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Consumer Reports: Worst Smartphones of 2009

It’s hard to choose a bad smartphone – but it’s not impossible. In most cases, you can’t tell if a smartphone’s laggy interface, buggy camera or short battery life is going to get under your skin until after you’ve owned it for a few weeks. Luckily, Consumer Reports has done us the service of sorting out some of the best and worst rated smartphones. (Note though, though that only the most popular phones that Consumer Reports tested were rated – so really, these smartphones are the worst of the best, which still makes them pretty decent.) Check it out:

Worst AT&T Smartphones

The bottom ranking AT&T smartphones were the Nokia Surge 6790 and the Garmin Nuvifone G60. Of course, when you’re up against the iPhone 3GS, the competition’s understandably stiff. The Surge got very good marks on battery life and messaging, but suffered a bit in the menu navigation and voice quality departments. The Nuvifone actually got excellent ratings for web browsing, but it got merely “good” marks for navigation, voice quality, phoning and messaging. The Nuvifone, however, is the only Linux phone on the list.

Alternatives to these choices would be the high ranking BlackBerry Bold and the Samsung Jack.

Worst Sprint/Nextel Smartphones

The BlackBerry Curve 8330 and the BlackBerry Pearl 8130 came in last place among Nextel/Sprint smartphones in spite of their popularity with other carriers (especially since the Curve 8330 touts 3G for the first time). However, these phones lack WiFi and have less than stellar call quality.

Sprint/Nextel smartphone favorites were the Hero from HTC (an Android phone similar to the HTC Droid Eris) and the Palm Pre, which runs the newfangled webOS.

Worst T-Mobile Smartphones

The T-Mobile Sidekick LX 3G didn’t fare very well when pitted against the T-Mobile G1, which has been the life of the party since last year, when it made big waves as the top Google phone. The BlackBerry Pearl 8120 also got low ratings, in spite of it being one of two BlackBerry Pearls to have WiFi. The Sidekick is also nothing to sneeze at, as it’s a quad-band phone.

However, if you want the absolute best BlackBerry from T-Mobile and don’t mind a little bit more bulkiness than the Pearl, go with the BlackBerry Curve 8900. The T-Mobile Dash 3G is also a smash hit that’s sure to please Windows Mobile fans.

Worst Verizon Smartphones

Unsurprisingly, the BlackBerry 8830 ranked low when compared to other Verizon BlackBerry smartphones. That’s because Verizon sports the super-cool BlackBerry Storm, with its never-before-seen clicking touch screen and 5-megapixel camera. However, many users who switched from the BlackBerry 8830 World Edition find themselves nostalgic for the 8830, saying that it was perfect except for the fact it had no camera.

The HTC Ozone, a Windows Mobile phone, was bested heavily by the HTC TouchPro2 (also available from T-Mobile), but we anticipate the HTC Droid Eris, Verizon’s slickest Android phone currently available, to take the cake when these phones are reviewed again.

We also want to make sure the Samsung Omnia II doesn’t get counted out (it’s too new to be included on Consumer Reports’ list), which sports the spiffy new Swype technology which has been known to waste the iPhone in sheer WPM.

Like we said, this is all just food for thought. We wouldn’t discourage you from picking up the BlackBerry 8830 or the Garmin Nuvifone if you’ve done all your homework and decided that it’s truly the best phone for you. But when it comes down to the opinions of Consumer Reports readers, these phones were somewhat middling. Take time to consider the alternatives and see which gets you the most for your money.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 15th, 2009 at 4:43 pm by Jack Busch and is filed under AT&T, Cell Phones, Sprint, Verizon Wireless, t-Mobile. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.