12/18/2008, 8:55am, EST
Thursday, December 18thBlackBerry Storms being returned in droves?
Verizon's first few weeks of offering BlackBerry Storm may be plagued by very large numbers of returns, based on data collected by Alley Insider. In addition to a higher than expected demographic of anecdotal reports and users on Twitter returning the touchscreen phone, the report points to claims of as many as 40 to 50 percent of all Storms having been returned due to dissatisfaction with their performance. Electronista has also heard similar observations from early adopters.
The carrier has so far declined comment on the claims.
While the exact reasons for returns are likely to vary, most observers have attributed at least some of the perceived large return rate to extreme lag in the firmware, which prompted an urgent software upgrade just two weeks after the phone had launched. The update has cleared up a number of issues but hasn't addressed some fundamental criticisms of the phone by many observers, which include a clickable screen that is believed to unnecessarily slow down typing, imprecise input and the absence of Wi-Fi.
If substantiated, the complications with the launch will potentially be heavily damaging to the finances of the BlackBerry's creator, Research in Motion. The Canadian company is depending heavily on the phone for holiday sales and has already warned that it may see a drop in new users hurt both by worldwide delays in releasing the Storm but also the delay of the BlackBerry Bold.
Filed under: industry, mobile phones
Other story tags: BlackBerry, Verizon, Research in Motion
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hmm...
since when is Blackberry a carrier?
It does suck...
I am a Verizon user and I was really hoping that thw Storm would be a good replacement for my current slidy - thingy phone, but alas. In the store, it was so slow I could not stand it. I went to the store ready to buy, but bought a bunch of beer instead.
hmm...
Since when did anyone say they were a carrier?"Verizon's first few weeks of offering BlackBerry Storm may be plagued by very large numbers of returns..."Tell the truth, it doesn't surprise me at all.
Ouch, Bad Timing
RIM may have rushed out the device in the interest of holiday sales and as a result my have tarnished it's reputation, which last year they would have been able to recover from easily, but right now, not good. Hopefully they can resolve these issues via firmware updates before there's too much damage.
But it's Verizon
Just that it's Verizon-branded should be enough to drive off most savvy people - unless they like crippled hardware and predatory business practices.
I wonder...
Why the Verizon slamming? I have been a VZW customer for years and have NEVER had a problem. But, this thread is not about that, but it was just a matter of time that someone takes a shot at them.
Verizon....
The bottom line is "the network" released this POS and could have controlled the release timing to better align with the devices quality. The Storm I played with felt like a typical Verizon launch, product guys who don't realize the problems and the exec team who is blind to it all. They may have a "good network", but they are terrible when it comes to device launches. Seems like no one at VZW was pushing RIM on fixes they needed before launch and it was really RIM finding issues on their own - so much for in house testing.
It's an iPhone wanabe...
This thing is an iPhone wanabe. What can you expect? The interface looks great but if it's not functional in a way that improves the overall experience of using a Blackberry then, it's going to drop like a turd. You can also blame this on the customers too. I get so sick of people talking about the need to have some kind of physical feedback when buttons are tapped on a touch screen. Get over it and try something new!!!! It took me a week to get used to my iPhone's touch screen but, once I did I never miss having a physical button to press.
Test Drive
I went into a Verizon Store last week and spent five frustrating minutes with the Storm. That's all it took to convince me it's junk. Yesterday I tried out the G1 (Google Phone) at a T-Mobile store and was pleasantly surprised. It's not as polished as an iPhone, but it has potential. I suspected that the "sold-out" Storm would be returned in droves as soon as customers tried them out, and I was right.
verizon is crippleware
Faceplant, the reason Verizon gets criticized is cause they do cripple all basically all their devices to force you to use their overpriced services. Do a google search for "verizon wireless crippled" and you'll see about 1000 articles on it.
And I'm sorry to say I'm a verizon customer, but only cause i depend on the network and don't need that many features that verizon disables on their phones for my job.