J.D. Power customer satisfaction survey: Apple tops on AT&T and Verizon, Samsung tops on Sprint and T-Mobile

Apple and Samsung don’t share a lot, although their patent lawyers might disagree. But the two leading smartphone manufacturers shared top honors in the latest J.D. Power customer satisfaction survey, released today.

And interestingly, AT&T got the highest grades of all major U.S. mobile carriers.

Apple ranked tops on AT&T, with a score of 856 out of a possible 1,000 points, followed by Nokia, Samsung, and HTC — all at 840 or lower. And Apple also took top position on Verizon, with 861 points to second-place finisher Samsung’s 827, followed by HTC, Motorola, and then BlackBerry. But on Sprint, Samsung edged out Apple with 853 points to Cupertino’s 849, and on T-Mobile, Samsung captured 830 points to Apple’s 825.

In other words: You can get a good smartphone, and a pretty great customer experience, from both Apple and Samsung.

The top-rated phones, however, might be a little surprising:

• Apple iPhone 5
• Blackberry Z10
• Nokia Lumia 920
• Samsung Galaxy Note II

The differences, however, are interesting, and say a lot about how individual carriers have grown with smartphones, positioned smartphones — and whether or not they’ve been able to sell iPhones since the beginning. It also says a lot about the services that the different carriers offer with smartphones, which in many cases are tailored to iPhone or to Android.

“This indicates that carrier services and how these carriers position specific features and services on their devices influence the experience customers have with their smartphone device,” Kirk Parsons, a senior director at J.D. Power, said in a statement.

In some cases, for instance, a T-Mobile might position Android phones with greater incentives and ancillary services because it makes more money off Android customers. And the same could be true of AT&T, but for Apple’s iPhones. Another factor, J.D. Power said, is that T-Mobile customers are much more likely to choose a phone based on price, while Sprint clients are looking at features first.

Overall customer satisfaction was high: 833 points out of 1,000.

That indicates that it’s hard to make a truly bad decision with a smartphone. Interestingly, however, AT&T beat out Verizon for top honors among smartphone owners, with an average smartphone satisfaction score of 843, while the same number for Sprint was 835. T-Mobile scored 825, as did Verizon.

The customer satisfaction numbers are based on 16,421 smartphone customers who have owned their phones for less than a year.