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We always like to talk about the best Android phones and the greener side of the grass, but there’s no secret that there’s been a few stinkers over the years. While the amount of disappointing Android devices have significantly declined within the past couple of years, there are still one or two coming out each year that make us scratch our heads and let out a huge WTF.
With that, we thought it’d be fun to think about what the worst Android phones have been so far. My colleagues and I have had a fun time putting this list together and talking about what awarded each device’s spot in this list. Before we get started, there are just a couple of disclaimers to note:
- This list will look to focus on well-known phones or phones from well-known companies. It’d be far too easy to include all the terrible Chinese knock-offs we’ve had to endure over the years.
- By nature, this is a heavily subjective and opinionated topic. You will disagree with a few selections. That’s fine — we’d love to hear what you think is or isn’t one of the worst phones of all time!
So with that said, it’s time to jump into the thick of things. Get your nostalgia cap on, because this will almost certainly take us down the bumpy ol’ memory lane.
10 – HTC EVO 3D
Being someone who purchased this phone, I know first-hand just how miserable of an experience it was to own the HTC EVO 3D. It wouldn’t have been so bad if not for all the promises that were made about how this phone was going to cure cancer and change everything. I’m obviously talking about the “revolutionary” 3D camera HTC put on the back of this thing.
Believe you me — they made it sound like a huge deal, and it definitely felt like one. Upon walking out of the Sprint store the day it launched, I felt like I’d just walked out with the gods’ gift to the world. For two weeks, I’d shown my phone off to everyone — even those who didn’t care — and talked about how awesome it was.
Not one, but TWO cameras? What?! It didn’t get any better than that. I played 3D Spider-Man and watched the Green Lantern in 3D. I took video and pictures in 3D that no one could enjoy unless they had a 3D monitor or an autostereoscopic 3D device like my own. Starting to feel alone, the novelty of 3D wore off and this phone’s real worth started shining through.
Battery life was abysmal. Even with minimal screen-on time (I’m talking 30-60 minutes here) I rarely made it to 8 hours. The dual-core Snapdragon chipset in it seemed to be bogged down over time by a (then) very non-optimized version of Android and HTC Sense.
The wonderful build quality was overshadowed by the fact that the paint and metal on this thing chipped so easily that your phone was almost unidentifiable after just a few days’ use. Indeed, I’d grown to hate my HTC EVO 3D, and had no problem passing it down to my brother once the Epic 4G Touch launched just a few months later. At the end of the day, the HTC EVO 3D was one of the worst phones that ever launched, and that’s probably why we have yet to see a follow-up (unless you’re counting the scraps Sprint sent down to their underling Virgin Mobile).
9 – Samsung Continuum
I remember it like it was yesterday. Verizon sent out press invites teasing this great new phone by Samsung. The Android community quickly began trying to dissect the invite, wondering what the stock market-esque artwork meant. Could it be a new Samsung smartphone with “stock” Android?! Oh boy! The excitement was enough to tip the pot, but the day came and… the Samsung Continuum is what we got.
It’s not that the phone performed poorly, it’s just that it was pointless. And ugly. And stupid. Its claim to fame was a small “ticker” (hence the stock market stuff) on the bottom that could show key information without having to turn on the device’s decidedly small main display. From stock quotes (OK, we get it) to your latest email, and from whether updates to Twitter and Facebook updates, this little AMOLED strip was supposed to be fun. And it was supposed to help battery life, too.
The problem is that Samsung never gave a damn about it. It could have been a very exciting thing for developers to tap into, but Samsung never opened the APIs to anyone. The amount of apps you could use with the ticker display never increased.
And most of the info the display served up was so condense that you’d rather view it on the big screen anyway. Couple that with the fact that the mechanism for activating the display was so shoddy that it was useless, and you have a recipe for disaster. Needless to say, I was extremely happy to ship this phone right back to Verizon upon completing my review.
8 – Motorola DROID Bionic
What can I say about the DROID Bionic that hasn’t already been said? This phone tanked. It went through at least two or three redesigns, was delayed for months, and treated like an ugly red-headed stepchild by Verizon. And that’s just before the device launched. When the Motorola DROID Bionic finally launched, it was immediately apparent why it took Verizon and Motorola so long to get it to market — it was riddled with so many bugs that not even the most patient person in the world could deal with it.
The Bionic’s list of problems was so long that you had to wonder what, exactly, their engineers were doing in the several months that passed since its announcement. It felt like a prototype that was never quite supposed to make it out to the public, yet here it was, boxed up, on sale and advertised as one of Verizon’s biggest phones.
The problems were so numerous that I won’t even list them here — it’d probably add another 500 words to this already lengthy article. Verizon and Motorola addressed a lot in the months following its release, but all the OTA updates and tender, loving care in the world can’t wash the horrible taste it left out of our mouths. Never forget.
7 – HTC Thunderbolt
Anyone feel like we’re picking on Verizon a little bit too much here? It’s by accident, I assure you. With that, I present to you Big Red’s first ever 4G LTE smartphone — the HTC Thunderbolt. This was an exciting phone to behold when it first launched. Truth be told, the phone wasn’t super innovative or revolutionary as a whole, but the spotlight put on it for being the first phone to kick-off the 4G LTE craze certainly made it seem that way.
Verizon was bold to take the first step in changing up the high-speed data game, but it’s a shame HTC gave them a stinker of a device to do that with. The HTC Thunderbolt was a fine phone, but there was one unforgivable, undeniably damning trait that unfortunately earned the device a spot on this list — you could barely use the thing.
Battery life was so miserable that you’d be better off just grabbing a dumbphone and leaving the Thunderbolt on the charger at home. I’ve had friends who couldn’t get much more than three hours on a single charge, and that’s with moderate usage patterns. The situation was so bad that an HTC rep had to come out and apologize for it.
I have to cut HTC and Verizon some slack here — LTE was new, and it was a necessary stumble to take so that we wouldn’t have to deal with those pains today. Unfortunately, our worst phones list is unforgiving, and it won’t overlook 3 hours of battery life due to mere growing pains.
6 -Motorola CLIQ
Those without a deep knowledge of Android’s history might not have been around for the abomination that was the Motorola CLIQ. It was Motorola’s first Android phone, which is funny considering one of the best (or, perhaps, most important) phones in Android’s history — the Motorola DROID — was introduced by Motorola and Verizon just days later.
The Moto CLIQ was small, awkwardly built, and, quite frankly, ugly. And that’s just the bad news on the hardware side of things. It was our first taste of MotoBLUR, which has gained notoriety for being one of the worst custom overlays Android has ever seen. It was slow, buggy, and did nothing to properly represent the spirit of Android. My eyes and brain are bleeding out just thinking about it. Let’s be thankful Motorola came to their senses and started making phones with respectable software again.
5 – Motorola Backflip (and/or Motorola Flipout)
Simply put, Motorola was out of their flippin’ minds when they thought these phones up. Motorola’s grand idea for their 2010 stretch of affordable phones was to implement these gimmicky ways to access the devices’ keyboards. For the Backflip, the keyboard actually existed on the “back” of the phone… get it? And you “flipped” it to the front so you could type. Yeah.
