Opinion Research in Princeton NJ has found that smartphones are the most returned electronic gift. With all the power and functionality being jammed into the small devices, they’re just too hard to activate and use for some users. The survey found that smartphones, in general, were returned by 21 percent of gift recipients. The iPhone, however, was not high on that list.

The report, released in January, was the result of polling 2,000 respondents who received electronic gifts over the holidays. Twenty-one percent returned their smartphone because they had trouble activating features and linking them to their computers. The BlackBerry was returned by 14.5 percent of gift recipients. The iPhone was returned by 12 percent and ranked fifth on the list.

Opinion Research plans to publish a white paper in February on the user-friendliness of these devices. Previously, smart phones were used primarily by techies and business people. Now that they’re being marketed to mainstream users, the difficulties of using these advanced devices is a challenge for users -- even as sales grow and grow, according to NPD.

David Samberg, a Verizon Wireless public relations manager pointed out that customers should really know that they’re getting when they buy such phones. "You don�t want to sell something they don�t need because it�s going to come back," Mr. Samberg said. [For]"Someone who only wants a phone and might want to use it as an MP3 player, a Treo might be too much phone."

Part of the problem is that conventional phones and smartphone look a lot alike these days. However, the attractive physical appearance of the phone masks the complexity of the device.

Carriers may be learning a tough lesson. Making a smartphone look cool and heavily marketing it doesn’t do any good if the device is ultimately too complicated for the average user and they end up returning it. Opportunity continues to knock for Apple.