BlackBerry Storm makes a bumpy start

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Despite a 100 million dollar marketing campaign, the Blackberry Storm has gotten off to a bumpy start. Early buyers have complained about technical bugs with Research In Motion's (RIM) first touch screen BlackBerry, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Verizon Wireless and RIM spent nearly two years developing Blackberry Storm smart phone as their big response to Apple's iPhone. Verizon Wireless is the exclusive U.S. carrier for the device.

Image Courtesy: Verizon Wireless

The company sold roughly 500,000 units in the first month after the Storm's October launch, in time for the holidays, contrary to the massive 2.4 million sale of iPhone 3G devices during its launch. Apple holds 25% of the North America's smart phone market.The iPhone 3G 8GB model costs $199 with a 2-year AT&T contract. The Storm is the same price after a $50 online discount.

Early Storm owners have complained about many software and hardware bugs. The device was rushed to market despite glitches in the stability of the phone's operating system, according to people close to the launch.

Verizon Wireless has declined to comment on specific sales figures for the Storm, but said the percentage of units returned is in the single digits, standard for a smart phone. RIM considers the Storm "an overwhelming success" and is making 250,000 devices a week to meet demand.

Verizon and RIM have provided a software update for the Storm in December similar to Apple which released a quick update to its buggy 2.0 software after the release of the iPhone 3G. Looks like it has become the trend of smartphone makers to release buggy software and correct it later by software updates.

(1 reply) #1 Xero on 26 Jan 2009 - 23:50

It's a trend with games too, releasing half assed games just so they can sell the rest as downloadable content.

#1.1 creamhackered on 26 Jan 2009 - 23:52

Yeah that's very true and very annoying when you get a brand new PC game and you gotta go get a patch for it to work!

(1 reply) #2 spd21 on 26 Jan 2009 - 23:51

It was released in the UK way before November.

#2.1 creamhackered on 27 Jan 2009 - 00:05

Yeah changed that to Oct...thanks

(2 replies) #3 Shadrack on 26 Jan 2009 - 23:57

If they really want to "compete" with the iPhone, they should sell it for less. Through my "renew-every 2" with Verizon Wireless it shows the BlackBerry Storm at $299 with 2-year contract. No thanks. Also, the data plan for BlackBerry is more than the iPhone. Basic Verizon Wireless service with mandatory data plan (if u have a category "PDA" phone) will cost you $55 + $40 (including ta

. No Thanks. Verizon Wireless seems to consistently have the crappiest phones.

I'll be switching to AT&T for the iPhone when my contract runs out in 2 months.

#3.1 +Chrono951 on 27 Jan 2009 - 01:33

Thats weird, because the Storm is advertised everwhere here for $199 with contract renewal. Also, the $40 data plan, unlike most other carriers, is truly unlimited and is different than even Verizon's own plan. The AT&T plans start $90 for Unlimited Night & Weekend minutes, then you add the text plan for $20 more a month and you are already at $110 per month for one phone.

#3.2 Shadrack on 27 Jan 2009 - 03:41

Chrono951 said,

Oh, my bad. I guess it was the HTC Touch Pro that was $299 after 2-year contract. The Storm comes up as $149.

#4 +Berserk87 on 27 Jan 2009 - 00:03

go on youtube and look at the .90 OS release videos.

its almost instant transitions now, and they've fixed all the memory leaks etc... problems people were having with them.

im going to getting one at the end of this month.

#5 +Ironman273 on 27 Jan 2009 - 00:05

My company's a Verizon house with Blackberry's. Myself and another manager got (had) iPhones which became useful after Exchange support was added. Once the Storm came out all the other managers (including the President) were making fun of us about how the Storm would be so much better. Today, all Storms were removed and replaced by iPhones. Mmm... I wonder how crow tastes?

#6 Don Matteo on 27 Jan 2009 - 01:30

I love my storm

(1 reply) #7 +Chrono951 on 27 Jan 2009 - 01:35

If we look to the past, the iPhone had a ton of problems when the 3G first released and it still has issues, but it seems people can gloss over everything if you add a small "i" to the beginning of the word.

iBush-Administration. Ahh, I feel better already.

#7.1 dyreryft on 27 Jan 2009 - 03:57

hahahaha.... love it

#8 Morphene on 27 Jan 2009 - 06:44

I think its more like iObama

#9 DanCADMan on 27 Jan 2009 - 15:47

Like Don, I love mine too. I have done most all of the leaked updates, and they seem to continue to improve. It does seem to be plagued by the same issues that I had with my WinMo phone (XV6700) in that when you install 3rd party apps, you take a chance of having lockups or other weird things. Of course you take a chance with the leaked OS's too. It's still way more stable than my WinMo phone was. There are several "little" things that make the phone nice. Anyone that is thinking about getting one should definitely go to Crackberry.com (http://forums.crackberry.com/f86/) and read through the Storm threads. There is a lot of good information on that site. I learned a whole lot about mine in a short period of time by reading through those threads. Also keep in mind that typing on this device is something you have to get used to. Just give it a little time.

I think once RIM gets the application center up full speed, it will really give the iPod a run for it's money. There are already some pretty cool apps available.

#10 z0phi3l on 27 Jan 2009 - 16:35

I love mine, still on the official OS release and other than the occasional accelerometer glitch it works wonderfully, even typing e-mails and texts on the keyboard is about as fast for me as a physical keyboard.

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