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 wanted this phone to work sooooo bad.
The hardware has a problem. All of them make a weird outbound call sound that appears as if the speaker is broken. Half of my calls sound like your in a cave and my customers were bitching.
This pohone is not ready for primetime and I am shocked no-one else has had a problem with the sound quality
I got it with 0S .75 installed then tried out the .83 I love this phone. I can’t imagine not having it. I can’t imagine anyone not liking it.
@ Richard:
Great review. I could not agree more with you.
Visiting family for the holidays and have had the storm since the first day it came out. My brother in law made fun of it as he sat on the couch playing with his star wars sword thingy on his iphone. I returned six emails, edited a document for work and then sent it to my staff, and then browsed the net for the next hour without one browser crash. He looked at me the whole time like I’m an idiot. The sound of that damn sword still wooshing around.
The storm is no iphone killer and thank god for that. The monkeys need something to keep them entertained.
KIDDING
@ flipflop:
I hope you are kidding as returning emails, editing documents and browsing the net can all be done on an iPhone even faster over WiFi while talking on the phone at the same time something the Storm can not do!
Have had my Storm for a couple weeks. Love it, Hate it.
PROS:
Screen resolution is better than anyone could have hoped for. The camera is nice (but frustratingly slow to take a pic)
CONS:
The commercial says you can type “Reno Nevada” instead of “Nelly Fritada,” well mine likes to type “Nelly Fritada” easier than Reno Nevada. Typing is no fun, and honestly I think the main problems come from three basic flaws that make me want to SCREAM!
1. This device is SLOW. I can never tell if it did not receive my input or if it is thinking and I should wait longer (15 seconds at times to unlock)
2. The touch screen is not sensitive enough. It is designed to respond to thumbs – nothing smaller, which makes it hard to get the cursor to go where you want it to edit type.
3. Basically a part of #2 – there are no scroll keys. So if you type an email, see a mistype, you can only get within a word or two on the same line (this may take several tries) then you either have to backspace or delete everything from as close as you can get the curser to your mistake. SCROLL KEYS – not rocket science.
Iphone
LOL, To the person that said it took 10 calls to customer service to fix your DOA phone, you’ve got to be kidding. People love to hate cell phone providers. I work at VZW and there is no way it took 10 calls unless you were uncooperative at the very least. I refuse to believe that you seriously HAD to call back 10 times for that one issue. Even if the rep couldn’t help you, they would have transferred to tech support(where I work) and we would have sent out a brand new phone. If we failed to then you could have asked to speak with a supervisor and they would have done something. Maybe it would have been a long call, but it should be fixed on that first call. Also, you hanging up on the rep because you were irate or something doesn’t count as having to call back in. If people would call in and be patient (also DON’T call in on the phone you want support for! which in this case didn’t apply) then it would be fixed the first time. Keep in mind us reps have 10 people per hour yelling at us and patience runs short after a while. Be calm and firm with your issue and we will happily take care of you. This goes for all custumor support, in all industries. Except for Comcast of course. (Just kidding).
somehow I misspelled customer as “custumor”…my bad.
This is my final farewell to Verizon. I stayed with you through the years Bell Atlantic (yeah, that long). I’ve endured the good times – StarTac, First Blackberry – and the really bad times – everything made by LG.
I opened my Storm yesterday, as happy as the day I discovered Super Mario Bros. and Duckhunt on Nintendo. To say I was disappointed is an understatement.
Clicking is annoying, you can time the lag with an hourglass, and to make matters worse, the call quality is pretty bad.
I said to my wife and brother the whole time that this is my last stand with Verizon. Consider my tenure finished. I’m not one to leave a provider just because of a phone, but let’s be honest: I live in the NYC metro area and call quality is good on almost any carrier. And if the worst part of the iPhone is that it can’t cut and paste (it’s not like I’m writing my memoir on the phone), then I’m sold.
Thank you Verizon for the years of miserable phones (although good quality service), but I’m jumping on the AT&T ship. Here I come rollover minutes. Get my iPhone ready.
@ Me:
How many calls does it take to get a billing error worked out? 10, 12, 36. 3 months? Try telling one of the poor bastards that bought into the Verizon “One Bill” fiasco!