And the Flipout was no better. In fact, it was even worse. Here it was, a little puck whose tiny keyboard was tucked beneath a tiny screen. The only way to access that keyboard was to “flip” the phone sideways. Honestly, I probably wouldn’t have cared less if the phone accidentally “flipped” right out of my hands.
These phones were interesting — I’ll give them that much — but in the end they were cumbersome, ugly gimmicks to cover up the fact that the phones weren’t any good (with much of that having to do with MotoBLUR, which we already had the displeasure of mentioning in this article).
4 – LG DoublePlay
OK, OK. Truth be told, it does seem like I’m picking on companies for thinking outside the box. That isn’t the case at all. Think, and think some more! But think twice before turning some of these concepts into reality. I had to take a DoubleTake when LG first showed us the DoublePlay.
The idea was noble, and the second-screen experience was far more useful than that of the aforementioned Samsung Continuum’s. Still, the whole thing felt forced, and splitting the physical QWERTY keyboard into two to make room for what was little more than a glorified secondary apps tray didn’t make for the most intuitive typing experience in the world.
3 – Garmin-Asus Garminfone
As good as ASUS has been to us in the tablet side of things over the years, their track record with phones hasn’t been quite as inspiring. Their own-branded phones have been decent at best, but it’s the phones they made in conjunction with others that have us doing an about face and running the other way.
There were several elements of ASUS and Garmin’s Garminfone that earned it the number 2 spot on our list. For starters, the phone was ugly, and looked like a failed cross between a personal media player and a GPS unit. That’s the least of it. Diving deeper, ASUS and Garmin tried to create a navigation experience that the world just didn’t need.
They completely gimped Android, with no traditional home-screen to place widgets, shortcuts and folders. The OS was so heavily customized that you might not recognize it if you weren’t paying close attention. It’s not just that they customized it beyond recognition, though — we’ve seen others do this and had no qualms. Rather, we’re more upset about the fact that nothing they did made any sense or made the device useful in any way, shape or form.
Sure, you had an offline maps experience powered by the seasoned- navigational leaders at Garmin, but Google Maps was just starting to get really good at this point. Before long, this phone had become completely obsolete, and was one of several failed attempts made by Garmin and ASUS before the former thankfully decided to give it a rest. With how good Google Maps has become and with how much a standalone app can do in this day and age, let’s hope we never have to endure something like the Garminfone again.
2 – Kyocera Echo
Truth be told, Kyocera has never made a really great Android phone. We’d hoped things would change when Sprint unveiled the Kyocera Echo, but that turned out to be one of the biggest faceplants we’ve ever seen in the history of smartphone announcements.
Sprint hyped the announcement of this phone up as something “magical” and “exciting,” and we all waited patiently for the event that was finally going to bring us this mystical phone. That day arrived, and suddenly Sprint’s pre-game hype made more sense. It was “magical” in the sense that someone thought this silly phone would entice someone to actually buy it. It was “exciting” to read the reactions of smartphone enthusiasts everywhere on Twitter. Not even David Blaine could get us into this phone.
This dual-screen monster was an absolute brick of a device. We’d still been searching for a phone that could provide even just a halfway-decent second-screen experience at that point, and while we commend Kyocera for giving it a try they probably would have been better off crumbling up the blueprints for this one.
For starters, the over-exaggerated bezel on this thing ruined any shot at making this device appear to have one “big” display. The idea was that the two 3.5-inch screens could be combined to form a nice, big 4.7-inch display. They called this “tablet mode,” and used the allure of being able to view photos and videos on a wider canvas to try and make sales. Needless to say, the execution of this idea was ruined by bad engineering.
Other use cases included using one display as a keyboard while viewing an app in the second display, as well as using one display to show your email inbox while using the second display to show individual emails. This was an interesting use of dual displays, but ultimately proved to be little more than a gimmicky novelty. One could also simply “close” the device and use the Echo as a single display phone, but — again — shoddy engineering meant you were holding something akin to a brick.
Buggy software, putrid battery life and uninspiring internals rounded out the list of negatives that made the Kyocera Echo one of the worst Android phones of all time. Think about everything you shouldn’t do when constructing a smartphone, and Kyocera did all of that in the Echo.
1 – Samsung Galaxy Note 7
Unlike most of the Android phones on this list, the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 was one of the few that launched to critical acclaim. The very pinnacle of mobile engineering, the Note 7 was one of the few phones that could toe-to-toe with Apple’s iPhone 7 Plus and (at least on paper) mop the floor with it. The Galaxy Note 7 featured a premium water resistance body, big battery, wireless charging, beautiful curved display, and a fancy little stylus you could use to jot down notes directly onto the device. Oh — and the phone would occasionally catch fire for no apparent reason. Fun.
Now, we’ve all seen “exploding” smartphones in the past. No device in the world is free from defects like this, especially when you’re pushing this kind of volume. But when it came to the Galaxy Note 7 — which was gearing up to be one of the most popular smartphones on the planet — it was a risk Samsung just couldn’t take. This resulted in a worldwide recall of the Note 7 shortly after it was released, with Samsung offering to either refund or exchange the phone for newer “safe” model.
Let’s be clear: this initial recall isn’t even why the phone is one of the worst Android devices of all time. That part was actually forgivable, with many users opting to exchange their unit for a “safe” version of the same model. It’s because of what happened after that the Note 7 has earned the top spot on our list.
It wasn’t until replacement devices — those that Samsung deemed “safe” — also began catching fire, that we knew this wasn’t something the Note 7 would be coming back from. Retailers and carriers began pulling the phone from store shelves and at the time of writing, there still hasn’t been an official second recall, but Samsung has confirmed that they’ve officially stopped production of the Note 7 for good.
With such a monumental blunder on their hands, the entire fate of Samsung’s Galaxy Note line now lies in jeopardy. We still don’t know if we’ll see a Samsung Galaxy Note 8 next year or a complete re-branding of the line, but it’s shame considering the Note’s time honored tradition of being the very best Samsung had to offer (even more so than their Galaxy S flagships). When it’s all said and done, analysts believe the failed Note 7 launch/recall could cost Samsung as much as $17 billion.
Farewell, Galaxy Note 7. You’ll be missed.
Runner-ups
With hundreds, and maybe even thousands of Android phones being made over the past 5 years, it was extremely hard to choose just ten devices. We felt the need to highlight a bit more, so here are some of the ones that didn’t make the cut (not in any particular order):
- LG G2x — first phone with Tegra 2, but boy was it buggy.
- HTC ChaCha, HTC Status and HTC First — we’ve all wanted a Facebook phone once. Then we grew up.
- Samsung Behold II — Samsung’s pre-Galaxy S Android phone had an awful “cube” UI and hideous physical button setup.
Debate Time!
And now it’s time for my favorite part — the part where all of you chime in with your own opinions in regards to the worst Android phones of all time. Fun, fun, fun! Do you agree? Disagree? Have your own list of worst phones? We want to hear all of it. Let’s congregate in the comments section to talk about this, and remember to keep it clean – there’s nothing that says you can’t respect everyone’s opinion even if it differs from your own. Have at it.
There’s nothing wrong with the HTC EVO 3D. I had this phone and loved it, the Hawuei Ascend should be on that list.
