>
New Topic
>
Reply<
Esato Forum Index
>
Sony Ericsson / Sony >
General
> SE ranks poorly in reliability/quality
Bookmark topic
Quote:
On 2005-09-01 07:11:34, mib1800 wrote:
Quote:
On 2005-09-01 05:19:11, Gigs wrote:
One SMALL teency sticking point..
Like I said before, it doesnt matter whether it is network or phone faults.
If you're going to call into question a manufacturers reliability then the above matters a great deal.
Lets say for arguments sake that everyone of the
respondants just happened to be an orange (it was orange wasn't it?) user with a K700i, the txting issue that was at fault within their network would have made an absolute joke of any statistical result.
After all, by that token CD/DVD burners would have horrible reputations.. Given that many are based on the cheapest shoddiest media people can find to use in them. It must however be the units fault, not the media used in it.
well, u have a good point. I'm dont know about the orange problem, but it wont change a thing because phones from other manufacturers in would also experience the same problem and this would even out this anamoly statistically. However, if you say the problem only happens with K700 then the fault lies with SE phones, isnt it.
ditto for your DVD analogy (i.e. other brands dvd player owner would also blame the dvd player).
Actually mib, he said the texting problem might have been NETWORK related, but that the respondents USED K700's. So that means the K700's would be fine on another network, hence not the phone's fault.
With 5000 respondents then many anomolies related the respondent demographics will even out, true. However there may only be 20 or 50 phone models, and 20 operators included in the survey, so it's quite possible that the results for the reporting of faults is not accurate with regard to handsets. Just because user A had problems with phone B on network C, doesn't mean that phone B is faulty. That's a long stretch, and as I've said I don't know of any statistician who would support such a conclusion.
The truth is this survey is designed to gauge general customer dissatisfaction, and is not designed to highlight specific manufacturers as being more reliable than another. The results for handsets used by respondents reporting faults would be like surveying road crashes and saying more crashes involved sedans, therefore sedans are more dangerous, when in fact there are simply more sedans on the road. Without knowing how many handsets from each manufacturer were the cause of the reported faults, how can you say that this or that manufacturer has more reliable handsets?
--
Posted: 2005-09-01 16:31:31
Edit :
Quote
Quote:
On 2005-09-01 10:10:12, mib1800 wrote:
@scotsboyuk
that was a long reply.
I like long replies ...
Quote:
You are really meticulous arent you?.
.
Well it's not is it?
Quote:
Do you think the people in Which? who did the survey (and analysed it) is SO STUPID to print something that is statistically undefendable??? I thought there is still libel law in UK. If only someone has the magazine!!.
I am quite sure they could defend it on all manner of fronts, but as I said we do not know! If they say that they composed their sample in a certain way then fine, we can then take the report's findings in that light. However, they haven't and probably won't. Giving us the details of how the survey was conducted would have been most helpful indeed.
Quote:
I thought this is about phone-users
feedback survey and not about QC/engineering survey (of which you need to go to factory production line to get). What if the survey just ask a simple question? "Did you buy a new phone in the previous 12 months. If yes, what brand is it and on which network and did you encounter any fault?".
Again we don't know, perhaps someone can enlighten us to what it was people were asked? The trouble is that in asking such a simplistic question with no further details one is inherently seeking a vague answer. That question itself has problems e.g. why handsets from the lasy 12 months, why not 6 months, or 18 months? This could affect the result. What is a 'new phone', a brand new model from the factory or a new phone for that particualr person even though the phone may be older? Why ask about network if one isn't going to offer any breakdown of faults?
Without some sort of differntiation of the results obtained it is a trend indicator.
Quote:
Any survey of this type would inherently contains the variability that you mentioned. There are thousands of such surveys/polls (from politician approval ratings to tv programme polls) happening everyday. All these may be meaningless to you but some way or others these surveys would have some effect on something.
This is just it though, they are meaningless as anything but trend indicators. Political polls indicate trends, they don't actually break down reults and present a detailed picture of the rationale behind people's choices. One can use such polls to note a possible trend, but fundamentally they do not provide one with any sort of meaningful adat, from which to bas eone's own decision on. An opinion poll is unlikely to affect someone's voting decision, they will be mor elikely to abse that decision on other factors. These sort of polls don't incorporate such fcators into a comprehensive model, which could be used to make an informed decision.