This goes to show that AT&T Mobility is once again the best carrier. I own a Blackberry Bold and man i got to tell you this device is impressive. I love this blackberry. Its fast, its 3G, and the looks its so Bold looking. I went to a Verizon Wireless store and tested the Storm. The screen is a push down touch. The whole screen goes down when you touch it. That is horrible. When i pressed the SMS button it went to VWZ Navigator, WOW lol…If its like that I rather get the Iphone 3G which is way better than the Storm. Besides the Storm is what Verizon only has compared to mammoth AT&T and its exclusive phones. I rather have the fastest 3G network rather than the Largest 3G network… Make a Bold Choice, Get the Bold…
Float your finger on text that you want to edit. The blue cursor will turn into a hollow box that you can slide back and forth to position the cursor exactly where you want it.
When the hell is RIM going to have a decent media player for BB. I could not believe how completely lame the Storm is. The media player is a joke. If you are listening to anything, have to stop it and come back the media player starts at the very beginning again!!! What happened to the claim that apps run in the background? Starting at the beginning again is worthless, my cheap MP3 player was better.
Also I listen to audiobooks from Audible for years, NO SUPPORT of the Storm! Podcasts, videos, trying to manage these on a BB is painful at best.
Mail is supposed be the selling point of a BB. NO IMAP support and all my mail in one mailbox mixed is not so great either. The keyboard is a chore to use. The browser is horrible.
I just got my storm a few days ago, and I love it. 30 minutes of e-mail and messaging was all it took for me to get used to the screen, and I can type MUCH more accurately (and as a result more quickly) on the storm than I ever could on an iPhone, but not as I was on the curve (but which touchscreen is?).
The one problem I have with it is the lack of IMAP e-mail, but I have been doing most of my e-mail on the storm these past few days anyway, so that may not be that big of a problem.
I bought the Storm the day after it came out. Initially I liked it, but the more I used it, the more it drove me crazy. Slow and buggy! Can’t stand the sensitive accelerometer. Have to push the screen when typing is ridiculous…should be able to turn that off. I could go on and on. I switch to AT&T for the iPhone. Blackberry users are living in the dark ages.
bought 2. 1 for me 1 for the girlfriend. in 2 weeks the green call button fell off… not happy. on my replacement i noticed screen not clicking like my first or like the girlfriends now sometimes the bottom of the screen wont work at all also our screen brightness is off mine at 100 is like hers at 60 all settings are the same. taking this one back this week. this is their last chance.
It has a learning curve but after the weekend of getting used to it I love it! Everyone jumped to conclusions because it is a little hard to figure out. This is a great phone. Power user and hated my Treo before this.
I’ve been using the phone for about two weeks now, and though I have traditionally been a huge fan of Windows Mobile (for the handwriting transcription) I really like my storm. Typing is easy, and anyone that seemed to think that their fingers would get tired must have really been looking for something to complain about. It’s been fast, Verizon’s network is great, and the battery life is outstanding (two days on a single charge).
Amazing this post has way over 300 comments without any nonsense from Like-To-Spin wasting readers and his employers time and bandwidth. ike-To-Spin with all his fanboyism now is a bit silenced when the facts come out. Come on Like-To-Spin tell all the unhappy users on this post they are all wrong and call them all your favorite insult names, as they are not as smart as you since you went to the “MOST EXPENSIVE COLLEGE IN AMERICA” and played an IT dork in High School! Tell them now how the iStorm is the best thing to ever come out of Canada, better than hockey!
The complaints and stories about iStorm returns keep pouring in! Good job BGR for having a story that is obviously on the pulse of this issue! Probably be 400 comments before you know it.
The best we have to determine here to the people who actually kept or remotely put up with the iStorm was it has this “steeeeeep learning curve” or should we now call it the learning mountain? Is that a complement? Great news since competing devices seem to be devoid of this affliction as they are just smartphones that work! The only lines we see for the iStorm now is the long return lines!
