Smartphone Satisfaction Largely Driven By OS

A recent survey from IDC of more than 4,000 mobile phone and smartphone subscribers from five countries suggests that interest in emerging applications will drive future smartphone sales. The survey results show that interest in WiFi access and location-based services are highest in the U.S. and U.K., while storage capacity, music quality, and photo quality are the highest in Germany, India, and China.

"The mobile device today is increasingly becoming a multi-talented productivity and entertainment tool, and next-generation networks, services, and device technologies will only amplify that perception," said Randy Giusto, group vice president for IDC's Mobility, Computing and Consumer Markets research.

Besides a focus on applications, the multiclient study also observed that monthly average revenue per user (ARPU) rose everywhere except Germany as survey respondents switched from traditional mobile phones to smartphones. IDC concludes from study results that smartphone subscribers are also generally more satisfied with their devices than mobile phone subscribers, which leads to heavier use and greater spending, thereby impacting ARPU.

IDC also believes that customer experiences and satisfaction levels related to operating systems (OS) are emerging as a competitive differentiator and ARPU driver over mobile phones, especially as a wider segment of both business and consumer subscribers are adopting smartphones.

According to Cnet, Palm remains the No. 1 platform among U.S. and UK smart phone owners. Windows Mobile was No. 1 in Germany and China. Symbian followed a close second in both countries. Palm is not only the most favored operating system for smart phones in the U.S., it's also the most favored device brand. About 76 percent of Palm owners said they would be "very likely to recommend" their smart phone to others, compared to about 75 percent for Samsung, 69 percent for Sony Ericsson, 67 percent for RIM Blackberry, 54 percent for Motorola and 54 percent for Nokia, the study found.

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Mixing IDC and CNET is simply wrong

SeldomVisitor @ 11/29/2006 2:11:59 PM # Q
IDC does research that, though debatable, at least is genuine.

CNET, on the other hand, doesn't.

Shouldn't mix their two "reports" together like this, IMHO.

======

In other news - is it REALLY a surprise that early-adopter geeks (THE smartphone buyer set) are happiest with their devices and use them more?

RE: Mixing IDC and CNET is simply wrong
Ryan @ 11/29/2006 2:19:28 PM # Q
I don't have access to the actual report, while cnet did. The data from that shows the actual OS preferences that the IDC report talks about.
RE: Mixing IDC and CNET is simply wrong
joad @ 11/29/2006 2:20:04 PM # Q
It seems to be a surprise to PALM as they have worked as hard as they could to disenfranchise our needs and opinions - as though our satisfaction with a device was counter to the good of the entire Treo platform.

Those yokels chimped us with the Treo 650 NVFS RAM shortage - PALM first said we were lying - it had "exactly" as much as the Treo 600, then were forced within the week to admit the NVFS problem but declared anyone with an issue was a rare "power user" and the average user would have plenty of internal memory... 5 or 6 months later they released a patch that should have been obvious to anyone beta testing the device... Then next we hear they're off and running with Windows Mobile..

Now here we are a couple years later... and PALM has decided that the "massively powerful" runtime of an entire day with the battery (if we're frugal with it) is clamoring for a change - so they cut the capacity back from 1800 to 1200... So now you leave your phone at work to charge during lunch, as the slight weight difference is more important than an entire day's charge...

Maybe the early adopter geeks are just like people in a really terrible relationship - at first it seems like the good possibilities are endless - but once they have you they start to turn and do all sorts of weird stuff contrary to continuing the positive progression of the union...

RE: Mixing IDC and CNET is simply wrong
freakout @ 11/29/2006 6:15:28 PM # Q
Now here we are a couple years later... and PALM has decided that the "massively powerful" runtime of an entire day with the battery (if we're frugal with it) is clamoring for a change - so they cut the capacity back from 1800 to 1200... So now you leave your phone at work to charge during lunch, as the slight weight difference is more important than an entire day's charge...

Sheesh, they just can't win, can they? Out of curiosity, have you even used a 680 yet, joad, or are you just assuming you won't be able to get a day's use out of it?

(i don't mean that as combatively as it sounds....)

