[malanis5]

Enough with calling the 9900 a high end device! I used to put it up on an extremely high pedestal until i decided to get one. I ordered new 9900 directly from T-Mobile; phone arrived with a physical defect and had to return it for an exchange within a day of receiving it. The replacement phone arrives last night; keyboard back light not working, so I'm going to have to replace it yet again. By the time I get my next replacement it will have been a whole month since I made my initial purchase.

This morning at work I'm stuck with a 9900 that drains the full battery in 2 hours without a keyboard back light. (gonna have to wait to get home to upgrade to latest OS on my personal computer. Ok so you're going to suggest I upgrade to the latest OS since it was not updated out of the box, and that's fine, but How can I call it a "high end" device if it gives so much grief and will soon have to be replaced for a second time from problems right out of the box?

Can RIM really afford to be spitting out devices with problems? RIM is not seen in a good light as it is, and even me who has always loved RIM is getting a reality check that maybe RIM isn't as great as I've always seen them.

so angering! I'm definitely not getting what I paid for.

[o4liberty]

I have no issues with mine at all. You have to realize that you don't always get a working device there are issues with all devices. And why a month to get the replacement ? At Verizon it takes only two days and shipping is free both ways. As far as blackberries go it is a top quality device with some known issues just like any other device!

[mssca]

I agree with the OP on RIM's quality control issues. Bold 99xx is one of the lowest quality phones that RIM has ever produced. I mean, if you are lucky and get a good Bold 99xx, you will be fine, but most of us had to return at last one unit for hardware defects.

It is OK if few phones are defective, but is NOT good when you have half of your phones end up dead!

[malanis5]

I have no issues with mine at all.

I wish I could say the same for me

You have to realize that you don't always get a working device there are issues with all devices.

Good point, and I do realize that, but 2 devices in a row? How can it earn the right to be called a high end device? Let's just call it a "middle of the road device" since you may sometimes get a defective device.

And why a month to get the replacement?

1 week to get initial phone.
1 week to get replacement phone
1 week to get second replacement
I guess it's more like 3 weeks. My bad. I feel better now.

As far as blackberries go it is a top quality device with some known issues just like any other device!

Well I don't disagree that most people see things that way, but does the title "High End" really leave room for the issues i've had, plus the bricking problems so many on the forum report? Just think "high end" title should be reserved for things more suitable to the expectations that come with that title.

[menaknow]

Well I don't disagree that most people see things that way, but does the title "High End" really leave room for the issues i've had, plus the bricking problems so many on the forum report? Just think "high end" title should be reserved for things more suitable to the expectations that come with that title.

Does getting a BMW that is a lemon twice (as faith would have it) qualify that a BMW is not considered a high end product? No, it's considered high end for features, performance and price.

I am sorry about your experience, and perhaps the T-Mobile store you are dealing with has a bad production batch (and it happens to every product). Otherwise the profession of reducing defects in a production line would not exist...

As for the bricking problem, people like to post when they are having a issue. When all is well people do not usually post. There are some threads that point to the majority (including myself) that is happy with the 9900.

My advice to you is go to a different T-Mobile store or try to deal with BestBuy or some other mobile store.

Good luck, and if you decide to try your luck again at T-Mobile, open the box and try the phone right there. Don't leave until you get a working product.

[anon(749368)]

Quality wise I has happier when I got the 8330 than the current 9930. the 8330 never had any glitches and i abused the poor thing toward the end of its life. The 9930, the touch screen stopped working twice and I had to do a battery pull, the battery didn't charge to 100% at first

[MB64]

getting a 'bad" phone is one thing....isolated issues is another....but with all the complaints about this phone on here....it's a bit more than just coincidence or "a few bad phones"...as stated in another post...I sold mines (actually traded, for a 9700 plus cash)...and I will sleep better knowing that I got rid of a "ticking time bomb"......if anything, I'll get it a few months down the line again when/if they fix this problem.....gotta admit I love that keyboard even though I can do w/o the touch screen and the easily smudgeable (sic) battery cover (wish they had made it like the 9700 or even the 9000).

