- September 18, 2009 1:25 pm
Having a piece of art, geeky art that you and your company have spent so many hours and sacrificed blood and tears for experience a quality problem is a sad sad thing to go through. Understandably, I’m sure RIM is feeling the heat as both Verizon and Sprint BlackBerry Tour’s (9630) are getting flack from users because of faulty trackballs. Return rates have been estimated as high as the 50% mark according to both Barron’s and a CrunchGear poll — not a small problem or claim to say the least. It really isn’t hard to find information confirming said problem. A few minutes sifting through such sites as Howard Forums, as well as many other BlackBerry specific sites have turned up quite alarming rates of incidences. Such issues will eventually cost someone copious amounts of money. One side-effect for carriers is that some of those lost dollars often get passed to them.
Even though they aren’t responsible per say for the hardware issues, (even though field testing is supposed to catch problems like this), feathers from both Verizon and Sprint are getting ruffled. So much so that a PR firm even sent Mobile Crunch a statement “clarifying” the issue, rebuking it, and more or less calling them out on a “false” claim. The statement goes on:
I thought you would be interested to see that both Sprint and Verizon Wireless have refuted the unsubstantiated comments made by TownHall Investment Research. We would appreciate it if you would also consider updating your story as soon as possible given that both Sprint and Verizon Wireless have strongly refuted TownHall’s claims about the carriers’ return rates.
Some one is a bit pissed to say the least. Oh well, when you build crap, do a crap job testing it, and then release it to millions of people, bad PR is sure to result. You know the drill. RT away.
Source: MobileCrunch, Image Source
The last few days if you mentioned the words, Verizon, current user, and pre-order BlackBerry Tour, you may have wittnessed a small example of what standing next to a nuclear explosion was like. Verizon’s early decision to lock out current customers from being able to pre-order what is easily the best CDMA BlackBerry to date was downright ludicrous. Thankfully cooler heads have prevailed and the consumer has once again won another battle thanks to the power of voices in numbers. So, I leave you with the above image to ponder on all that is good and what the collective whole have accomplished today!
Source: Mobile Crunch, BGR, VZW
Crack addicts your addiction will soon be given a shot of new life. The BlackBerry Tour is now showing up on Verizon rebate forms with “valid dates” from June 28th-August 1st. We could see the Tour drop anytime within that window. Obviously, we’re all hoping it’s closer to the 28th, but we’ll just have to wait and see. What are you doing in the meantime to pass the time?
Source: CrackBerry
If you are a Blackberry addict, which if you use a Blackberry isn’t hard is in fact almost a given, Crackberry.com’s pre-release early review of the Blackberry Onyx will leave you drooling. Bold users, prepare to feel as if your Bold is now inadequate and “old”. As far as a quick rundown of the specs go, those looking into the not too distant future at picking up the Onyx will come to appreciate the full boat of features and extremely impressive visual appearance the Onyx gives off. Come on inside for a quick rundown of specs as well as a short movie compliments of Crackberry that showcases the Onyx and compares it to the other various Blackberry models in the 88xx and 9xxx series lines.
CDMA Blackberry fans will no doubt be glad to hear (and see) that the Blackberry Tour is finally hitting Verizon inventory systems. As you can kind of clearly see the release data as of now is slated for July 13th. I for one love the style of the Tour more than the Bold, though I would gladly take the Bold relating to service provider and WiFi. I guess that’s what the Driftwood/Onyx is for right? In case you forgot what the Tour is bringing over to CDMA land see below:
- 480 x 320 display
- 3.2 Megapixel camera
- EVDO Rev-A + Quad band GSM for globe trotters
- GPS
- MicroSD card support
- 1GB internal memory
There you have it. Start the countdowns.
Source: Slashgear
CDMA Crackberry users who have been oh so impatiently waiting for a reason to be less wealthy and instead trade it in for the greatest CDMA berry yet will soon have chance. A spy shot courtesy of one of Boy Genius’ ninjas shows the 9630 Tour coming to Bell for $599.95 CDN ($510 USD) free of chains. While a contract price is still up in the air, if Bell does business as normal and follows other pricing schemes, Bell Customers can expect to walk away with a shiny new Tour after signing over their lives for 3-years. However, in return you should be able to get the Tour at a slight discount coming in around $199.95. Now, as far as U.S. users and Verizon are concerned, we’re still waiting for any *official* unofficial confirmation such as a leaked screenshot or something. At least we know it’s coming now that are northern neighbors are getting ready to cash in. CDMA users, are you going to upgrade?
Source: BG
If you happen to have a bad addiction to Crack – Crackberry that is, and happen to be enslaved to the United State’s largest CDMA carrie, (Verizon for those of you who didn’t know), your Thursday afternoon just became a whole lot better. The Blackberry Tour (9630) whose release date has been tossed between July 15th, 17th, and now 13th will according to several sources close to the matter come in if not exactly on one of those days, at least that week. The recent addition of July 13th is compliments of Kevin Byrne from Howard Forums, who has a pretty darn good track record and has a house right in the ballpark concerning matters such as this. I’m sure you’re excited, I know I am and I don’t even have Verizon. I can say I would honestly consider switching to Verizon for the Tour if only it weren’t devoid of WiFi. Anyone else excited?
Source: BG
