Apple Completely Dominates J.D. Power's Smartphone Satisfaction Study

The more someone spends on a smartphone, the more likely they are to be happy with it -- that's the overall result of J.D. Power and Associates most recent survey of phone users. But there's an even easier way to guarantee satisfaction: just get an iPhone.

J.D. Power ranks smartphones in five areas: Performance, Ease of Operation, Smartphone Features, Physical Design, and Overall Satisfaction. Apple was the only company to score an "Among the best" rating in any category, and it actually received that mark in every single category.

HTC was in second place. It scored "Better than most" in Smartphone Features, Physical Design, and Overall Satisfaction.

Samsung and Motorola nearly tied for third place. Samsung received "About average" in all categories, and Motorola nearly did -- it scored lower in Physical Design.

RIM/BlackBerry ranked "About average" in Performance and Ease of Operation, but below that in all other categories. Nokia and LG didn't get a single ranking as high as "average".

More Is Better
The J.D. Power study found that overall satisfaction with smartphones was considerably higher for models that are equipped with the latest technology, such as high-quality touchscreens, faster processing speeds, and longer battery lives.

Consumers are happier with devices that depend on touchscreens than they are with ones that have only a keyboard. Models that offer both did only slightly better than non-touchscreen ones. Newer types of displays, such as Super AMOLED, add noticeably to overall satisfaction.

People in this study prefer smartphones that weigh less than 5 ounces and are thinner than 0.45 inches. They are happier with handsets that include 4G wireless technology.

Devices whose cameras have more megapixels did better, but satisfaction peaks around 5MP. Models with 8MP or more did not score significantly higher.

Smartphone users said the key factors in their overall satisfaction with their device  were performance (35%), ease of operation (24%), features (21%), and physical design (20%).

J.D. Power polled 6,898 smartphone owners to get these results. The survey was conducted between January and June 2011.