Common sins of cellphones

Taiwanese premier cellphone news site PhoneDaily recently published a survey result of what users considered to be the common blindspots of cellphones today, interestingly most of them can be applied to all markets. The list is as follows.

1. alarm clock setting can only handle one at a time (Nokia)

2. irregularity in predictive text input systems, especially key arrangement in Chinese (Motorola vs Nokia for example)

3. SIM numbers alone cannot be used as Call ID (that is, when the phone memory is blank and all your contacts are on the SIM. Nokia Symbian phones)

4. different models from the same brand requires different PC-sync softwares (BenQ-Siemens especially)

5. slow UI response

6. small number of contact groups (Motorola Linux handsets only gives you 6 groups, whereas Nokia allows you to create unlimited number of groups)

7. unstable firmware

8. failure to recognize duplicated contacts (you’ll never know which ones have already been copied from you SIM, which ones are not)

9. lack of memory card hot-swap support. This has to do with the design, too, when the card slot is put under the battery for example.

10. soft ringtones

11. folder phones that catch your fingers in between when closing, lack of tactile feedback of keypad

12. low inter-connectivity of Bluetooth (data cannot always be sent between phones of different brands)

13. lack of central Confirm/OK button on the d-pad

14. battery capacity disproportional to need (e.g. Nokia N80, NEC L1)

15. inbound Bluetooth data cannot be saved directly on memory card (you might realize that your phone does not have enough memory when the file transfer is just finishing). Some SonyEricsson phones can do that.

16. lack of support for backgroud music playback

17. videos cannot always be fastforwarded on phones, forcing you to start the movie from the whole beginning every time

18. DRM limitation to mp3 ringtones

19. lack of native firmware (Simplified Chinese vs Traditional Chinese, American spelling vs British spelling)

— Sam Chan

Survey result part 2 [PhoneDaily]