I also owned the EVO 3D and loved it. Only problem is screen wasn’t as good as the Sensations, camera is probably one of the worst of any smartphone, and battery life was ridiculous.
Loved the build quality though :P
I had the EVO back then and the EVO 3D was announced together with the GS2… after wondering for months I decided for the GS2 instead of the EVO 3D and after that HTC was history for me. Long Live SAMSUNG! :)
I have to agree with Chris here.
I am an Evo 3D owner and I am not surprised to see it on this list. Great build quality but there are so many complaints. Poor battery life, poor camera quality, and the fact that Sprint launched the phone (WiMax) and 3 months later announced a switch to LTE.
The Evo3D was a missed opportunity on many levels and received poor support from HTC as well. This was my first Android phone and I am surprised it didn’t scare me away from the OS.
Bottom line, to say Sprint & HTC over-promised and under-delivered would be putting it gently. They marketed the Evo3D as a flagship phone and also as the next Evo4G… Then they (both) left the Evo3D to die when it didn’t sell as well as they planned.
I loved my Evo3d too. It still beats the GNex in battery life and performance.
Mine always made it a full day but it also wasn’t stock at all. The BQ was meh, it felt nice but I’ve seen about 4 of them with the frame around the screen lifting off and the black coating wearing down to a polished aluminum.
Screen might have been worse than the Sensation but it did have more ram.
Still using my Evo3D to this day. Running CM10.1 and I have no trouble with anything. Battery is great and the camera is more than able. I consistently get great pictures.
I don’t know if it’s just my coworker or the build quality. His evo 3d had the front trim popping up after only a couple months of use.
Epic list
shouldn’t the TBolt be higher on the list?
Samsung Transform, worst android phone ever.
Very disappointed that the LG G2x didn’t make this list.
It had its problems, but I would/did take it over any of these other phones. Would be still using it if I hadn’t gotten my GNex; can’t go back to GB from JB.
I feel ya! Worst phone I’ve ever owned. Looked good on paper, but boy was it a pos
Good list!
The Thunderbolt almost singlehandedly gave LTE a TERRIBLE reputation. Everyone I know who had one had to turn off LTE just to make it through the day. Epic failure.
The Garminfone was the first Android phone I’ve owned. I would have liked it more if I could have upgraded past Android 2.1.
What about the LG Optimus S and the HTC wildfire or even the Motorola Droid 4 all horrible and buggy
HTC was an upcoming brand where I lived, but then came wildfire, which completely ruined their brand to this day. I think America was lucky enough not to get it, which is why it most likely isn’t on the list, God it was horrible :-/
My HTC path was G1, G2, ONE S, ONE. You should try the ONE, it will renew your faith in the brand. Ive only owned HTC phones, never let me down, but then again i get high end flagship phones.
Same here the only phone I did own on this list is the Droid 4 and it was for two days… The one is OK I’ll say that but I mean htc really hasn’t been good till then I mean my Inc 2 was good
Yea no it barely met the requirements to become an Android phone… No ram and sense was such a bog on it
I have the Droid 4, and since it was updated to 4.1 and some of the bloatware removed, it turned into a decent phone
I have no idea how the Thunderbolt isn’t #1.
Other notables: The LG G2x, Moto Cliq 2 (maybe even worse than the first one), Droid X2, and many others
When I saw the Nexus One pictured, I was extremely close to unleashing an endless stream of vitriol and profanity in your general direction, sir.
Alas, it was not on the list and those that made the cut, I completely agree with.
The Nexus One was one of the best Android phones. It may have not been a great seller, but it set the bar for future Android phones. In some ways, isn’t that what the Nexus program was all about?
Nexus One is definitely one of the top phones in my opinion. I used it for almost 2 years and then my wife used it for another year and half after that. Until project butter was a reality it was the device I compared all others to.
because of the nexus one my expectations have always been really high. a lot of times they werent met but the dev community has always been amazing
Behold FTW!!!
As far as I understand, this wasn’t even running Android. I know the second one was, but not the first.
HTC thunderbolt…worst ever.
I loved the thunderbolt battery aside in my opinion it was a great phone. It had the greatest built in stand.
The stand was the only decent thing about that phone. I replaced it with a Bionic and the Bionic was a great phone, despite all the critics who didn’t even touch the phone.
It was also the only CDMA phone with simultaneous voice and data on 3G!
Once the first big update dropped it WAS a great phone. The major bugs were worked out and it worked fine. The battery life sucked but it was nowhere near what people make it out to be. 3 hours? Maybe if you watched You Tube for 3 hours straight on LTE. I usually got 6-8 depending on usage. Which does suck but is a far cry from 3 hours. It was made into a wonderful phone once I flashe the BAMF ROM and battery life only got better. I think most of the people who speak the worst of it returned it/ got rid of it within the first month. It was the very first LTE phone. Early adoption comes at a price and I don’t think it was nearly as high as it could have been.
How did you forget the Motorola Devour? Not only was it one of the worst phones ever released, but Verizon paid for a super bowl commercial with Megan Fox to launch it!
I think with a name like Devour, it would also be a contender for the list of worst phone names.
I recommended the Thunderbolt to a few friends. I still feel bad about that.
I’m thankful to this day that my buddy who was considering the HTC Thunderbolt went with the iPhone instead. At least now there is still hope to get him to Android one of these days.
I am guilty for endorsing the Bionic at one point. Can’t take that one back.
My friend got the Thunderbolt as his first smart phone and actually really liked it. He just recently switched to an SIII and likes it even more. I had a Bionic and passed it to my brother when the Gnex came out and neither of us had any real complaints. The radios weren’t great when I got it but that was fixed pretty quickly. My brother is still using it.
You’re not alone. I did the same.
We’re not friends anymore.
I really wanted the asus garmin phone to be awesome. The problem with gps on phones today is its not a true gps. I dont get why nobody has done this yet. For awhile you could shell out some ungodly amount of money for the Tom Tom app which was gave u maps that worked with gps without data connection but it wasnt nearly as nice as a 75 dollar garmin gps. Still have to carry garmin in the car, even though the best smart phone on the market is in my pocket. Sad?
For me it was the Galaxy Mini … My first android phone. I traded for an iPhone 3G and never looked back.It was slow and buggy even after the 2.3 upgrade. I’ve had problem with the headphone jack, wifi antena and even the clock was running behind. I’ve changed this phone twice using the insurance
I’ve owned a few android phones and my worst experience was the samsung captivate which was in the original galaxy s line of phones. Between the i/o lag and black screens, and the bad gps chip debacle, it was terrible. I’ve ownly owned mainly flagship phones so I can’t speak much to the lower end devices. I’ve owned the droid incredible, samsung captivate, moto atrix, droid razr, galaxy nexus, and nexus 4
haha just posted about the captivate and saw this – agreed 100%!
I disagree, My Samsung Captivate phone – $500 – has a Gorilla Glass screen and I had different experience completely. I still have it today and will never switch, its is not only the best Android phone I ever used, it is the best phone I ever used period.
Interesting…
indeed
I knew the Motorola CLIQ would be there. It sucked hard.
Yea it did, I ALMOST bought it, but held out long enough to get the Nexus One instead. Thank god for that decision.
