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 would only trade mine out for the Curve 8900, which isn’t out, since I had my previous Curve for well over a year without major complaint. However, that would put me on T-Mobile’s infant 3G network, and crappy EDGE reception.
I do like my Storm, though I have a daily gripe or two. Then again, I had frequent issues with my Curve when it was new too. Hopefully a new OS is coming out soon to smooth it out a bit. I would also like to see more applications, but I guess RIM’s SDK isn’t as easy for Dev’s as Apple’s. That’s the iPhone’s best trait in my opinion.
I love my Storm. I never select things by accident, the touch technology is wicked.
I ditched my iphone for it fyi
I was #16 on day of release for the Storm. Great looking phone, but terrible interface. I have an iphone 3g and wanted to make the Storm work just to get on Verizon, but to no avail. Returned it after 10 days and the rep. was not surprised. So staying with my iphone 3g.
To clarify: Interface was terrible=meaning I could not get close to accurately typing emails, text, or web addresses in landscape or portrait. Trying to touch and click a small highlighter/hypertext name in a website was impossible unless I was very determined or used the mouse which was very unresponsive. I tried the tricks of altering the speed and touch sensitivity and nothing worked. I REALLY wanted it to work with Verizon, but holding on to iphone 3g until improved ATT service or until Verizon gets iphone.3g!
I returned my two Verizon Storm’s this week. Hated them and switched within 3-4 days over Thanksgiving. I bought a AT&T BB Bold. Didn’t like the BB Bold in stores, but love it now in everyday use for heavy duty Internet and Email. Software build is something like 4.6.0.190 which is crazy. Means there are tons of defects in BB OS 4.5, 4.6, 4.7 which is a stripped down minimalist OS. But the big Bold device means bigger keys and a bigger screen which is nice coming from a BB Pearl. Wifi is a must now since they have it onboard airlines when you fly. Two defects in the BB Bold are the vibrate is so weak you miss calls all the time. And internationally it can’t switch from 3G to EDGE since AT&T disabled that feature that exists on the Rogers Bold. Completely idiotic.
Plus BB Bold battery life is terrible. Have to get the extended Seidko Battery.
The BB Storm is a piece of junk. Wireless Upgrades don’t work, and there will be thousands of fixes coming. No Wifi is crazy, but otherwise if it had Wifi the battery would only last an hour. Big screen is not very high rez since it is a touch but sucks juice. UI touch interface is really bad and get used to the clock/hourglass since every action is super slow. Even Locking and unlocking is slow, due to memory leaks. Photo App is terrible. iPhone UI blows this out of the water and they have a 1.5 year head start. OS 4.7.0.1999 ain’t going to fix this BB Edsel, since there are thousands of defects. RIM and Verizon just released it in time for Christmas, so they don’t get crushed by the iPhone 3G. In January there will be thousands of BB Storm returns and a heap of angry Verizon customers.
So pissed the Fooz deceived me…
I finally returned my Storm to Verizon yesterday..I had so hoped this would be all that they said it would be…even with the OS upgrade, the apps were still sluggish, the keyboard would hang display between portrait and landscape, my 3rd party apps couldn’t access my data card…and on and on…I my wait another several months to see if they can get it ironed out. It’s a shame…it could have been done right, but went to market to soon with all these problems popping up.
Had it and liked it but sent it back even after the update. It was too buggy and I couldn’t trust the screen hardware after the bottom stopped clicking after a week of use. I don’t believe in modding a device using a piece of paper or chancing a replacement after it failed so quickly. I need something that works out of the box and can’t waste anymore time trying to get it to work right using hacks and mods like a WinMo device. Moving on to the iPhone or the Bold.
Bought the storm at launch.. After the first week of wanting my iphone3g back I fell in love with it. I think it just takes time to get used to.. The screen will
Never beat a physical keyboard but it beats my iphone. Maybe its the network but load times are about 30% faster on the storm as well.
I have the storm, and im loving it! Im coming from ATT 8300 curve and I consider myself a “power user”, took some time to get use to the keyboard and typing, dont really have any problems with it. the accelerometer is working faster with .75 than .65. With any first gen phone it’ll take time to get use to it and im confident rim will have everything ironed out with upcoming OS updates.
Bought 5 for various execs in my company. 1 sent his back–he hated the limitation on the SMS. Out of the other 4: 2 loves, 1 indifferent, 1 hate (but is ok now after the 1st update and 4 hours with tech support.
I am waiting for them to get all the bugs out.
I have a Storm and I love it. Has been fast since I got it the day it came out and does more than I expected. Everyone I showed who has the iPhone likes it more than their iPhone. It is truly amazing and I would never return it.
@ Evilhomer:
Better watch addressing me with any agreements the fanboys on here are already convinced that anyone that agrees are all just one person. HAHA I have already been accused of being you. HAHA
I have spent many years reviewing different products and analysis of their usefulness in my work and it always amazes me when people think tech specs alone make a good product. The fanboys on here dismiss all the features competing device has they are missing as unimportant and tout ANY feature a their TOY has as the greatest anyway. So point well taken that specs alone tell you nothing.
