Touchscreen is becoming a prevailing feature of not only high-end but also mid-range devices, and it seems consumers are quite happy with this trend. According to J.D. Power and Associates, owners of smartphones and traditional handsets sporting touchscreen interfaces enjoy higher satisfaction than other users.The new survey found that slightly more than half of the respondents have touchscreen-enabled smartphones. They gave an average satisfaction rating of 771 out of 1,000 points, which is 40 points higher than smartphones using other input methods, such as physical QWERTY keyboards. As for feature phones, although touchscreen is less prevalent, the satisfaction score (756 points) is still 53 points higher than the industry average.
The marketing research firm also measured customer satisfaction among different popular cell phone brands. Unsurprisingly, Apple took the top spot of smartphone manufacturers with a score of 810. The iPhone maker outperformed its competitors in the aspects of ease of operation, operating system, physical design and features. BlackBerry maker Research in Motion followed Apple in the rankings with a score of 741.
As for non-smartphone vendors, LG scored the highest at 729 points, performing well in all four areas, including operation, design, features and battery. Sanyo and Samsung trailed behind at 712 points and 703 points respectively.
Another interesting finding of the study is that both smartphones and feature phones are increasingly being used for entertainment, multimedia sharing and social networking. One-fourth of traditional handset owners said they frequently send and receive multimedia and picture messages, indicating an increase of 25 percent compared with six months ago. Among smartphone owners, half of them actively use the multimedia messaging function, and as much as 60 percent download third-party games on their handsets for entertainment.
Following the growth of touchscreen-enabled phones, it is very likely that touchscreen will continue to play an important role in integrating the devices into both our work and personal lives.
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