UPDATED 17:00 EDT / JUNE 12 2015

NEWS

Google’s new tool to choose an Android phone is useless

Today, Google Inc introduced a new website designed to help users find the Android phone that is right for them, but the tool appears to be about as useful as a “Which Twilight character are you?” quiz.

“With many Android phones to choose from, here’s a great place to start,” the page says. “Answer three or more quick questions, and we’ll suggest phones just for you.”

Once you open the site, the page asks you to choose the ways you use your phone the most from a list of common uses like social media, video streaming, messaging, and so on. You can then choose how often you use your phone for those tasks, as well as more specific options like what types of videos you watch or what sound device you use to listen to your music.

After you choose three common uses for your phone, Google’s algorithms crunch some numbers and the page spits out a handful of devices it thinks you will like. Under the “How it Works” section, Google explains, “We use information we have about the phones sold by your carrier like screen size and battery life, including testing data from trusted third parties, to make our best guess at the right phones for you.”

With dozens of Android devices to choose from, the new site could make it easier for people to narrow down their choices, but unfortunately its results are not entirely helpful.

While the page can filter phones by price or size, there are no options for features like battery life or storage capacity. It does not say exactly why it chose the phones it did over others, and it does a poor job of explaining why those particular phones are relevant to the needs the user indicated in the quiz.

Why are these phones good for users who spend a lot of time reading social media? What makes this phone a good device for streaming video? Aside from a few mundane hardware specs, the page answers these questions with marketing blurbs from the manufacturers with terms like “superb sharpness” or “look of brilliance.”

The page itself states, “We do not endorse any particular Android phone and we can’t guarantee that the phones we choose are actually the best phones for you.”

Which is basically like saying “Our psychic readings are for entertainment only.”

Screenshot via Android.com

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