For years, the iPhone series from Apple has been America’s number one choice when it comes to picking a smartphone but that has all changed this year as the Galaxy Note 5 has overthrown the iPhone to become America’s favorite smartphone according to a study done by the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI). The Galaxy Note 5 from Korean giant, Samsung, managed to score 86 out of 100 points in the nationwide poll, barely edging out Apple’s iPhone 6s Plus which scored 85 points. Third place is also held by Samsung with the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge+ while fourth place is held by the Samsung Galaxy Note 4. Both devices scored 84 in the study. The top 4 phones all have a screen size of 5.5 inches or larger. Meanwhile, fifth place was taken by the iPhone 6s. While the top 7 smartphones were either held by Apple or Samsung, other Android OEM’s managed to get a spot as well with Motorola’s Moto G ranking eight with 81 points though it is the only non-Apple or Samsung smartphone to score above 76 points.
While Samsung topped the ranks for being America’s favorite smartphone, Apple ranked the most reliable smartphone manufacturer among US consumers after having tied with Samsung for the number one position last year. Apple saw a 1% increase in it’s score from last year as it jumped from 80 to 81 points this year while Samsung maintained a constant score as last year with 80 points to take second place. The two smartphone manufacturers are followed by Motorola with 77 points and HTC, which recorded a 3% drop to 75. Fifth place was held by LG with a score of 74 and Microsoft Mobile (Nokia) took sixth place with 74 points, a drop of 1% from last year.
Also, according to the report by ACSI, in 2016, mobile phones do well in terms of consumer experience with the exception of battery life which scored 75 points, though this is an increase from the 74 points it scored last year. In other departments, mobile phones scored highly with ease of text messaging scoring 87 points, ease of phone calling scoring 85 points, phone design and features scoring 84 points. Meanwhile, ease of operating systems and software scored 81 points and ease of browsing phone menus and navigation of settings scored 84 points. Audio quality maintained a score of 81 points from last year.