Now that the story has finally coming out about the dissatisfaction of the masses to the Storm and it is NO KILLER of anything. Fanboys on here are spinning that there are less people returning it that keeping it. HAHA
They forget how many tried it in a store and walked! There was a line for ONE day, with a sell out were many stores had 10 -25 phones. Since than NOTHING!
I have no bias really. If the Storm was a great phone, I would be using it!
i had the phone for about 12 hours before I returned it. It was so slow, and very frustrating. Even with the update i still had to take the battery out a few times to reboot it and this was just the first day.
I love my storm. Wanted to switch to Verizon for a number of reasons. It is much better than ATT for my uses. The Storm is not perfect, but I prefer it to everything Verizon has to offer. The only thing that I might prefer is the Bold, but I much prefer the reception and VZ nav over anything with ATT.
Much better than Samsung Blackjack.
Our company got the storm to try it out and we are a Blackberry only shop. After 4 weeks it went back home to verizon. The reasons…most/all our users that tested the are POWER users and they complained of spending more time re-learning how to type and retyping everything….also clicking on the wrong buttons…lastly 2 users were rather annoyed prior to the OS 75 upgrade of slowness…but the last 2 testers said they were fin (both had the OS 75 on the phone). Over all most were impressed but stated the following: Its a great phone and just needs time to work out the kinks…BUT if you are a power user it will annoy the CRAP outta you.
I bought a Storm and was pretty disappointed. I like the click screen for web browsing (it beats the iPhone-I used to have one), but it’s terrible for texting and BlackBerry Messenger. This phone would be great if you could text and enter phone numbers and notes simply by touching the screen (without having to click the whole screen down), and browsing and clicking links by clicking the screen down, so you don’t open a link accidentally by scrolling down a page. The only thing I’m hoping for is that maybe a future software update will bring about this feature. If it’s not corrected soon then I’m springing for a Bold with AT&T.
My company uses Verizon (Thankfully switching to AT&T Sept 09).
I have had the HTC touch, then upgraded to Blackberry storm. I hated the clicking even though I have used Touch and gotten to like it more than I thought.
The Storm just did not do it for me.
I have had Blackberry phones with AT&T on my personnal account and been generally happy.
I returned it on 30th day.
Got the HTC Touch Pro and loving it!!!!
Hate the fingerprint magnet it is but great screen and fast OS.
I have iPhone as personal phone and wish it did some things in email better otherwise the UI is just the best!
I find the opposite to be the case. Like anything else, there is a learning curve when you take on a new piece of technology. I love my Storm, has much better reception in low coverage areas than my Treo had… Also, Verizon has some of the same Blackberries that AT&T offers, plus about 5 or so other great phones that I’ve purchased and either given as gifts or used myself.
I got my BB Storm last week. After installing the update I love it. There still needs to be plenty more updates. Still slow sometimes. Being a former Treo owner I come to expect issues with smart phones.
I picked this up on the day it came out. Wanted to return it then got the update, it seems to run alot better with the update but definetly has its quirks. i’d say for corporate email/calendar integration this is the device. the call quality is also alot better than the iphone but the phone interface itself kinda sucks. all in all they need to come out with more apps for this thing as iphone blows that part of it out of the water. It also has a fairly low sar rating which is the reason i bought it. I experience bad headaches when using a cell phone with alot of juice. Say it aint so but i’ve spoke with a few people whom have had problems with headaches and cellphones.
I am returning my Storm. I am going to stick with Verizon because of the voice service quality. I find the editing of a message very tedious when trying to move the cursor. I also have problems with entering info in the web browser. Those are my biggest complaints. A few minor ones but not show stoppers. I am getting the curve on a one year contract so I won’t be tied to the curve for too long.
I beta test a lot of devices… XPERIA’s, Storms, Curve, Blackjacks, etc. So I never owned nor returned it. I, personally really liked the “click” screen and the overall use of the phone. But in my time using the Storm the software was terrible. If I had a Storm and the software was as good as the iPhone or XPERIA or E71, I would definitely keep it. The functions are there (as most Blackberries) but is needs serious fixing. As a beta tester, it felt like an alpha to me. RIM doesn’t need to put out Windows ME they needed to put out rock solid. The iPhone had issues but it was pretty solid to start. This wasn’t. I can’t imagine many people keeping them. An associate of mine bought one and returned it in a week. He loved the device (when it worked ) but it was too mch trouble. I agree. Get a Curve until RIM FIXES!!!! the Storm. Once fixed, then go for it..
I ordered a Storm the day before release. Held on to it as long as I could thinking I’d get used to it (my first Blackberry). Missed too many calls due to ‘lag’ on the phone app. I didn’t hate it, but it was simply too hard to do too many things. Exchanged for a Curve and I’m happy so far. If it had Wi-Fi, I’d probably have waited until updates fixed the problems but there weren’t enough ‘pluses’ to convince me to wait out the ‘minuses’.
I have a STORM about two weeks. I love it. Before that I had a 8830, and the Storm is way more fun. Looked at OMNIA and it liked this better