While I'm still waiting for my N900, I'm browsing Nokia's site for a real phone to replace my current 6110 Navigator.

There's a tempting 6710 Navigator, which seems like the obvious choice... the 5730 (which is cool inside, but looks really embarrassing)... the E75... and quite a few others I consider.

My problem is that (similar to the Mic- and reboot-problems we see here with the N900) with some of these models there's hardware issues that many users describe. The 6710, for example, seems to chronically suffer from broken GPS (it's only a "Navigator" phone, so why would it matter?) and from its funny zoombar going berserk.

Now that's all bad and ugly, but... How relevant is it statistically? There could be 1000 users complaining about the very same hardware problem, but with x*1000 phones sold (and x being a high number), I wouldn't care.

Nokia doesn't ever admit they have issues with certain models or batches, so looking for corresponding press releases isn't an option. (Would be cool though, wouldn't it? It would tell you that the one particular problem you were concerned about is solved.)
Searching in forums tells you that some/many people have problems, but doesn't tell you if it's a real design issue (like the 770's WSOD) or just a flaw that 1 of 100.000 units have.

Is there any place on the web that does exactly this kind of quality check and tells you that "model X will almost certainly develop this kind of problem because of the way they connected part A to part B"? Like we knew here that WSODs on the 770 were kind of an extra feature they built in?

What strategy do you have? Or do you just hope for the best?
(In general, I have this feeling that the overall quality of Nokia phones has decreased drastically over the last 2 years or so and that more often than not you get defective units.)

What ever product you are looking to buy, if you do a search on the web for problems, you will find them.

No one product has a 100% perfect manufacturing process, so duds inevitably end up in the hands of end users, who now, more than ever will look to the internet for a solution to their problem.

I still feel you gotta be pretty unlucky to come across a duff nokia.

What worries me, though, is when people write that they had their phones replaced 2 times and still have the very same issues.

What worries me even more is if you ask Nokia Care about such things and only get their boilerplate answer: Take out the battery for more than a minute, than re-flash the latest firmware.

I tend to use gsmarena and wade through the crap in the comments to get a feel for the sort of problems people have.

Another way to assess whether phones have any "staying power" is to see what the comparative 2nd hand price is on ebay:

For example, when considering buying my current phone, I made a short list. The N95 in all its variants was holding its price quite high and relatively few of the phones sold were new or nearly new. The N96, despite being at least better on paper and was a much newer model, was sold more cheaply, and there were many BNIBs and virtually new ones up for sale. It was clear that lots of people had tried the n96, often through a subsidised upgrade, and had problems. When I decided to buy an E71, I found it very difficult to get a nearly new unlocked phone, prices were not far off the pay-as-you-go retail prices, and bidding was fierce!

It really really varies a lot, and even a single model can have different reliability depending on when or where you buy it. This isn't just for Nokia stuff, I'd apply this to all kinds of devices.

The only advice I could give is to try and buy a device which has been around for many months and has had several firmware updates already. These generally have the problems ironed out, and any problems which appear are more likely to have known solutions.

I've had a lot of phones for review over the years and the worst are always the newest, while the most stable are those which were released at least several months ago. The first N95 I had to review was awful, the next N95 (about a year later) was rock solid. Clearly there's some kind of feedback process which depends on gathering data from early adopters to improve the production process.

The other bit of advice is that, weirdly, cheaper phones seem to be generally more reliable than expensive ones. I don't know why this is, but I'm guessing the cheaper ones aren't as ambitious technically so their parts and firmware are generally older and more "tried and tested".

strategy: buy it, return it a few times when bugs. after 2/3 times. refund, then, try again 2 weeks later or so.