There’s few things more annoying than your expensive new gadget playing up when you’ve only just got it — but it seems the latest devices running Android and Windows Phone are having all sorts of problems.
Android 4.2 Jelly Bean has been described as “one of the most bug-ridden releases since Honeycomb”, while Windows Phone 8 blowers are reportedly switching themselves off with no warning.
Android Police lists the bugs that have turned up in Jelly Bean, from flickering auto-brightness and battery problems to glitchy lockscreen widgets and broken Bluetooth — not to mention the small matter of December disappearing entirely from some Jelly Bean calendar apps.
Both Jelly Bean and Windows Phone 8 are also prone to random reboots, according to complaints on user forums.
Windows Phone 8 launched less than a month ago with a selection of phones, including the Nokia Lumia 920 and HTC 8X. But now owners are taking to customer forums to complain that the Lumia 920 and 8X randomly switch themselves off and back on and again without so much as a by your leave.
Nokia blames the problem on apps, and recommends closing apps by existing using the back button.
Earlier this year I lamented that too many new gadgets are arriving half-finished and afflicted with some gremlins or other, and it seems there’s no change in that pattern. Since I moaned about theSamsung Galaxy Nexus‘s volume problem or the Nokia Lumia 800‘s refusal to charge, we’ve been subjected to Apple’s naff Maps app, the iPhone 5‘s purple haze and silver scratches, and the HTC One X struggling with battery bugs.
On the plus side, the fact that the random reboot problem afflicts both the 8X and 920 shows it’s probably a software problem rather than hardware, meaning both Windows Phone 8 and Android 4.2 should be fixed by a judicious update.
Have you experienced any problems with Android Windows Phone? Let me know in the comments or on our Facebook page.