Even the Best Smartphones Come Up Short

Most workers have a love/hate relationship with their smartphones. On one hand, the devices let us check our email and field phone calls no matter where we are. Thats also the downside.

iphone But would that love/hate balance change if you had a different phone? Probably not, according to a new study by J.D. Power and Associates that evaluated different smartphones on their ease of operation, operating system, design, audio, battery, and overall features.

The study found that theres no such thing as the perfect business phone. The BlackBerry topped the study, but not by much. The device, which is made by Research In Motion, received an overall satisfaction score of 702 out of 1,000. That was barely ahead of Palm’s Treo smartphone and Samsungs phones, both of which received a 698. Motorola phones scored a 658. No other smartphone had a large enough sample size to be included in the study.

Why the bunched and somewhat pedestrian scores? All the phones do well in some areas and dont do well in others, Kirk Parsons, a director at J.D. Power, tells the Business Technology Blog. The biggest point of differentiation besides the size and physical design is in the operating system the phones use. Business people say that BlackBerrys excel at checking email, Palms phones are best for placing calls and checking voicemail, and that phones running Microsofts Windows Mobile operating systems have good sound quality.

But theres clearly room for improvement for all of them. Thats good news for Google, which plans on introducing its own operating system and software for phones soon. The study also found that people want their smartphones to do more: Around 40% want GPS capabilities on their device; 26% want Wi-Fi capabilities; 22% want a touch screen.

Because we know youre wondering, the study which was limited to business people didnt come across Apple’s much-loved iPhones. If we had it, it probably would have been ranked the highest, Parsons tells us.