I went from the G1 to it because it was new and shiny…. Terrible, terrible decision.
you shoulda went G1 to G2
Too far away, probably.
Lol A+ for the Kyocera Echo at #1. I played with it in the store and it was a mess. If the list could be longer I would throw the LG G2x up there, but this list is pretty solid.
Came for the Bionic and the Thunderbust. Leaving pleased.
The Bionic saved me from the Thunderbust, though, so I guess I should be thankful. And by the time the Bionic finally dropped, I’d long since given up on it.
Thanks, Bionic, for saving me from two crap phones!
My impressions and shortlist:
-Moto Cliq: Not a bad phone at all. For us on TMobile, this is all we had. It was very primitive for its time, but did great (once it had a custom rom). All of us Cliq owners were secretly jealous of the Droid. Oh yea, GPS never worked. We never got Google Maps or Navigation OFFICIALLY since we never even got Android 2.1. WE WERE STUCK ON 1.6 DONUT FOR YEARS!!!! WE WANT ECLAIR!
-TMobile HTC G2: This was Tmobiles 2nd QWERTY phone and an answer to the Moto Cliq, oh yea…this is the one with a lazy hinge design that would flop around unless held face-up. Gravity won that round
-Original Samsung Galaxy S: Shipped with faulty GPS chips that Sammy tried for MONTHS to fix. It took custom ROMS and other software garbage to get a partially funtional GPS. Still took upwards of 60-seconds to lock no.
-Original Samsung Galaxy S Part Duex: TMo decided to release the 3G version….leaking a LOT to be desired. Guess what? You can get the new Galaxy S 4G from Tmobile only a few months after you got the 3G. In yo’ face consumer!
-Motorola Droid 2 Star Wars edition: OOOH, nerds just creamed themselves. But for no good reason as it wasnt anything spectacular minus a cool cover, wall papers, ring tones and a different boot screen. Cool extras by todays standards, but not impressive.
HTC EVO 3D: Yay….everything we need/want is being force fed to us in 3D. Ill get this phone and future proof myself. That’ll show um….oh %$&*….we’re not into 3D anymore?
Despite the hinge problem that faced some of the G2’s, it was an outstanding phone so I wouldn’t place it on this list.
This is why its a fun debate. The hinge always bugged me
There was no hinge problem. period. It was never spring loaded, it was a simple hinge. So, if you hold it at a certain angle, it would flip open. I owned the phone for 2 years, never had a problem, i understood how the hinge worked. Tired of this silly argument.
First off it wasnt a “problem”. Second, all G2s had the same hinge, it was an assumption made by people that dont know anything that it was spring loaded like the G1. It was not.
I owned it for about a year and never had a problem with it myself. Loved the phone, everything about it was great for the time.
I know, i wish they would have made a G3.
The G2 was NEVER an answer to the moto cliq. The G1 and G2 qwerty were inspiration for every other qwerty phone at the time. Motorolla wasnt even in the same class at that time, and still no where close now.
G2 was the fourth keyboard phone. G1, cliq, Mytouch slide, then G2.
You are correct. My fault. I was on a typing frenzy this morning. It was corrected above
Figured the HTC Cha Cha would have made the list.
Where is the dreaded LG optimus VU? That thing was vile and ran like crap lol
Where is the LG vu?
That was bad but I guess these were worse rofl.
The HTC Status, and the HTC First should be on that list somewhere too. And though it never saw a US release, the Motorola Motoroi.
For me, it was the Samsung Captivate (or other SGS1 variants) – my first Android phone after using the first iPhone all the way to the iPhone 4. Everything on that phone needed a “fix.” From lag problems to GPS problems, that phone was a nightmare. The main draw for Android, at that time, was Google Maps with Navigation. I was pretty mad when I found out that the GPS was pretty much impossible to use on the Captivate.
LUCKILY, I didn’t lose faith and have remained on Android since then. Love my HTC One!
Not to completely defend bad phones, but the Cliq was as much T-Mobile’s fault as Motorola. It’s the phone T-Mobile WANTED Motorola to build. The Backflip and Flipout–those were just bad ideas, plain and simple.
You guys actually hit it pretty well. I agree with everything you said.
My experience with the Bionic has been pleasant. I got the phone for free during the leap year sale, and went nearly two weeks without upgrading it from .893 I think it was? Yet I didn’t notice any bugs…not 1. Didn’t even notice any issues with the lapdock…it sucked before they switched to the tablet interface but no bugs.
Seems like alot of those bugs revolved around some Verizon service, and looking at the list on Droidlife a bunch of them are listed as “No resolution required, working as designed and approved by Verizon Wireless.”
…So much for being bugs, that’s a carrier issue.
Also part of the reason the Bionic took so long to release, was because Moto went ahead and designed their own LTE modem from scratch. Why this didn’t get more coverage is beyond me. After TI basically abandoned the mobile chip market I doubt they got their money’s worth though…
Ive had NO problems with my Bionic to this day.
Same here almost.
I will say that typing no matter what keyboard I use tends to lag a little bit, but that hasn’t really affected me at all.
I am still using the Bionic and have been very happy with it. I keep waiting for it to die so I can upgrade, but it is still good enough that I can’t justify the purchase. (Although my wife shouldn’t be surprised if it “accidentally” falls in the pool soon…)
I’m guessing no one who has commented so far has owned the HUAWEI ASCEND.
THX to CM7 port, it was only then a usable phone. Stock, w/that awful 3×3 layout & BLOATWARE UI, belongs on a list of worst phones of all time,regardless of O/S.
I owned the motorola backflip and honestly I liked the build quality and volume of the phone, and even the concept of the phone. It was the software that sucked horribly. That thing had so many bugs and lagged beyond explanation, but I was able to video chat with the 5 mega pixel camera it had when the screen was flipped which was kinda kool, all in all if the phone didnt lag so much it wouldn’t be on this list in my eyes
My wife had the Garmin Phone; actually as a GPS I thought it was great and whatever the authors thoughts significantly better then Google navigation at that moment in time (not now of course). speaker was loud (so you could hear the turn by turn clearly and was also great for hands free operation without requiring an in car bluetooth or second headset, The dashboeard mount allowed for easy mount and dismount. Yes the skin was kind of rubbish but only because It tried to be a GPS first and smart phone second; if that was its intentions then I think it succeeded. My wife and myself have had numerous sucky phones over the years but for a while at least this was not one of them or maybe I am remembering with rose colored glasses
Yes, the Behold II. A phone so bad I nearly abandoned Android from the beginning. Thankfully, I replaced it within two months with the Nexus One and haven’t been disappointed with Nexus or Android ever since.
The Behold II still has me gun-shy on Samsung, and I only played with it in stores.
the Galaxy S3 is a rather awesome phone. im still very pleased with it and that’s after having an HTC Eris and a Moto Droid X. i think Samsung stepped up a lot on the droid market with that. *so much so apple tried to sue them out of existence for a while lol
Oh, I have friends who are very happy with their S2s and S3s. Even a few Note users singing praises. But it shows how long a bad impression can last that “all else being equal”, I went with the One over the S4 in (very) small part because of the Behold II.
Wow guy what terrible decision. How’s that battery life? Horrible I know, its what HTC’s are known for.