[r.santa1]

You are so right...they are average at best last few years..ive had alot of problems also and went back to iphone

[irkan]

Well specs wise it is blackberry high end (not 'high end') cuz other brands have higher specs .

But I totally agree with op rim are having major quality assurance issues with 9900.

It's granted that every new phone has few issues.

But 9900 seems to have a big one with bricking issue and I don't think it's right to categories it in 'every new phone have small issues' category

[Eli_B]

I've been one of the fortunate ones where my unit has been working wonderfully without any hitches or issues what-so-ever from day one

[jamesbondOO7]

Magnificent phone. Zero issue.

[pcgizmo#IM]

the 8330 never had any glitches and i abused the poor thing toward the end of its life.

While 8330 was a great device, it was far from perfect. Some of the bugs in the various OS releases were ridiculous! I returned my first 9930 because of a trackpad issue and the second has been just fine.

[qbnkelt]

I returned my first 9930 after two nukings and several random reboots.
Running it close to no apps now. Only have some FB, Twitter, banking apps, BeWeather, Twinkle and BeBuzz. Just added Poynt.
No problems with this one so far. It's been about two weeks. I'll be adding Meterberry soon.

[chunt69]

Very high end and it suprises lots of people at just how quick it is to switch between tasks/windows. Mine has worked spot on since day 1- new o/s's have helped the phone a lot in stability and reception/battery life but it was already good out of the box for me. Sorry to hear about your troubles though :-(

[thornburg24]

The only issue I have had with my 9900 is battery life. I really like everything about the phone. It is not the amazing piece of technology that it was built up to be, but a very solid device that I would still condier to be high end.

[blackberry_lover_forever]

Guys, we have to be honest... I consider myself like a lucky 9900's owner cause I got a good device with no issues, not even with battery life (since I upgraded to 503) but the reports of troubles with that phones aren't exceptions or troublemaker's complaints... I experienced only three bricking issues in three months (the last two within this week !!!) and It's everything but serious for an high end device like the OP said. According the business consumer's orientation of RIM, this phone is not exactly what I can call a success... My two cents on this post. Globally, I'm satisfied with this bold, much better than my curve 9300, no comparison with my old 8320, but don't deny than RIM gave us too much expectations for this device according to what they delivered...

[malanis5]

Does getting a BMW that is a lemon twice (as faith would have it) qualify that a BMW is not considered a high end product? No, it's considered high end for features, performance and price.

Well you're right, and thanks for the perspective, but what would people start thinking about BMW if they suddenly started producing more and more lemons and recalling a large percentage of their cars?

I'm not giving up on BlackBerry yet, I have my second replacement ordered already. I'm crossing my fingers it's a keeper.

[jtels2593]

I would consider the 9900 and 9930 to be "High End" smartphone.. Just maybe not to everyones standards, especially Android and iPhone users.

With the "nuking" and "bricking" problems, I would compare the Blackberry 9900 and 9930 to that of a Cadillac. It's a nice looking, luxurious machine... but under that beautiful skin, it's operating system is still poor quality General Motors crap... or in this case, Blackberry crap.

I love my 9930 though! It suits my every needs, except for not having a Google+ app.

[cbreze]

Enough with calling the 9900 a high end device! I used to put it up on an extremely high pedestal until i decided to get one. I ordered new 9900 directly from T-Mobile; phone arrived with a physical defect and had to return it for an exchange within a day of receiving it. The replacement phone arrives last night; keyboard back light not working, so I'm going to have to replace it yet again. By the time I get my next replacement it will have been a whole month since I made my initial purchase.

This morning at work I'm stuck with a 9900 that drains the full battery in 2 hours without a keyboard back light. (gonna have to wait to get home to upgrade to latest OS on my personal computer. Ok so you're going to suggest I upgrade to the latest OS since it was not updated out of the box, and that's fine, but How can I call it a "high end" device if it gives so much grief and will soon have to be replaced for a second time from problems right out of the box?

Can RIM really afford to be spitting out devices with problems? RIM is not seen in a good light as it is, and even me who has always loved RIM is getting a reality check that maybe RIM isn't as great as I've always seen them.

so angering! I'm definitely not getting what I paid for.

