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.
My Treo 700w WinMo5 died, so I had to get something in a rush. I got the Storm instead of HTC or Samsung because of a desire to leave WinMo behind me. The Treo was very productive but had to reboot umpteen thousand times per day, and had a barely usable browser without enough memory to run Opera or Skyfire.
At first the Storm annoyed me because my productivity dropped. I slowly started learning shortcuts and tricks, which are documented NOWHERE other than in blogs and other websites. So my #1 peeve is that the idiots at Verizon saved money in the worst possible place: A comprehensive manual. The manual that comes with the phone is too pathetic to deserve more space here.
My peeve #2 is how the Storm handles IMAP mailboxes. Again, the idiots at Verizon thought that crippling this feature would be acceptable in the interest in reducing network traffic. Very bad decision! I’m getting adapted to the BIS mail handling, but I’m still not convinced that it’s adequate. WinMo with all its defects does an infinitely superior job and might just tip me over back its way.
Peeve #3: The clock doesn’t show on the title bar of all pages. I stopped wearing a watch years ago, and seeing the time persistently on the phone is desirable.
I have three weeks before my 30-day return period is up, and there is still a chance I’ll exchange it for a WinMo phone. The Samsung Saga has good features, price and reviews… but it’s WinMo.
I got the storm on the release date. Initially, it was laggy, but no worse than the two winmo phones I had prior. If anything, it was still faster. The update has made it far better. I guess you can say I’m a “power” user when it comes to texting. I have two IM apps, text just about everything (who needs to call…), and receive 15+ emails a day for work. After about 3 days of not pulling the battery, I find typing to lag big time. The keys are delayed, and sometimes don’t register. I simply turn it off, and pull the battery, turn it back on, and it’s good. So, honestly, it’s great.
Hated my Storm. Died during a software update, so I returned it and went back to my 8703e. Nightmare.
I have a Storm and am very happy with it, especially with the OS update.
I have the Storm. I love the Storm.
Its neat. I’ve spent a few hours with the storm. I see this drawling a line between those who Need a blackberry for hard core work (power user) and those who want a Neat device. If the line is thin, it may work for you.
I can say this. If you are anywhere near Wearing the key’s off your curve or 8800 series, then you will obviously miss your keys!
I’ve had a Storm since day one and love the thing. Yes there are a couple of quirks with the thing, but name me a phone that hasn’t had issues on its first release. Looking forward to more updates and applications for this thing.
The Bold is the only BlackBerry I will use. The Storm cant stand up to it. if you want a touch screen get an iPhone.
Love it.
The haters want it to look/feel like every other BB. They’re unwilling to deal with a learning curve.
I needed rock solid push email that is BB’s claim to fame, and wanted the fun stuff like a usable browser and music.
Yes, it is buggy but I have had no problems that compromised the core functions (phone/email). And the whole package will get better as more apps are available that are designed for the Storm.
Oh yeah, and the phone is awesome.
I love my Storm. It obviously needs some tweaking to reach its full potential but I can deal. I have used a Pearl and a Curve, loved em both and now I love the Storm as well.
Got mine day of launch and love it. Most people don’t seem to give it a chance. Best bb I have ever had.
Amazing that most folks who list a plain first name (John, Karen, Steve, etc) leave positive comments about the storm, while those with more creative handles are not. Makes me wonder to what extent Verizon is astroturfing this thread.
i call BS
a friend of mine went in a verizon store to get a storm the sales guy told her to WAIT because it’s not performing as well as it should. a verizon sales rep turning away a customer?… then you know its bad.
LOVE IT
I had mine for a week and returned it. Didn’t really like the clicking, too slow for me plus it’s a pain to sync my mac and all my stuff.
Went back to my iphone 3G
I’ve had my Storm since day 1. There were some issues until I put .75 on it, since then absolutely no problems. I love the thing and won’t be returning it.
I bought this phone the week after it launched and had a few problems with it at first. I’ve upgraded to the .76 OS and put the business card under the battery sheild and am satisfied with it.
The only problem I have with it is lack of inovative software/games available: i.e. appstore
and sometimes when I use the voice dialing on my bluetooth in my car it hangs and I have to wait for it to come back. Also the accelerometers get confused sometimes and it switches the portrait landscape position, but corrects it’s self next time around.
All but one of those things should be able to be fixed with a software update which hopefully will come beginning of the year.
Other then that I love the phone. I love all of the options that RIM provides and it is very customizable to my liking.
First BB and love it. QWERTY is large enough for my fingers and I have found the unit very responsive. BES is amazing with the OTA syncing. Would not trade it in.
I have one, I love it and yes it has bugs, but this just came out, I forsee many things to come next year for it, applications and updates to make it run better, look how long it took apple to master their iphones and people still complain about them now. This device is awesome
@KenC
While I’d normally stop and think about it and say you’re on to something, this statement covered all PDAs/Smartphones (BlackBerrys, Treos, Windows Mobile, etc.)
I do not believe it to be a case of them getting sneaky and wording a statement that skews the return rate in their favor — that’s the official statement, and the Storm, as said by Verizon Corporate to us, “has the lowest return rate of any of our PDAs.”
Returned mine after 16 hours. Went back to the Curve. This has been the ONLY cell phone I’ve ever returned and I’ve previously owned the 1st gen Moto Q and a Samsung i760.
I wonder if BG posted the return rate of the original iPhone when it first launched, which was roughly almost 50%. Time to go look through the archives. Take a guess what I’ll find.
Horrible, horrible, horrible phone. Had one and returned it. Bought a second one after the software update and although it was improved a bit, still not a good phone. I will stay happy with my Curve.
I don’t love my storm but I am keeoing it…Biggest problem besides no option to turn on/off accelerometer is always hitting speaker or mute while on phone. not cool.
I got the storm the day it came out and love it and could not see using a deferent device every thing else just looks bad next to the storm I think it is because the SCREEN with the high resolution