A study of 600,000 support calls has found that Android phones are more susceptible to hardware faults.

Experts at WDS found that 14 percent of all technical support calls for Android devices could be traced to a hardware fault.  In comparison 3.7 percent of RIM BlackBerry turned out to be hardware related. Only eight  percent for iPhone faults where connected to hardware and nine percent for Windows Phone 7 devices.

Craig Rich, chief marketing officer at WDS, said in a statement that Android has been instrumental in bringing smartphone technology into the mass-market. However the software's popularity is driving varying levels of hardware quality into the market. Android faults were more common on certain undisclosed brands, WDS found.

Common faults included keypad/button failures and microphone and battery issues, the firm said.