Just fine.
Around 70% left when I leave work, car dock on drive home, 90% when I get home, 70% when I go to bed. No worries.
Thunderbolt wasn’t that bad. Yes the battery was terrible; but slap the extended battery in it and it very easily lasted all day. I loved that phone despite its hugeness with the extended battery. Having 4G Lte in those days was amazing.. no network congestion meant absurd speeds. Things have slowed a lot since then in my area.
I had one too and held onto it for a while. Once you go LTE, there’s no turning back and at that time they were still releasing 3G phones. Unlike others here, I didn’t have any problems with it. The battery life was bad but being an early adopter to 4G has it’s price as the CPU’s weren’t efficient enough to handle the 4G speeds. I remember the days of close to 40Mbs speeds which is now barely cracking 15MBs on a good day.
Shocked Kevin didn’t contribute to this… :)
Half of the T-Bolt’s problems were because Verizon rushed it out on a beta network… LTE was not even remotely close to ready for mainstream usage yet! And I’m not talking speeds – but rather the ability to maintain LTE, switch back and forth, etc. Plus the network authentication issues that plagued so many LTE phones back then…
Why is the LG MyTouch Q not on this list?
My first Android phone: Samsung Behold II. I’m glad to see it on this list. It seems like every other phone was getting updates, except this one.
This is exactly how I feel about my note 2 right now. Nooooo update………
Not surprised to see the Thunderbolt in this list.
While I agree the Evo 3d wasnt that great of a phone but it was decent and I never had the issues you listed. I would easily get a full day out of it only charged it at night. My painted metal never chipped, I didn’t even have a case. Even near the end of its life the thing ran fairly smooth plus people were still impressed with the 3d effect.
The thing that made it not so great was the phone would heat up considerably when playing games. Over heated to the point that eventually it melted the glue on the red aluminum around the camera which came off. The camera was horrible quality unless you took pics outside in the day time. Very small amount of internal memory.
I was actually able to get my college class & professor intrigued when I pulled out the Evo 3D. Professor was talking his iPhone and I put mine up and pointed out the 3D effect & they were simply awestruck at the time.
I learned a lession with the G2X, investigate and play with the phone before buying into the hype. That thing would overheat, crash, and was just terrible to use. It had potential, but the G2x just sucked. This (and several other phones) caused me to leave T-mobile for Verizon because at the time Verizon had better phone quality and service than T-mobile
I noticed your key words there “at the time”. Right now T-mo is awesome. Cant blame the carrier for a phone overheating or sucking in general.
no, but I was tired of the inventory they had with phone, especially Android. That and Verizon has better service coverage since I travel a lot more. I was with T-mo for 6 years, and was loyal to them for the longest, trust me when I say that wasn’t a easy decision to make.
And just to let you know, I left the Cliq 2 (that should be on this list) to go to G2x….that was disappointing.
I always stuck with HTC. Went thru both G series phones (not the G2x though, that was no G series phone) then to the ONE S and now on the ONE. No problems at all.
Yeah HTC was a top tier android phone for T-mo when they first release them.
I adopted Android VERY early on.
G1- was actually “okay”
Nexus 1- it was a POS, guys I owned 3 of them and my gf owned one too. I understand the loyalty, being the first Nexus device, the 1st to get updates- this thing sucked battery life, lagged like a fat cheerleader, spontaneous resets… Endless, I gave HTC 3 tries to send me a halfway decent one (to no avail). Sadly, it was a huge disappointment. The hype that surrounded this thing and it’s failure to deliver- this one should have made the list.
The Nexus S- was actually pretty awesome. I thought it was beautiful and worked like a charm.
HTC Thunderbolt (I switched to Verizon)- this phone was ALMOST the straw that broke the camels back… What a piece of garbage.
Samsung Galaxy Nexus- this phone saved Android for me. I will NEVER go back to a non-nexus device, it is still my daily driver and is the only phone to outlast my subsidized plan.
(My girlfriend’s 1st smartphone)- HTC Rezound- this is basically a Thunderbolt 2, if my girlfriend weren’t so frugal she would have gone to an IPhone by now, sadly I am the one who convinced her to get it. For this HTC, I will NEVER own another HTC phone, ever! You are crappy and I hope your business goes Tata’s up!
I had similar issues with the Nexus One. HTC didn’t figure the problem out. I did. The problem was a bad SD card. I put in a different SD card and it worked like a charm.
Whole-hearted agreement with Nexus S, it was the first time a device had managed to mostly keep pace with my input and usage speeds. And it just got better with the updates. I’m on a Note 2 now, but still end up using the NS daily for random things as I do a tablet. Also, to date I strongly believe the Nexus S is the prettiest Android phone ever made. Obviously by today’s thickness standards this would knock some points off, but otherwise it is lovely. The oled screen goes nil so when in using a black background it just looks like the whole front is pure screen with only widgets or text lit up (and only those widgets/texts displayed are using screen battery power since the most all if it is literally off.) An argument could be made that the Galaxy Nexus would also qualify, but they ruined it with the grey bumpy back. The NS is black all around and very clean. The Note series could almost get it close, but they keep going grey bezel and are so stubborn about that physical button.
“worst” is a matter of opinion and preference. Some people might have put the Nexus 4 up there, or the ONE up there, or the GS4. The MOTO X will be on next years list of WORST, i guarantee.
Thank god I never owned any of these. Flagship guy here. The worst smart phone I ever owned was my first, the HTC touch pro. It was a windows based brick. 2 weeks later the touch pro 2 came out and flopped as well. Glad I went to the droid. Never looked back!
I knew the list would include the CLIQ.
I couldn’t even read the article fully , cos the phones are that irritating :D
God bless the author of this article. :)
I knew that you’re going to mention that Kyocera Echo! It’s simply the worst phone ever!made!
No Dell Aero?
I was somewhat happy with my Evo 3D, but like you Quentyn, I dropped it very fast when the E4GT was released.
Oh I hated the DROID Bionic with such a passion!
I like mine, still using it. Like a tank, not a scratch on it, never had a case. I am completely sold on Motorola’s build quality. (Orig Droid, Droid X, Bionic, looking at the Maxx…)
Agreed. My Moto hardware has been extremely durable.
unless i missed it… the HTC Eris was just aweful. slow and prolly the worst battery life you could get…
Prequel to my Thunderbolt, and it was worse.
Agreed. It improved somewhat with rooting and overclocking. Cyanogenmod ran pretty well on it. It was my coworkers phone, and we rooted it to bring resale value to it.
I’m surprised the Bionic made the list and the Eris did not.
Great article… Glad the HTC Hero didn’t make that list, I loved that little phone
The Hero was a very good phone. It’s biggest problem was that it launched just a little ahead of the original Droid. It suffered in comparison.
can we add the samsung moment to that list? or i guess any samsung android phone before the sII. they all sucked.
I had the SGS Captivate and once i put AOKP on it it was a great little phone. Even got passed down to the kids once the SGS2 came out. :-)
I had the captivate as well. I flashed a bunch of roms that claimed to be able to fix the lag and/or gps chip. They were all hit or miss and while the ROMS definitely made the phone better, the issues with the captivate were definitely hardware related and the ROMS were a bandaid when that phone needed stitches.
