Verizon BlackBerry Storm Return Rate
Here’s the skinny on this situation… We had heard various return rates on the Verizon BlackBerry Storm from three (actually four, but we’ll discount the last one) extremely credible sources of ours. These ranged from 35-50% in some markets/regions. That is an absurdly high figure, folks. While we trust our sources, we wanted to continue to dig until we wrote up a post on it here. We let a publication quote us on that, because that is what we had heard. No harm, no foul. But we weren’t going to post on it here until we had 100% confirmed it.
Verizon Wireless hit us up and here’s what a Verizon Wireless official had to say: “The Storm has the lowest return rate of any of our PDAs and at this point in its life cycle, it has the lowest return rate of any PDA we currently sell.”
We’ll let you guys do all the talking. Own a Storm? Happy with it? Returned it? Know friends that are happy/returned theirs? Hit us up so we can get some good feedback and your thoughts on this.
i played with this for 2 days and was slow text was bad batterylife was the worst. went back to tmo and got a white g1 awsome phone oh and talk about multitasking g1 beats iphone and storm. have way less problems and tmo 3g dosnt disc like att very good signal. go tmo
Here is the trick. Availability of the Storm is lower than that of any other PDA they offer thus return rates will be lower especially when you take into account that PDA released before it was what, 3 months prior? what about first month return rates comparison?
the storm sucks.. in fact i just got home form the bar in which a friend of mine who owns a Storm was extremely envious of my iphone 3g….seriously… it was a good laugh
I owned the Storm for 5 hours…that was 5 hours too long. Anyone claiming to love this cellular abortion has clearly never used any quality devices and therefore has no point of reference. I have owned virtually every Blackberry, HTC, Nokia and iPhone (1 & 2) over the years and was truly insulted by this device and its laughable UI. I will however, commend BB and Verizon on a brilliant marketing and promotional campaign. The fact that they were able to keep consumers and experts away from the device until just before launch was their only option and they handled it perfectly. It’s like when a movie is so bad that the studios won’t release screeners to critics before the actual opening to avoid the inevitable critical decimation and public backlash. I could go on but I’m sure the individuals out there loving their Storm would say that even if it produced active ebola with every painful click of the screen…everyone else knows exactly what I’m talking about.
Coming from a solid pearl that i loved, I just got my Storm yesterday and I hated it for the whole day mostly due to the typing and occasional extreme lagginess. It even crashed on me once.
THEN! I fell in love with it overnight. LITERALLY!
I decided when in bed ready to sleep, to forget about my thoughts of how phones should be and decide to really figure out how RIM expected me to use the phone.
After toying with it for an hour on websites, emails, texting, music, videos(gorgeous), over and over again. I got it. Took me like an hour and a half.
Once you get passed its VERY STEEEEEP learning curve, the phone is actually quiet easy to use and then you never want to put it down. I type almost as fast if not faster than i did on my pearl. Sure its still has little bugs here and there and did crash on me once today again, but its way better than my pearl. I would not return for this anything but an upgrade in the hardware. (MORE DETAILS IN ANOTHER POST)
I loved my other berry and my mom has a curve. Blackberry has always been releasing updates for all their phones, so im looking forward to those, but in the mean time, this is still the best of all. I LOVE IT NOW.
I cant imagine going back to older BB’s. It would be a STEEEEEP DOWNGRADE!
I said I would write a post about the STEEEEP LEARNING CURVE of the BB Storm.
Here is the rules I established that night i spoke about in my previous post:
1. Keep your fingers on its designated side. In other words I realized that you make more mistakes crossing your fingers than if you designate the left keys to left finger and right keys to right finger. Reason being that the buttons on screen are not physically beveled like a physical keyboard so you are more likely to hit the wrong key on such a flat surface. (Probably same reason I still hate typing on an iphone)
2. The screen does not recognize two presses at a time so you have to try to type rhythmically.
*After those two things, TRUST ME! Your typing speed will be much much faster.
Other tweaks:
1. Max the swipe sensitivity and Bring Tap Interval and Hover Period to 100 in ‘Options – Screen/Keyboard’
2. USA users should change the Network Technology to 1XEV in ‘Options – Mobile Network’ so to make your device not search for different types of signals that it wont use in the USA. Global users should switch it to their default Network Type as well.
Things not to do:
1. I would not remove software to make the phone faster, then there would be no point in having the phone. (ex: youtube app, visual voice mail, vz navigator, aim, etc) Although it may not run as fast with them installed, it is better to keep them on your phone and make sure to close them when you are done with them(BB Key – Scroll Down to Close – Click Close). Better to bring the phone back than uninstall all the fun stuff.
Closing:
Again I did not initially like this phone, I hated it for a day, but if you adjust your mind to really re-learn using a smart phone(kinda like with the iphone which i still have typing issues with) then you will turn to really love the BB Storm. Especially with all its extra features and absolutely gorgeous screen. ITS REALLY THAT GOOD!
The phone is good, the browser still sucks, and where are all these applications we’ve been told are coming?
I had the storm. I hated it it was slow. Really slow. The phone stopped charging from the ac adapter. I was very disappointed. I have had 8700,7200, and a pocket pc. I now have the omnia. The battery life on the storm is horrid. Its a great multimedia phone but not good for texting. There is no one hand operation. The accelerometer is really slow. I had so many miss touches even using the suretype technology.
I had it for 4 days and returned it. To many problems.
Branding.
@ FormerADCMember:
You are full of shit. PERIOD. People who belong to the ADC have NOTHING TO DO with iPhone 3G development! If you do not like the iPhone, FINE. LYIING and making up a story is just stupid!
The iPhone is developed INSIDE of Apple and that has NOTHING TO DO with the ADC!
