faults than other types of devices.
The study, conducted by WDS, found that 14 percent of all technical support calls for Android devices could be traced to a hardware fault, versus 3.7 percent for RIM BlackBerry, 8 percent for iPhones and 9 percent for Windows Phone 7 devices.
Posted by goldenface
Strange correlation really.
Doesn't really make sense to me. How can the software on the phone make a difference to whether you get dust under the screen or a scratched camera lens or loose battery cover etc
Posted by brian_s
Are you looking at this the wrong way? Does it mean instead that Android is better software than other OS? People only ring tech support if they are having problems. So if it is not a software issue, then it must be hardware. If the percentage of hardware issues is higher, the software issues must be lower. So its not bad hardware is the issue, its just good software!
Posted by mode
Could also be linked to manufacturer QA ie. highest selling android manufacturer may most likely be the biggest contributor to the percentage which, in this case, is either Samsung or HTC
Posted by xtacy
Not just the big names. You have so many vendors churning out Android phones. From Chinese phones to the big guns, they all produce android phones. Quality Assurance might not be as important at the lower end of the market where cheaper is better. I believe this is a strong possibility.
Posted by max_wedge
I'd have to agree.
Posted by carkitter
My Xperia X10i has been more reliable than any of the
feature phones I've had. 
It has better battery life than my K700i which scratched easily and looked tatty after 18 months.
It has better reception than my V800 which developed an issue with the ribbon cable connecting the internal aerial.
It has no modem faults like my V640i and no fastport issues like my W20i Zylo or my GF's C905 which also has a weak camera lens cover.
Posted by jplacson
Considering there are no quality standards in place for manufacturing Android phones, I think that's a pretty decent percentage.
Why don't they make a study on how many total defective non-smart phones there are in the whole world? Including China fakes? And title it "Non-smartphones have the highest defect rate vs smartphones"?
Posted by Tsepz_GP
Wish i could say my X10 was trouble free, but unfortunetly it is one of the early models which had the motherboard issue with USB port failure, other than that it has been a very reliable workhorse.
Posted by paulmcauley
I think much of that might be to do with the BGA solder ball problems on the original 1st generation Qualcomm Snapdragon SoCs which were in many Android phones.