ZTE Racer. 3″ resistive screen requiring a hammer to make work. Makes everything on this list look like an HTC One
T Mobile Comet…. nuff said….
OG Samsung Omnia. This was my first smart phone, and it was dreadful. Windows mobile sucked. I used it for about 3 days before I realized that smartphones were not quite ready for what I wanted/needed them for. Returned it back to VZW and bought my last “dumb phone” instead. Droid X was my first real smart device. Loved that phone.
I’m actually shocked the Droid Eris didn’t make the list. It was my first android phone lol. I used it for a grand total of 23 days before I eventually gave up on it and swapped it out for the Moto Droid. The main thing about the Eris that annoyed me was the battery life. Holy hell, was it horrible. It was a pain to use too.
Other android phones that were either crappy or just annoyed the hell out of me:
Droid X2: The Droid X was awesome. By far one of the best phones of 2010, along with the the Evo 4g, Droid Incredible, and iPhone 4. But the X2? Good lord Motorola. And the fact that the phone never made it past gingerbread is just pathetic.
G2X: Nuff said
Galaxy Nexus (LTE VZW version) I know some are gonna be like “The GNex? WTF bro?” Now look, I had this phone. I loved it but also it annoyed the hell out of me. I remember getting this phone back in December 2011 and I instantly fell in love with ICS. It looked good and was so smooth. But between the screen burn-in, horrible battery life, LTE randomly going out, crappy camera, the phone randomly going off and not coming back on, lack of “direct from Google” updates, yeah… Ended up getting this phone swapped out for the GS3 aka the best phone of 2012 IMO. And that was only after I had the Nexus replaced about 4 or 5 times. Verizon should’ve just got the GS2 and called it a day. Worst Nexus device ever IMO.
Motorola Devour: LOL LOL LOL
Droid Charge: I give it points for its unique design and display but that’s about it. It was just so buggy and the battery life was horrible.
LG Optimus Vu: I hated the design of this phone.
Sony Xperia Play: It had potential but that’s about it.
Motorola Flipout: Ugh seriously Motorola?
Moto Photon- Released with major issues. Six months after release it was EOL’d. Still remains one of the few Tegra2 devices to have never received a major update. Lapdock accessory didn’t even reach carriers til shortly before EOL. Webtop was a severely limited version of Ubuntu for Android and never received a major update.
As much as I would love to contribute my humble opinion, I am sadly unable to do so. Unfortunately, I was an Apple fanboy up to two years ago and even then, I didn’t do my research when it came to Android. :( I’m a new man now. *glory shines and a choir sings aaaaaaaaaa!* Can you ever forgive me? I must say that I agree with your opinion on the Kyocera Echo and HTC Evo 3D… *throws up in mouth*
It probably wasn’t the worst phone in the world but my first smartphone was an HTC Hero. Great at the time but it aged horribly. Got so laggy and unresponsive that within a years time I had to flash cyanogenmod just to keep it mostly usable.
Out of all the phones I’ve serviced the Hero was amazing. Melted, shattered, held together with tape and the majority of the issues were folks running things like Go Launcher and keeping every text message they ever got. Respect it’s limitations and it would last forever.
The Echo! My first android phone and a great upgrade from my BB Curve. It really wasn’t a bad phone besides it’s crap battery life. I had it for 3 months and then (both) the touch screens went completely black on me. I guess by then Kyocera gave up on the device because instead of replacing it with another Kyocera, Best Buy replaced it with a GS2, to which I still have today.
GS2 is one of those forever lasting smartphones.
I whole-heartedly agree… the only reason i’m going to be upgrading this fall is because I want a much larger screen. (one max or galaxy mega size.) My GS2 will still serve as means to download/ stream media to my tv and to play music @ the gym. If screen sizes didn’t go larger than 5″ than I wouldn’t have a need to upgrade.
At least the truth has been told
Xperia play for one reason only, released as a single core 1 ghz device when everything else had internal memroy, and dual cores
I’d have to put the Thunderbolt at number one, simply because I’ve met so many people that had such a bad experience with it that they switched over to iOS. Because of all the hype, and it’s prominence as Verizon’s first LTE phone, this phone did real damage to Android’s rep and future sales.
hmm, no Eris?
Wow….I thought my old LG Thrill would be in the list.
I have only owned one phone on that list…the HTC Evo 3d. It was a total letdown and “downgrade”(even with much better specs) from the original Evo 4g which I completely loved at the time. In my personal experience, it would be moved up in the ranking as it is the phone that completely turned me against HTC forever more…
I wouldve loved this list more if it were all phones like the evo 3d. I mean over hyped and under performers. A lot of these phones were budget phones that no one truly thought would be great.
Good call on the echo, but imho the worst over hyped under performed was the tmobile g2 magic thing from way back in the day.
Samsung Moment was my first phone, with a tiny 3.2″ screen that was even smaller than iPhone, and a huge thick keyboard. I loved it at the time, but it was under-powered, slow, and buggy.
I had the Moment also, I had constant radio issues. Probably the worst phone I ever used.
Makes me really appreciate how far phones have come in just a few years.
The HTC Sensation deserves to be on that list. What a piece of shyt.
The Sensation was not that bad. Was it awesome? No, but neither was it one of the worst.
I guess so. I returned that phone 5 times because of hardware/software related issues. I was embarrassed returning it a 6th time to the Tmibile store so I just kept it.
It was your loss then.
Yes it was. Not yours.
These are more mainstream phones. But youre missing some seriously crap phones. Like the LG Optimus Dynamic, thats currently on straighttalk. Seriously garbage.
On a side note, I actually know someone who bought the LG doubleplay on ebay for like $250. Everyone was shocked at her for paying that much.
As someone that bought the HTC Thunderbolt, and still using it…., I can agree about the battery life. It’s my biggest complaint about it. I “upgraded” to an Iphone4, but I couldn’t get past the lack of customization / personalization. Yes, you can do custom back grounds / ringtones, but it’s somewhat of a PIA to do it. So I sold that and went back to my already 2 year old Thunderbolt (should’ve traded for something newer, hind sight…..). With some custom launchers, currently Nova, I have been able to get the Thunderbolt to my liking. Obviously, it still lacks in the battery life department. Bonus time in the middle of November, I’ll be getting something new. Originally the HTC One, but the MotoX is fighting for that spot, if Verizon can get the MotoMaker options by then.
Samsung Galaxy i7500, the first galaxy, must be here
Where is the microsoft kin?
Kin wasn’t an android phone….
Ha! I fail.
Man, 2 high end HTC phones on this list… the new HTC One must be better.
In Poland, many people are laughing at Samsung Galaxy Spica (i5700) – they say that only thing to do with this phone is “wipe and throw through the window” :D
The Samsung Intercept should definitely be on that list as well. It was so bad.
I’m just glad the HTC Aria didn’t make it on this list, I loved that thing. I can’t think of a better way to have been introduced to Android.
Yeah, I did like the optical trackball/button on the Aria. And it was nice and light and the coating felt great. But mine would overheat a lot and the camera (no flash) was crap. Did the Aria ever even make to Gingerbread? I had rooted and installed CM, so never really kept up with updates.
