Who's on Santas Naughty List in 2018?

As Christmas day is finally drawing near, we look at the top manufacturers to see if any of them will make Santa's Nice list this year or will they be waking up on their hoards of cash with coal under the tree?

Google

The latest Pixel devices ended up bringing a huge list of issues with them. Even with excellent camera software performance, the gigantic notch and wide bezels feels like a lazy design flaw.

• No 4K Video Recording at 60FPS,
• Devices are prone to scratches,
• A notch and still quite a chin,
• Google thinks you can never have too many notches and Pixel users were attacked by random extra notches as a part of software issue.

Apple

Let's not talk about the exorbitantly high price of the Xs and to be honest, the XR... These were ultra expensive devices (even the budget range) with only a few upgrades and on top of that the device wouldn't charge with the display off! Additionally over beautified pictures caused by the selfie camera aggressively smoothing the skin of its subjects.

The iPhone XR faced same camera issues as well and Apple has confirmed that a fix is coming. We are still awaiting for Apple’s charging dock. What about the considerably buggy iOS 12 release? And how did iOS 12 affect older models? Oh yea, it slowed them down intentionally.

Did we also mention the environmental cost of each iPhone slowly creeping back up? Bad Apple, Bad!

Samsung

Or should we list the S-Pen specifically? Many users reported fragility of the new S-Pen. The pen has been breaking for a lot of Note 9 owners and the phone itself had a number of Bluetooth issues.  The company is staying away from notches and recent Galaxy A8s with Infinity-O display launch booked a place on the Nice list for Samsung next year.

OnePlus

Specced out devices with affordable prices are welcome by OnePlus fans but security and connectivity issues shouldn't come in a bundle. Some users reported that the auto brightness was not working as expected but the good news is that all problems with the recently launched 6T were officially confirmed to be fixed in upcoming updates‌‌. So they've not been too naughty, but Santa is keeping a keen eye on them.

Huawei

Users reporting random reboots on the P20 Pro and the 4,000 mAh should easily last an entire day, however users turned to forums to complain about a disappointing battery performance. Slow charging of the P20 Pro doesn't make it better and the (unsubstantiated) claim that the UK's internet spy agency isn’t totally confident in Huawei’s devices’ security makes this year a tough one for Huawei.

LG

A lot of complaints about the battery life on the G7 and this really should have been foreseen with the big 6.1-inch screen with a small 3,000 mAh battery. There were fingerprint scanner related problems reported. Users shared that the G7 can’t occasionally recognise a finger and initiates false fingerprint scanning causing the battery drain.

The V4o ThinQ wasn't without it's share of criticisms through 2018. The camera is the main selling point of this device. Actually 5 cameras. And there’s a lot of going on there when trying to snap a quick picture. The process can be pretty overwhelming and if you are offered to choose 5 good cameras or a Pixel 3 with 1 exceptional, we’ll go with one. Beyond the attention-grabbing quintuple camera set-up, V40 is actually pretty boring device and LG missed the opportunity this year to launch a flagship with remarkable features. We don't think this makes the naughty list, just highlights how excess can sully the nature.

It's not like mobile phone manufacturers totally screwed up this year. Remember the Note 7 disaster in 2016? Fortunately, this year promises to finish on a cheerful note, but somehow every single device launched this year carried a few issues along and degrading phones' performance is something Santa won't forget easily.