RE: Mixing IDC and CNET is simply wrong
SeldomVisitor @ 11/29/2006 6:40:37 PM # Q
> ...Out of curiosity, have you even used a 680 yet, joad,
> or are you just assuming you won't be able to get a day's
> use out of it?...

-- http://discussion.treocentral.com/showthread.php?t=129998

-- http://discussion.treocentral.com/showthread.php?t=129958

-- http://discussion.treocentral.com/showthread.php?t=129023

RE: Mixing IDC and CNET is simply wrong
freakout @ 11/29/2006 8:46:27 PM # Q
^^ There's some damning stuff in those threads, but if I went off other people's internet complaints about the Treo 650, I never would have bought one - I would have run screaming for the hills!

So, I tend to believe these people either:
1)Have unrealistic expectations of a battery with two-thirds the capacity of the 650/700;
2)Got bad batteries, chargers, or Treos;
3)Have nothing better to do than complain on the internet ZOMG THE 680 BATTERY IS ONLY ON 40% AT THE END OF DAY THAT'S SO PATHETIC LOLZ!!!!!1111

I could be completely wrong. Wouldn't be the first time. I'll have to wait till I get my own 680 and can run my own scientific tests...

Tim
I apologise for any and all emoticons that appear in my posts. You may shoot them on sight.
Treo 270 ---> Treo 650

RE: Battery life
just_little_me @ 11/29/2006 11:58:36 PM # Q
My company runs a push email solution and I get a day easily out of my new shiny 680. In fact I used it all day yesterday, left it on overnight and still had 37% battery this morning. Apart from the push email I made/received about a dozen calls - averaging a few minutes each... Based on that early experience I'm pretty happy with the compromise between size/weight and battery life. It's not as good as the venerable 650 - but I never expected it to be.


JLM.

RE: Mixing IDC and CNET is simply wrong
SeldomVisitor @ 11/30/2006 7:46:11 AM # Q
> There's some damning stuff in those threads, but if I went
> off other people's internet complaints about the Treo 650,
> I never would have bought one - I would have run screaming
> for the hills!...

My only reason for making that post was to show you, who had poopooed the other post with:

== "...Out of curiosity, have you even used a 680 yet, joad, or
== are you just assuming you won't be able to get a day's use out
== of it?..."

that there were indeed genuine TREO 680 owners with similar opinions.

RE: Mixing IDC and CNET is simply wrong
cervezas @ 11/30/2006 11:34:22 AM # Q
My experience has been the same as JLM's: about 2 days use on a charge if I let it go that long. For me personally the benefit of the slimmer, lighter handset minus the cost of the shorter battery life is about a wash, but judging by the ridiculous compromises on battery life so many folks are making to get thin phones (Samsung Blackjack, for example) I think Palm probably struck the right compromise with the 680.

I'm generally in the play-it-safe habit of charging nightly and carrying an extra battery with *any* phone I use (Nokia 6630, Samsung i500, Motorola RAZR, or Treo 650) so the shorter battery life of the 680 hasn't affected me at all. It's mostly a pyschological thing. I almost never get stuck with a dead phone but I still miss my old Sprint Digital Link because of the security of knowing it would run for a week on a charge!

Of course I don't leave by Bluetooth on and have Chatteremail polling away all day like some of the folks who are complaining in those TreoCentral threads. If you're someone who likes having all the phone's radios running all the time whether you are using it or not, and you can't or don't want to get in the habit of charging every night you are going to have to learn to live with chubby, heavy smartphones for the time being.

David Beers
Pikesoft Mobile Computing
www.pikesoft.com/blog

RE: Mixing IDC and CNET is simply wrong
joad @ 11/30/2006 2:26:11 PM # Q
>Out of curiosity, have you even used a 680 yet, joad, or are you just assuming you won't be able to get a day's use out of it?

Guilty as charged.

They already got my money for a 700p (and 650 and 600 and....) and I'm tied to a CDMA contract, so I can only base it on my typical experience with the Treo lineage. Typically I have 30-50% of charge by the time I drop it in the charger in the evening, I rarely use BT, no push email, occasional manual checks with Snappermail, remote desktop, some web browsing, and maybe an average of 50 minutes of voice per day.