The commit is the worst android phone ever. Hands down.
HTC comet*
Still Rocking my Thunderbolt!
Its a piece of shyt, u should upgrade!
Honestly, since I wiped it and trimmed down the apps I use, ICS is working very well on it. I’ll probably be dumping Verizon altogether when the next Nexus is released. I’d be on T-Mo now if there wasn’t a big dead zone near me.
I’m a little surprised the CliqXT hasn’t been mentioned in the comments yet. It was the Cliq’s keyboardless brother. It had the same horrible gen 1 motoblur, but never got the update to 2.1. It did have great speakers though.
YES!!! I had that phone too! And I tried and was successful in forgetting it….until I read your post!!! LOL
I was actually part of a group testing the 2.1 update for Motorola. It wasn’t bad, but T-Mobile put the kibosh on it, probably because they got so many complaints about the update on the Cliq. We were pretty disappointed.
I remember wanting to have some of the phones mentioned here when I was still rocking my nokia n73. Good thing I wait, and finally got a nexus s when the price already came down (the htc evo 3d was already released by then). I switched to the nexus 4 earlier this year, and could proudly boast: even though I’ve never bought a top-end android phone, I didn’t end up with a crappy one either =)
Haha I had the Samsung Behold 2 and I can confirm that it was every bit as sucky as you claim. Thank god I won it in the Samsung behold giveaway.
The LG Revolution should be side by side with the Thunderbolt.
Haha, my daughter owned #10 EVO3D and my wife had the #1 ECHO! I guess she was lucky it was stolen! Lol
I had a Bionic for almost a year, and don’t recall any significant issues. The only reason I got rid of it was that I left Verizon. I was shocked to find it on this list.
I really liked my Bionic for awhile. The only initial problem was very poor battery life (around 7 hours, even without using it much). I didn’t understand why so many people were unhappy with theirs.
After a year, battery life had dropped to about 4 hours, and the phone would get HOT. Too hot to touch or hold — I’d have to shut it down at least once a week. Then it started freezing for a few seconds, occasionally at first, then more and more frequently.
The Jelly Bean update helped for a few weeks, then it was back to the same problems. By the end, I was giving it a factory refresh weekly, and would still get frequent 1-3 second freezes. I couldn’t even answer calls because the phone was too hot to hold to my ear.
No problems with the S4 yet.
I dunno y I found this so funny, but I did
At the end of the day, the HTC EVO 3D was one of the worst phones that ever launched, and that’s probably why we have yet to see a follow-up (unless you’re counting the scraps Sprint sent down to their underling Virgin Mobile).”
Can someone explain to me why the HTC Evo 4g LTE isnt consider a follow-up?
They meant a follow up HTC Evo with 3D cameras. HTC Evo 4G LTE is the true successor to the HTC EVO 4G released in 2010. The Evo 3D wasn’t a bad phone at all. It was the gimmicky camera.
And not a Sony in sight.
Motorola Backflip is the reason I left ATT!!! They weren’t serious about Android. The Backflip was by far the most idiotic smartphone design everrrrr!!!!!
Don’t forget how At&t purposely crippled Android by restricting access to the Android Market? How about the HTC Inspire? Although it is HTC fault too.
The Inspire was one of the best phones for rooting, since it was really an Ace/Desire HD. Sooo many ROMs for that – I had a lot of fun.
My g1 inspired a buddy of mine to get the moto cliq. I remember him hating it. It maybe the reason y he is now an apple guy
Remember the Dell Streak?
The First isn’t bad if you turn Home off.
Nice article, although I didn’t the buy the Evo 3D for the camera. Who cares how much hype a phone has, make your decision after the fact. Just because a carrier talks a phone up more than usual doesn’t mean it failed harder.
I agree with just about every phone but The G2x was a great phone after it received it’s gingerbread update it was running much more smoother it had one of the sharpest displays at the moment and the build was nice as well
Pantech Breakout. First affordable 4G phone with so little memory onboard that it needed to be rooted, ROMed, and debloated to make it functional.
I would add somewhere in this list, the Samsung Moment. What a horrible phone!
The HTC Wildfire should be placed in there somewhere. I had nothing but troubles with that tiny little excuse for a phone. Lagged out of the box, and often had problems. Even custom roms aren’t great.
Why isnt the htc one X on this list or any other unremovable battery no sd card phone?
Because these all have worse flaws?
Same goes with the HTC One.
because it was a fantastic phone?
How is the motorola devour not on this list. it was just as bad as the cliq if not worse.
I have had the misfortune to own both the Bionic and the Thunderbolt. That said I would still replace my thunderbolt with the Bionic if I had to do it all over again. Feeling happy as can be with my S4.
loved my cliq.
You missed the Samsung Moment! And the Kyocera Echo wasn’t necessarily a bad phone, it actually functioned well (for its time) but the it’s the failed gimmicks that threw it off.
you forgot the iphone
iPhone isn’t an Android…
I will have to agree that the samsung moment sucked major ass! sdx developers was a big help tho!
Blah…I just bought a Droid Bionic off DailySteals for $79!! Why couldn’t this article have come out a few weeks ago!! Damn!
No, the Bionic is a fairly good machine. I still have one that I used for nearly 2 years, would still be using it as my phone but the siren call of the Note 2 happened, so now it along with the lapdock are being used as an alarm clock/video player in my room.
Backflip should have been higher. I mean come on…. a touchpad on the back? The phone folds to protect a metal plate and a gimmicky touchpad but leaves the glass screen and keyboard out in the open. Just an all around POS. Having worked for ATT I hated when people would bring that thing in and ask questions about it.
Where is the S4 and gnote 2?
They’re on the “phones worth owning” list. ;-)
Not really sure what this post is supposed to mean.
The G2x wasn’t just the first Tegra 2 phone, but the first dual-core phone period. While it was a mess, it did get me into rooting and flashing my phone. Because, while the stock software was garbage(this phone stayed on 2.2 Froyo for WAAAAY too long) Rooting and flashing different ROMS was easy. After some time after more and more ROMs came out this phone went from garbage to amazing. The problem is, you shouldn’t have to Root a phone to make it usable, so on one hand it deserves to be on the numbered list, on the other, it was one of the best phones to get when starting getting into flashing roms and rooting.
what Kenneth answered I cannot believe that people able to make $7888 in 1 month on the computer. did you read this link www.KEP2.com
The G2X was a QA nightmare, one person would get a solid phone, the next would get the worst phone ever created. Unfortunately that would be followed by 20 people getting the same worst phone ever created with the lucky individual that got a good one gloating.
Noooo not the Cliq. The keyboard was great and I never had any bugs. I guess I was a lucky guy .
You really missed the Samsung Moment. It used to dial 911 so much on 1.5 that 911 operators, would respond to “Sorry my phone dialed you” with “Oh do you have a Moment”. It froze it’s data connection, with no notification that your data was no longer working, like it was it’s job. Which means you were rebooting your phone multipule times a day just for the phone to be used as a phone. Also if you had a working GPS you hit the lottery. The just to screw with the Moment users Samsung released a 2.2 upgrade just for the Acclaim, which was the same phone but on US Cellular.
You young kids, you don’t know phone problems.