A political poll is aksing an opinion, that is it is aksing what someone thinks. This survey was allegedly asking afactual question i.e. has your handset had a fault? A political poll deliberatly seeks to encompass as wide a group of people as possible. This Which? survey should have attempted to incoporate a balanced mixture of samples representing the manufacturers since it aimed to differentiate its reults by brand. We don't know if they did though.
Hence we really don't know what the variability involved in this survey was. Was it reflective of the market? Was it just a random sample of people?
Quote:
The survey is saying nothing more than a trend. So I dont know why you want to question credibility. If you agree that the survey gave a trend indicator, then the survey data should be credible enough to derive this trend, nothing more and nothing less.
Look back over this thread, I have been saying it is nothing more than trend indicator some a while now. It is nice to see you agreeing with me.
The survey indicates a possible trend, but without knowing the criteria and methodology use done cannot even be sure of that. My point is that this survey is next to useless in making a buying decision because it give sno hard facts or analytical view of the data. At best it give sone an idea of a possible trend, which may or may not be true depending upon the survey was carried out.
This survey lacks credibility because it is supposed to help consumers looking to buy a mobile phone. In that respect it fails in my opinion.
Quote:
It seems to me you are trying to question the independence of the survey. I would agree with you on this
if and only if you can ascertain that readers of Which? are bias towards certain technology/brand/practice (i.e. something similar to SE-biased esato). Maybe you tell me since you r from UK, you should know better.
This is just the point, we don't know! There are so many occassions when one can say those words in relation to this survey.
The readers themselve sdon't have to be biased, the poll sample could have been or even the people conducting the poll.
Now I am sure that the good people at Which? may very well have taken steps to ensure objectivity, but once more I return to the phrase 'we don't know'.
What we have is a survey, which shows a posssible trend. I can take something from this survey, anmely that SE handsets have had more faults reported amongst a certain group of people than most other manufacturers. What I can't take from this survey is what the nature of those faults were; whether the results were skewed in any way; how the faults correspond between manufacturer and network or whether the sample itself was inherently flawed.
--
Posted: 2005-09-01 17:00:21
Edit :
Quote
@scotsboyuk:
i'll answer your last paragraph first. This I believe is the crux of the matter.
Quote:What I can't take from this survey is what the nature of those faults were; whether the results were skewed in any way; how the faults correspond between manufacturer and network or whether the sample itself was inherently flawed.
imo, i think what you are asking is non-existence because the good people at Which? would most probably not interested in this kind of survey in the first place. What you're seeking is only of interest to engineers and QC persons. I doubt the general public can comprehend such nitty-gritty details of whether fault is due firmware/hardware/network etc. Many don't even know what the heck is firmware.
Quote:My point is that this survey is next to useless in making a buying decision because it give sno hard facts or analytical view of the data. At best it give sone an idea of a possible trend, which may or may not be true depending upon the survey was carried out.
From my point above, this is precisely the kind of survey that would affect buying decision. Which? obviously structured their survey this way so that results can be understood by the general public.
On the matter whether survey is fair, I agree with you that only the people at Which? can shed light on this. All I can say is that if they can put it to print, they would have a reasonable confidence of defending it. However, I disagree with you that without knowing the survey parameters would dilute the usefulness or impact of the results.
I agree with you we should raise questions on the results presented by these type of survey. But my opinion is that we should only raise questions within the scope of the matter (i.e. not deviate too much from the central premise of the survey, otherwise there is no end to it).
Even if you know the survey results down to the categorisation of "faults" or "group of users", what you achieve is no more than just knowing. In the end, we still end up with the general indicative trend as was given.
--
Posted: 2005-09-01 19:10:46
Edit :
Quote
to the long winded debaters:
*will you be arguing every single minutiae of the survey had the results been reversed? SE reliable, and nokia unreliable?
my point is how much of this discussion spurred by blind devotion? surely you are not shocked that SE is labelled as unreliable/buggy. the fact of the matter is historically SE is unreliable and buggy compared to other brands.
IMO discussing the innacuracies of the survey is moot, because it has been published for everyone to see. the damage is done. whether the survey was properly conducted or not, it just quantifies the rep of SE for being unreliable. truthfully, did the results really surprise you?
i am a fan of SE, and will continue to be a fan because i like the SE vision and technology.
i find myself constantly making excuses to myself why i get so many dropped calls/ freezing/rebooting screens, subpar RF: "i just need a FW update"; while i look to my wife's nokia: rock solid from day1
bottomline: SE is unreliable
--
Posted: 2005-09-01 21:47:01
Edit :
Quote
Yet august some of us have no problems. My k700i, said to be a plague of death phone by some, performed flawlessly and still does.
