Your Worst So-called “Smart" Phone?

[SeeBeeEss]

We’ve all had at least one; an alleged “smart” phone that is so maddening dumb and defiant that it takes all of our willpower to not scream obscenities at it and sit it in a corner, forever. Just for fun - and certainly not to bring up any old memories that will trigger your phone PDSD - share the so-called “smartphone" you have owned that you consider to be the worst of the lot.

I’ll go first. Mine was the Moto 5G Ace. It’s the one and only phone that I got rid of in less than a year (had it for about 6 excruciating months). After a number of less-than-positive experiences with Motorola phones (and little, to no, support), it was the straw that broke the camel’s back and put me off both Motorola and Lenovo forever. In all fairness, there were plenty of users that thought is was a decent phone (in spite of Motorola's horrible update policies) and I don't know to this day if I just got an obstinate "problem child" or if the users singing its praises just had significantly lower expectations than me.

 

[B. Diddy]

I have to say that I've been satisfied with pretty much every Android phone I've ever used -- even the budget Galaxy A32 5G that I have as a backup, which I had to use as my daily driver for a month after my Pixel 3 XL died. If we can expand this to tablets, I'll offer up the TCL Tab 8. On paper, this seemed like a pretty good small tablet, but it was absolutely hobbled by its firmware -- it had that infuriating Chinese manufacturer habit of aggressively killing apps in the background, which could not be controlled by the user. I couldn't listen to YouTube Music or Spotify in the background -- as soon as I moved away from either of those apps, the music would stop (and yes, I have YT Music Premium to allow for background play). I tried every possible setting, but I think it was completely baked into the firmware. Mind-bogglingly stupid design choice.

 

[mustang7757]

I can't recall a phone I hated or regretted.

 

[Golfdriver97]

The Samsung Galaxy S2 Epic 4G Touch. My first smartphone....that I had to root to do anything to it. So many garbage apps preloaded on to it, the OEM partitioning of the internal storage, and the fact that each of the S2's were all physically designed differently. You had to pick accessories like cases and even screen protectors for the specific model.

 

[belodion]

I’ve had no phones like that, but the “This app requires OS version such-and-such and is not available for your device” type of message is very annoying, on both iPhones and Androids, especially when you are only one version too old, and you know that the phone would run the app perfectly happily.

 

[theautodentist]

I don't think I ever had one of those. Oh yeah, lol, love the dunce hat on that one phone. I guess I'll just have to shell out the money for that one super dooper smart intelligent phone and oh yeah has RAM too.

 

[Laura Knotek]

I've never had a phone I completely hated. All of them worked fine for me as long as I expected.

 

[Inders99]

I'd say by a mile my S23 is the worst phone I've ever owned. It's making me consider an iPhone for the next round.
- WiFi/data hand-off
- The worst finger print reader by far
- Maps works horrible
- Have to restart all the time for general 'buggy-ness"

 

[tube517]

I've had some good phones. I had realistic expectations of them because I buy primarily used except for recently. I can't say that I had a phone that I hated.