I miss the Motorola Milestone on the list. While the droid was maybe a really good phone, the Milestone wasn’t. This phone was one of the first phones with a locked bootloader, had a lot of bugs in the hardware and software (keyboard came off, headphone jack not responding, music started playing randomly, awful overall performance, touchscreen stopped working) and Motorola supported this phone very badly.
It only became worse when Motorola promised the android 2.2 update. After the droid received the update, it took Motorola a HALF YEAR to port it to the Milestone. And when it was finally rolled out, everyone was complaining about the immense about of bugs in the rom (like the droid bionic) which they never solved. People became angry at Motorola and Motorola promised to unlock the bootloader, what obviously never happened.
Now I have a Galaxy S3 and I love it. Not because it’s perfect, but because I know how bad a phone can be.
Yeah! Cliq! Nothing like being stuck on the same firmware…for over a year, then getting the 1 and final update the phone would ever see. To its credit…at least it had a qwerty on it. =
I am sincerely relieved that I have never owned any of these phones. I generally won’t buy any new gadget on day one. I usually wait a good six months before I make a decision on a product. I always need to do some serious research before I make a purchase.
I am sincerely relieved that I have never owned any of these phones. I generally won’t buy any new gadget on day one. I usually wait a good six months before I make a decision on a product. I always need to do some serious research before I make a purchase.
DROID PRO!
I was actually hoping to find this on the list. Slightly disappointed.
I actually loved the Thunderbolt. Having the Extended Battery was pretty gosh darn standard, and really easy to carry two of them. Not sure why it was on this list other than battery life…
Honestly surprised the Kin or N-Gage didn’t make the list…
Neither of those are Android phones.
Gah, ignore me. Had 20 something tabs open and forgot where I was and what I was reading.
No LG Optimus S?? Lol ok
I disagree on the evo, since the 4.0 update, the thing is excellent. I still recommend budget minded friends the evo as the best choice for performance to price ratio.
Best of all, it’s only slightly slower than my quad core galaxy S3. And the battery life is just twice longer than on my S3. So I strongly disagree, but to each his own :)
I loved my HTC EVO 3D for several months too, …. before I discovered the incredible 1GB Internal Storage limit you forgot to mention here, not compensated by the 8GB SD card shipping standard. After I installed >70 x apps this key “design error” forced me to pull plenty beloved apps, each time an app up-date was bigger than previous version and that 1GB internal storage was exploded again and again, despite I was moving all possible datas to SD and cleaning cache several times per week….
Plus the battery that in real data usage lasts # 1H !
Now I hate it and hate HTC in the same time, and I want to replace it in 4Q13, …. but I will hardly miss the 3D pics and videos, since in the meantime I bought a superb Sony 3D TV to see them in the leaving room….
May be I could trade that for a new model with 4K Video (Sony Hamoni ?), since I need to buy a 2nd TV next year for the bedroom and then it could be a 4K one as they get cheaper after CES…. Shame nobody yets plans to ship in 4Q13 a 4K + 3D 1080p phone, as this is supported by Snapdragon 800…
My Bionic was great until about 2-3 months ago when it started its slow road to death.
Sorry, but the Bionic should not be on the list…all of the delays cannot be counted against the phone. I did have to replace the one I bought on release day for random reboots, but after that it was smooth sailing…oh, there were a few things, like LTE connectivity, that needed an update, but after updates, it is still working great as my wife’s phone.
As far as the Thunderbolt, I know 3 people that are still using theirs and love them…I just don’t know why it gets a bad rap…and it was the FIRST Verizon LTE phone.
ohh you guys should play with the my touch 3g
my Aunty Quinn recently got a nice six-month old Mercedes-Benz S-Class Hybrid by working part time at home… try this web-site www.KEP2.com
Had the exact experience with the EVO 3D… was very happy to pass this on to my daughter when the EVO 4g LTE was released. That was a good phone once you got Sense off it.
Thank goodness the Droid Incredible wasn’t on the list. That by far put the iPhone 4 up for a challenge.
Ha that is hilarious.. i was reading this going where is the Echo how could they forget the Echo… Man i was sitting at work waiting for the release of this awesome new phone which i thought would have been the Evo 2.. and they release that crappy thing.. Such a horrible idea.
The Bionic did become the red headed step child, but that doesn’t mean the phone is bad. It’s still a good device considering it’s reaching its 2nd birthday. I love it and I’m going to keep it even after I upgrade.
Moto devour … you forgot about that beauty
The T-Mobile G1 / HTC Dream deserves a mention on this list. I actually debate it deserves the #1 spot, to be honest. Don’t get me wrong, I had one and I loved it. But I was willing to look past the rough edges because I’m a neophile. For “normal” people, it was terrible:
* Like the Backflip, the keyboard popped out in an interesting way. Like the Backflip, it would also leap out of your hands.
* There was a dust cap on the Mini-USB port whose only purpose was to get stuck in the connector.
* Speaking of Mini-USB, this thing didn’t have a 3.5mm headphone jack; it had the jack-assed “ExtUSB” connector that was USB AND HEADPHONES inside the mini-usb jack and required a proprietary adapter to use a proper headset.
* It had a trackball that had one purpose: to get junked up with pocket fluff and stop working.
* It had a “chin”; the bottom 1/4 was at a 25-degree angle to the rest of the body which means it wouldn’t fit comfortably in trouser pockets and then you set it down on a table it looked like it had an erection.
..and that was just the hardware. The stock Android 1.3 software was worse. It didn’t even have an on-screen keyboard until version 1.6. Thankfully I replaced with with a Nexus One 18 months later which was one of the best phones I have ever used.
I had 2 of these phones and I have to agree with the Behold II, thee worst $450 I ever spent and is the reason I left T-Mobile. The poor customer service I received after getting that phone turned me off forever. And to Samsung as well. They promised us up to Android 2.X when it came out, and we were lucky to get 1.6. Unless a phone is given to me, I go out of my way to avoid Samsung phones. And another stinker was the Samsung Intercept. The only reason I bought another Samsung product was it was the only Android available on Virgin at the time. Also had the HTC EVO on Virgin. Not such a disaster, have to agree about the battery life though, pretty horrid. I think the biggest disappointment was the Motorola Triumph. If that had just a little more support from Motorola, I might have still been using it, but the poor GPS service was a killer for me. Sometimes after waiting for 15 minutes it still wouldn’t receive a lock.
This site sells really cheap smartphones: smartphonedirect.mybigcommerce.com/.
I got my 4s from them.
Vibrant was the worst phone I ever had. Absolutely awful. GPS didn’t work. Samsung lied about updates and they never came. All kinds of lag and glitches that showed battery life go from full go zero in a matter of seconds. The list is endless. Just a horrible phone.
I still have my Thunderbolt, my husband still has his and my son’s is in perfect condition but he did get an iphone 5 to replace it because his friends have iphones (blech!). I am going to use his because I cracked my screen. I think they have been awesome phones. Our battery life is from morning to about 4 PM so I just carry an extra battery just in case. I have told my husband many times that he is eligible for an upgrade but he is not interested. Our experience has been very positive – so much that I would not hesitate to buy another well-researched HTC when the time comes.
I still use my thunderbolt and LOVE it! Never charge it more than once a day at night!