Taking age into account and features also is something. For instance if you were talking to say 3310 and t100 users, you probably wouldn't find much at all wrong with them. But then there's hardly anything there to go wrong.
Sure some of its devotion but its also about taking results on a level playing field, as I stated if you're going to blanket
any manufacturer with being unreliable in product then you can't just take it on a survey that doesn't take into account differences between network and phone faults.
I think if anything it IS fair to say
is inconsistant.
@mib:
The fault was only inherent to 1 network, vodafone and other users had no issue at all so it was nothing to do with the phone. But if you were hit with this you'd blame the phone and thus the survey would label your phone as unreliable. Hardly right in any case
--
Posted: 2005-09-02 00:18:14
Edit :
Quote
@Gigs
Quote: Taking age into account and features also is something. For instance if you were talking to say 3310 and t100 users, you probably wouldn't find much at all wrong with them. But then there's hardly anything there to go wrong.
Your point is plausible but it is really moot. The survey asked people who bought phones in the last 12 months. I think the 2 models you mentioned have disappeared from the shelf eons ago.
Quote: Sure some of its devotion but its also about taking results on a level playing field, as I stated if you're going to blanket any manufacturer with being unreliable in product then you can't just take it on a survey that doesn't take into account differences between network and phone faults.
I thought I have illustrate to you on this issue with DVD/orange case. Here it is again. Other makes would also be subjected to same conditions (i.e. the other manufacturers would also get bad apples even if it is a network fault). So this will level the playing field. SE is not being singled out here. On the orange case, u did not say whether other makes also have the problem within the same network. If they dont then fault will be attributed to K700. If they are similarly affected, this statistical anamoly will even out for every make.
I think you should take "reliability/quality" in relative terms. From the survey, the results show SE as
less reliable than Nokia/Samsung. It is
not in anyway saying SE phones are unreliable in absolute term.
@august
I think many SE fans (you excluded of course
) here just can't take the fact that Nokia is more reliable than SE. It is general knowledge that Nokia is known for its reliability. Just that in esato, this statement is known as a myth.
--
Posted: 2005-09-02 04:17:51
Edit :
Quote
augustborn9917, I do take issue that SE are unreliable. I agree there are some issues related to premature firmware releases, external casing (particularly joystick operation), and issues of operator specific firmware being less reliable than unbranded firmware. These issue do impact on the customer perception and experience of SE phones.
I also agree Nokia handsets are generally more reliable.
But my point is that SE are not so much worse than Nokia that people need to jump up and down and claim that SE phones are unreliable. Nokia have their own firmware and hardware issues, just jump on the Nokia forums - people claiming left right and centre how they had to update the firmware or complaining about buttons not working properly. These types of problems are by no means exculsive to SE.
I've myself have never owned an unreliable SE phone. And okay so I had to flash the firmware (first time ever) with SEUS on my K750, but after doing so it is faultless. I would rather be able to flash it to fix such a problem than be stuck with a dodgy firmware and have no update path.
The K750 never crashes. My K700 crashed 2-3 times in 12 months. My T610 never crashed. All three handsets were ultra-reliable.
My advice to people with problems with their handsets, do an online update (for K750, to R1L if you don't absolutely need the better video quality, which is not that much better anyway) or return the phone for repair under warranty instead of jumping on the forums and telling everyone how bad they are. I don't have enough hairs on my head to count the number of people who come on here complaining but who won't do anything constuctive about it.
They should just get on with it.
What the Which survey proves, IF ANYTHING, is that phone manufacturers AS A GROUP, have high failure rates. Nokia had 10% of their handsets fail, which is pretty piss poor quality control, really in the scheme of things, not much better than SE's 20%. Imagine a factory that produced a 10% failure rate on DVD Players for example? Most electronics manufacturers consider anything greater than 1% to be an abysmal failure rate. Some work on .1% or lower.
This is what the Which survey has revealed; that there is a general and legitimate dissatisfaction amongst mobile phone users, who don't differentiate between handset or network faults. Another survey is now needed to flesh out the real causes of the faults that are leading to the dissatisfaction. Such a survey would provide real data to assist operators and manufacturers improve their products.
--
Posted: 2005-09-02 05:56:20
Edit :
Quote
@max_wedge
august: sorry for jumping in.
Quote:What the Which survey proves, IF ANYTHING, is that phone manufacturers AS A GROUP, have high failure rates. Nokia had 10% of their handsets fail, which is pretty piss poor quality control, really in the scheme of things, not much better than SE's 20%. Imagine a factory that produced a 10% failure rate on DVD Players for example? Most electronics manufacturers consider anything greater than 1% to be an abysmal failure rate. Some work on .1% or lower.