Unless Palm somehow made an incredible leap in efficiency with the 680's workings (or changed the laws of physics) I'm surmising that a battery with 1/3rd less juice will likely result in less available runtime of the device. I'm not willing to spend the $$$ to buy a phone I don't need to test this theory out, but I'm willing to be proved wrong.

My main point was that Palm's decision to *shorten* the battery life rather than increase it does not whet my appetite to consider the device or that direction for the Treo. Killing battery capacity function in the name of a slimmer form-factor reeks of the same marketing stupidity that gave us the Treo 650 with about 40% less available internal memory of the 600 (before the firmware updates got it near 90% 5 months later). I heartily urge Palm to *improve* runtime - not decrease it (especially when they build the next CDMA models).

If you believe that radically decreased battery capacity in a smartphone is worth the millimeters of space saved, I'm interested in hearing the case for it.

RE: Mixing IDC and CNET is simply wrong
freakout @ 12/2/2006 6:22:29 AM # Q
If you believe that radically decreased battery capacity in a smartphone is worth the millimeters of space saved, I'm interested in hearing the case for it.

It's not just the thinner chassis; they had to stuff the antenna in there as well. And I suppose it depends on your definition of 'radically' - my 650 is normally on a 50-70% charge at the end of the day, so I'm personally not too concerned.

Even if I were worried, I doubt it will be long before higher-capacity third party batteries turn up, and as long as there aren't any safety issues with putting a 650/700 series battery in there some company may even release a new back cover that can fit those in. Then we could all be happy...

Tim
I apologise for any and all emoticons that appear in my posts. You may shoot them on sight.
Treo 270 ---> Treo 650

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Driven By OS?

Haber @ 11/29/2006 11:26:29 PM # Q
How do they figure out that smartphone customer satisfaction is based on the OS?

"The survey results show that interest in WiFi access and location-based services are highest in the U.S. and U.K., while storage capacity, music quality, and photo quality are the highest in Germany, India, and China."

Hrm, no, don't see anything about the OS there.

RE: Driven By OS?
freakout @ 11/29/2006 11:49:46 PM # Q
According to Cnet, Palm remains the No. 1 platform among U.S. and UK smart phone owners. Windows Mobile was No. 1 in Germany and China. Symbian followed a close second in both countries. Palm is not only the most favored operating system for smart phones in the U.S., it's also the most favored device brand. About 76 percent of Palm owners said they would be "very likely to recommend" their smart phone to others, compared to about 75 percent for Samsung, 69 percent for Sony Ericsson, 67 percent for RIM Blackberry, 54 percent for Motorola and 54 percent for Nokia, the study found.

Cnet got this information from the report mentioned.

Reply to this comment

900 dollars, american, 750?

matt_laughs @ 11/29/2006 10:52:22 PM # Q

you cant use any sdio products? (sdio.org) to work on a side mount card reader? that really sucks! they already have working digital tv tuners, but they werent designed for side mount card slots......whats the deal.....if its so they can only sell a palm branded tuner, like the wifi card, and windows support of sdio, ok. but there is nothing that leads me to believe that.


650, 680, 700w,wx,p, 750w, which should i get.....i am still waiting to see if the 680s are buggy or not.



thats what she said!

RE: 900 dollars, american, 750?
PadOPaper @ 11/30/2006 11:33:39 AM # Q
sdio.org has no info on sdio products, it's some domain squatter site covered in ads.

what difference does it make whether the SD slot is top or side mounted, how does this prevent you from inserting the card?

it seems to be lack of Palm OS drivers for these cards that is the issue, the company that makes the hardware add-on is the one that usually makes the driver.

RE: 900 dollars, american, 750?
joad @ 11/30/2006 2:43:17 PM # Q
...and judging from Palm's support of Wifi on the Treos (none) it's doubtful that the owners of "SprintTV" and other carriers will allow Palm to kill off their business models by making a TV tuner available to the masses. All our base belong to them.

Reply to this comment

Building a cell phone for the masses

Gekko @ 12/2/2006 5:12:03 AM # Q

Building a cell phone for the masses

High-end users love flashy gadgets, but most of the world just wants to make a call. That's why Motorola is reaching out to developing countries with a phone for under $50.

http://money.cnn.com/2006/12/01/technology/personaltech/plugged.in.motorola.fortune/index.htm?postversion=2006120117



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