Do your homework before buying a new smartphone this Black Friday

The clock is ticking down to Black Friday, the official kickoff of the holiday shopping season. Granted, the definition of “Friday” has been blurred as retailers continue to leapfrog each other to be first to offer unbeatable holiday deals, but sometime this week you should be able to find some excellent deals on a new smartphone if you’re in the market.

Some people go into a smartphone purchase knowing what they want. They know up front that they want the new iPhone, or the latest Samsung Galaxy S model. However, most people aren’t that dedicated to one platform and are open to buying whichever device meets their needs and seems like the best deal. For those people, the survey data from FixYa will come in handy as a shopping guide.

The FixYa report is not a comprehensive list of available smartphones, but it does compare the relative pros and cons of four of the leading handsets. FixYa, a Q&A site where users can go to help each other identify and troubleshoot issues, compiled data on the iPhone 5s, Motorola Moto X, Samsung Galaxy S4, and HTC One from nearly 14,000 problem impressions submitted on its site to determine the most common problems reported for each device.

The number one issue reported for the Samsung Galaxy S4 is overheating, which makes up a quarter of the problems reported for the smartphone. As vendors cram more processing power and technology into these pocket-sized devices, it’s somewhat inevitable that they’re going to get warmer, but the reason it seems to be more of an issue for the Galaxy S4 is probably related to the plastic case. Battery drain and issues reading the display tied as a close second behind the overheating issue.

Screen quality and camera quality are leading complaints about the Motorola Moto X smartphone, but the biggest issue reported is the shortage of storage space. If you’re considering a Moto X, you should be aware up front that it doesn’t have a microSD card slot, so the device is not expandable. Google would prefer users rely on its cloud-based services rather than storing data locally on a mobile device that can be easily lost or stolen…

Read the full story at PCWorld: Do your homework before buying a new smartphone this Black Friday.