The UK’s Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) has ordered mobile phone manufacturer Motorola to withdraw a TV commercial which claimed that its Atrix smartphone was the "world’s most powerful smartphone."
The ASA upheld two complaints that it received from fans of Samsung’s Galaxy smartphone range challenging the claims by Motorola. The complainants argued that the Samsung Galaxy S II i9100 had a more powerful processor.
Motorola admitted that the Samsung Galaxy did have a "slightly faster" processor, but defended its claims saying that there are other features that make Atrix the most powerful smartphone including: "Dual Core processor, 1GB RAM, webtop and ecosystem, FLASH 10 PLAYER, qHD display and a 20 per cent more powerful smartphone battery than all known current competitors on a world scale and a biometric reader".
"Motorola said, although the Samsung Galaxy S II i9100 had a slightly faster processor, it did not operate the unique computer-like accessory ecosystem that the Atrix did," the ASA said in its ruling.
"It said the advert did not claim the Atrix’s processor was the fastest, but rather focused on the combined features of the performance and capability of the product."
However, the advertising watchdog found the advertisiment misleading. It "considered viewers would understand the claim ‘The world’s most powerful smartphone’, along with a close-up of the phone, to mean the phone, in isolation, was the most powerful smartphone."
"Because the Samsung Galaxy S II i9100 had a faster processor than the ATRIX, we considered the claim ‘The world’s most powerful smartphone’ had not been substantiated by comparative evidence and concluded that it was misleading."