I haven’t had one single problem with my storm.
in fact, today I easily figured out how to tether my storm as a bluetooth modem to my laptop. i can now surf on the internet at the beach with a full screen laptop while my phone is tucked away in my pocket. =) yay!
the keyboard on the storm is top notch and significantly helps limit any chances of errors while typing. can’t say the same about the iphone though. i just make too many mistakes with iphone that it significantly slows down my typing rate. hated it!
another thing is that I can now use a wireless bluetooth enabled headset to listen to music in full stereo while my phone sits anywhere in my pocket. if this isn’t cool. then what is?
and another thing, I don’t have to use any software to transfer my mp3’s and videos to my phone. i can just drag and drop my music onto my phone. no need to rely on iTunes. simply put, I have full control of my music.
there are so much useful features on the damn thing that I just can’t get enough of. I’m loving my storm more and more. This phone is a damn good bargain for its price. with so much technology crammed in this little phone, I don’t think blackberry made any money on it at all. its an early Christmas gift for me and anyone who knows how to appreciate a truly useful device.
those of you who keep bitchin’ about it are a bunch of idiots who don’t know how to make use of advanced technology and Blackberry’s enhanced features and its ease of use.
so stop whining and stick with your half baked iphone if it really makes you happy. LOL
I own a Storm and am very happy with it. I much prefer the “steep learning curve” – or, rather, mountain for the more pedestrian of us – to the infinite flatitude and zilch learning curve of the iphone keyboard which just doesn’t work very well, there is nothing to be learned, it is simply infinitely frustrating. The Storm can be at times as well, but it is true that once you get the “knack” of the click, texting is pretty much a smooth experience.
Not awed by the browser – it works but the zoom is frustrating to use while the browser is still slower than any other, for some reason, HSPA or not, RIM just has a crap browser. Opera Mini is your best hope.
Camera truly slow but pictures very decent. Video okay but I don’t care about that very much.
Lots of apps not adapted for Storm – RIM did not do its homework properly. Most hang or are inappropriate for the device. Hope this will improve over time.
Music & video – great sound, great picture, nothing to envy the iPhone.
And finally – the design is one of the best RIM came up with.
Would not return it as I’m sure this is one of the better devices on the market, and certainly one of the sexiest Blackberries ever made.
The name berrylicious says it all. Unbiased and you always get the plain truth! HAHAHAHA
iPhone users can easily add music to their phones without iTunes if they like there is the OTA way or just use Simplify Media or about 20 other apps mostly free in the app store so you can fetch them from a local network, FTP, WebDAV all without any problem and mostly free and all impossible with a BB. I will point out iTunes is an excellent to organize your content however, maybe why RIM is tying hard to tap into Apple’s iTunes platform with their pathetic desktop software that does not even work for Mac users.
Maybe notice that the media player in the iStorm truly sucks and does not even have a simple bookmarking feature, so tracks start at the very beginning each time! No Audible support for the iStorm either so audiobooks are out, no eBook reader so reading books is out, podcast support, HA terrible! How about movie rental for a long flight? NO! WiFi, of course not. If you want to compare the iStorm to the iPhone on its media strengths you are really NUTS!
I say if and when the iStorm improves THEN and ONLY THEN will it matter to me. The curve is what I am keeping. Paying out what is guaranteed to be about $2400 or more for an iStorm includes the contract while it barely works and is inferior to some of the competitors devices is NUTS. WHY WAIT for fixes that may NEVER come to improve this phone into expectability? NOT something anyone with half a brain and a wallet should want to do. Maybe iStorm 2 or 3?
By the way my iPhone keyboard works great, no issues, no frustration. The iStorm so called “Steep learning cure” is just a nice way of saying the keyboard sucks and you should GET USED TO IT! Clickidy-Click-Click! Reminded me of the old IBM Selectamatic typewriters when I was a small child! HAHA
Paul, how is the $2400 for a Storm (with contract) any different than the $2400 for the iPhone (with contract)? Is that supposed to be a put down for the Storm?
And why are you attacking some other user that hasn’t even posted on this article? If you want to start a war with this LikeToSpin guy then at least wait for him to post something. Your rants make you sound like a huge iPhanatic and nothing else.
@ Anonymous loser:
I am so glad you asked! The difference is the iPhone WORKS! All the BB fanboys are saying to wait for a fix. I am saying FIX IT FIRST! IF you want to pay now and wait for a fix, good for you! Maybe why the only lines the iStorm is seeing are the return lines! By the way so does the BB BOLD, it works also! No fixes needed!
LikeToSpin has posted and is reading, so don’t you worry. He is hiding under his bed now that there 13 pages of people pointing out the bugs HE said did not exist for at least 100 comments! He uses different names sometimes. He will read this! HAHAHA
Are you really an Anonymous loser?