@ BlueHorseShoe:
So I guess when you defended the Storm all that time to me, you were what stretching the truth that you were having no problems?
I will give you credit that you are finally coming clean that the device is a buggy mess that even a fanboy like you had to admit! Maybe some of those union VZW people can fix the iStorm for you!
@ FormerADCMember:
So you did not want your “name” connected to the iPhone? You should be connected to shock treatment. What does the ADC have to do with the iPhone? ADC members which I am one did not have anything to do with the iPhone. What does this post have to do with the iPhone anyways? It is about Storm bugs and returns which there are many.
First off you have all your facts wrong and have no idea what you are talking about. The iPhone is not be returned in any great number and sold millions of phones. Obvious from this post, the reviews, and users complains the Storm is far from a success. Fanbois will go to any length possible to tell a lie to cover up a problem with their love of their lollipop.
I own an iPhone and bought the Storm which returned after a week of struggling with it. There is no comparison. Thank god!
Had a VX6900 and that piece of crap was so agonizing I was ready to leave big red! Got a rebate for the storm so I tested the waters and gotta say been amply satisfied since, VZ I aint going nowhere
Maybe write a post on a STEEEEEEEEEEP ACCEPTANCE OF BUGS AND BAD DESIGN of the BB Storm.
I returned the one I had. My fingers did not need the incredible workout anymore of that the stupid ill designed click screen where RIM allowed a gimmick to overtake a usable keyboard. The Storm belongs nowhere near a store. No amount of software fixes will help this abortion.
I have an ATT acct with the Iphone, and have a VZW acct with the Storm. I’ve had the Storm since day one and I love the phone. It has some software issues, and many have been fixed, but not all issues yet. This phone does everything that I want it to do, unlike my Iphone 3G. The Iphone has an awesome interface, wonderful games and apps, and the best browser in the business. However, admittedly, I get better call quality, speakerphone quality, mms, bluetooth, and just all of the other perks of blackberry devices, but with a nice touch screen. Again, it’s not perfect, and still has it’s issues. But then again, my Iphone, and my Iphone 3G had many many software issues, and features missing that I can now get on my Storm, such as copy n paste and a better camera with flash. I’m happy.
I LOVE THE STORM!!!!!!
Mine came with the newer software(unaware of earlier problems with old) and it is by far the best phone available even compared to iphone(screen looks cartoonish).
I have a feeling apple has many of their PR people here trying to give the Storm a bad name.
You people are idiots. This phone is not for amateur cell phone users. If you are in the 40+ age category this is not for you because you do not have any idea what OS upgrade means!!! Hello! Didn’t you upgrade your software? Obviously if you read this website or crackberry.com often you would know that the original OS .65 was horrible. the new one is awesome and if you research your tips you would love the phone just as much as I do. Also, if this is your first blackberry you have no REAL problems to compare it to. I had a pearl then a curve and now the storm. Don’t you remember that awful browser and that garbage trackball that always sticks and doesn’t point to exactly what you wanted it to. Or that it always deleted ALL of your messages unexpectedly at random because your shit memory card couldn’t handle all of your messages! I swear some of you old bags should just go buy the KNACK OR THE COUPE with the EMERGENCY button for when you finally croak!!!
I’ve had mine for almost a month now and I’m pretty happy with it. My biggest complaint is that battery life with Bluetooth is terrible. Forget 5.5 hours of talk time. The thing can barely stay ON for 5.5 hours. The screen is great and I like the touchscreen. The whole thing was a little buggy before the .75 upgrade, but it’s still the best thing going on Verizon for PDA. It was tough to leave Palm after 12 years and they still have a superior product in a few areas, but overall, I’m sticking with the Storm and Blackberry.
@ Paul
You still fail to realize that it’s not a defense of the company or product, but a defense on giving a product a try first before making haste decisions and has nothing to do with ‘truth’. Not sure what you gain from all of this ‘this phone is better than that phone’ crap. You also fail to realize that the iPhone had many issues when first launched as well. With that being said, once the Storm gets the updates needed, which I’m sure will come in time, it will be a solid device.
I call it like I see it.
Own a Storm and love it.
The BlackBerry Pearl got returned a lot because of low memory problems–often due to users leaving too many applications running–and carrier technical support staff didn’t give better usage instructions to their customers. So, high return rate may not necessarily be due to a defect in the phone. But it is a problem of usability and customer “training.”
luvin’ it more and more everyday.
1. supports stereo bluetooth headphones. (a2dp)
2. drag and drop mp3 and videos in Windows Explorer. (no need to use crappy itunes)
3. Voice dialing (press the left button and say a name, it will dial the name of the person on your phone list.
4. can run instant messeneger in the background while performing other tasks
not selling it now. =)
Well, I had one for about 2 weeks and couldn’t stand it. I returned it, my complaints were that I couldn’t type fast enough and it was just to slow. It took way to long to change orientation and to start up programs. And yes I did all the software updates. I switched back to my 8830WE and will continue to use it until they release the Curve 2 or the newer equivalent of their world phone.
I have had my bell mobility storm now for two days and I like what the storm can do
But I also think a few more OS updates are really needed.
I currently carrier a bold with rogers for work and the bell line is for my
Personal use and I still find the bold the better device.
But I love the storms screen and prefer to browse the net and stream videos on the larger
Screen.
All in all I give it a 3 out of 5 but will hang on to the hope of a good OS.
I received mine in the mail 2 weeks ago. After the firt day, I was ready to return it. Two weeks later and I’m still on the fence. When it works, it’s fine. When it doesn’t, it’s maddening. The lag, the keyboard,the lack of pocketmac support (even with the new drivers)will probably tip the scales in favor of a return. To be fair, I also use have an Iphone, which magnifies the user interface deficiencies of the Storm.