I think I have to correct you again. You are mixing up defect rate with reliability
. Defect rate is measured at production line (i.e. how many sets that were produced that cannot be sold because of manufacturing problems). A good manufacturer should be able to keep defect rate to within a couple of percent.
On the other hand,
reliability refers to how long-lasting/durable/robust these phones are during use. By default these phones are non-defective when came out of the factory. Any device will eventually fail. It is just a matter of time.
Your swipe at Nokia did nothing to change the fact that SE phones are still twice as likely to fail within the first year compare to phones produced by market leader Nokia. You should not belittle this gap. It is a huge gap. If you say Nokia reliability is bad, then SE's reliability would be totally unacceptable.
[ This Message was edited by: mib1800 on 2005-09-02 10:10 ]
--
Posted: 2005-09-02 11:03:28
Edit :
Quote
actually mib, quality control includes testing and projections of reliability throughout the warranty period (and longer usually) not just the number of failures coming off the production line.
And here you prove your inordinate love of nokia - I never dissed nokia, I just said they have problems also. The fact you interpret that as a "swipe" at nokia shows you can't accept anything bad to be said about your beloved nokia. Hence you prove yourself no more rational than the SE fans you come here to berate for their love of SE.
And don't tell me that SE are twice as unreliable as Nokia on the basis of that survey. I've already stated I don't accept that the reliability figures of the survey are valid, so why do you think that argument would wash with me? For all we know most of the faults reported were operator related and it may be that neither Nokia or SE are anywhere near 10%.
Both Nokia AND SE need a big kick up the arse if their handsets are that unreliable. 10% is MASSIVE, regardless of defect rate/reliability arguments. So since you accept the survey results, you are saying that you would accept Nokia producing handsets of which 1 in 10 are unreliable? Do you really think that would be acceptable?
If I agreed with you about the results then of course I would think that SE are even worse, but I don't agree with the survey results for handset reliability. I don't think either Nokia or SE are so bad that 1 in 10 or 2 in 10 handsets are unreliable. That just boggles the mind. If they are that bad they both should get out of the business.
My personal view is that most of the reported faults would be operator related, and that the end user perceives that as a handset problem in most cases. I think the survey points to the need for more co-ordination between manufacturers and operators, but I don't think it is very useful when it comes to determining reliability of handsets.
[ This Message was edited by: max_wedge on 2005-09-03 04:16 ]
--
Posted: 2005-09-03 04:56:18
Edit :
Quote
max_wedge:
Quote:fact you interpret that as a "swipe" at nokia shows you can't accept anything bad to be said about your beloved nokia
I can accept bad facts about Nokia but not in the way you trying to put it. The "swipe" refers to your attempt to try to portray Nokia as equally bad as SE in reliability based on an out of context "defect rate" figure analogy.
Sure, the overall reliability figure maybe is bad (I dont know). Currently this is what the industry is capable of right now. As time goes by this will improve. This and the relative reliability as shown in the survey is two different matters
Quote:And don't tell me that SE are twice as unreliable as Nokia on the basis of that survey
I am not telling you.
. The survey is.
Quote:I've already stated I don't accept that the reliability figures of the survey are valid, so why do you think that argument would wash with me?
Just remember you are arguing against the survey results put out by a third party that says SE phone are twice less reliable than Nokia/Samsung. I am mostly inert in this debate and just stating what is in the survey and pointing out the "weak side" of the many reasons put out here trying to show that SE has been unfairly treated.
Quote:I don't think either Nokia or SE are so bad that 1 in 10 or 2 in 10 handsets are unreliable. That just boggles the mind. If they are that bad they both should get out of the business.
This is call growing up pain. Some are better at growing up than others. Either this or you go back to your fixed line.
Quote:My personal view is that most of the reported faults would be operator related, and that the end user perceives that as a handset problem in most cases. I think the survey points to the need for more co-ordination between manufacturers and operators, but I don't think it is very useful when it comes to determining reliability of handsets.
The survey just show reliability from the phone user point of view and not from the handset point of view. It may not just be hardware. It may also include factors like ease of use, software stability, robustness (i.e. failure due to rough use), system integration with operator network etc.
[ This Message was edited by: mib1800 on 2005-09-03 09:20 ]
--
Posted: 2005-09-03 10:08:15
Edit :
Quote
New Topic
Reply