I agree with you. I looked at and tried 5- 9930's before finding the 6th one to work acceptably I opted to not get it anyway as I was just pissed at the poor QC. I'm in waiting mode to see what the new BBX brings, but it's hard to be optimistic when dealing with RIM products anymore.
Yes, as has been said many times that many folks are very pleased and got good devices the first try. But I would think the first time returning should produce a good device. Not always the case it seems with the new BB's. I would think the new BBX OS stuff better be game changing head turning awesomeness or ....?

[etul]

I've had mine for 2 weeks and I couldn't be happier. The device definitely has a premium feel to it. I've been looking long and hard to find a flaw, and I really can't. I guess, I'm one of the lucky ones. I also think that every single issue concerning RIM in recent months tends to get blown out of proportion. Whether it would be BIS outage, or a few defective devices, everyone is up in arms and ouraged. How about the years of reliable uninterrupted service beforehand? People are so fickle, and media bias doesn't help. For example, if there's a problem with Apple products, it gets conveniently swept under the carpet, or just dismissed as insignificant.
There, rant is over.

[pcgizmo#IM]

I'll be adding Meterberry soon.

Are you installing MB so you can monitor battery discharge rate? Now that app memory is no longer constrained like in the days Curve and Storm, I didn't think MB was relevant anymore.

[EECGeek]

Wow lots of different perspective.

I work in a car dealership so I know a thing or two about recalls and lemon vehicles. But I know my manufacturer takes care of there customers if they have an issue within the warranty and even outside the warranty at times, but I have not seen a "lemon" in years.

When you mass produce a product your going to have some issues, hopefully you have good quality control to root out most of them. Also I would never buy a vehicle in the first year of the new model, just for that reason, it's going to have some issues, that's the way any production line works. Now I did buy the 9900 in it's "first year", while I've had no issues other than battery life, I suspect RIM is taking this very seriously and working on fixes. And just like with the cars I work on, there are software issues and the updates will come out and hopefully solve them, but I guess we have to be patient.

I have personally updated my phone to the latest OS I could find that seems to be stable and have great results, my battery life doubled doing update. The problem to me is with the T-Moble's and Roger's who are very slow at putting out current software updates, I have to go and technically break the rules and update my phone with someone elses update.

Also someone posted that the phone was broken out of the box, I would suspect that the phone left the factory intact, and the damage happened along the way, so not necessarily a fault of RIM product or quality control, but maybe a packaging issue or shipper issue.

Anyways that's my two cents for what it's worth.

Greg

[knowledge_6]

go ask an apple store how many ip4s' were returned....

i have a friend that works at the apple store downtown toronto... and he said that he had one guy return his 20 times..

i'm not saying that apple is worse then RIM.. just saying that every tech device will have flaws in quality.. RIM has more parts then apple does (i.e. buttons, backlights etc)... therefore more things can be defective..

i don't want to beat a dead horse and thing of the past, but 100% of all ip4's were defective and you couldn't even replace it.. the antenna design was messed up!

my phone is flawless and if u look at the thread with the poll in this forum asking people like their 9900/9930.. you will see more people are satisfied then not... but again i do not know how many of those people had to return their phones to get one they were happy with..

either way i think the 9900 is the higest quality BB they made with a forged steel frame, the battery door kicks *** with that woven material to look like CF.. the lights around the trackpad, and the quality of the keyboard.. so in the end this is the BEST BB made.. therefore its high end.. and samsung still uses plastic in their galaxy phones, but still feels solid.. and i know those have issues and returns like crazy as well...

[jamesbondOO7]

I also do not like to compare with other brands, but it is good to get some balanced competitive information on this forum where fans of alternative brands are so vocal.

[jdnaples]

You fanboys are wrong. Here is the link RIM confirms BlackBerry Bold 9900 / 9930 bricking problems, working on a fix : eCell Phon. The fact is that the phones are totally unreliable like everything rim does. I bought a 9930 from verizon 2 months ago. It worked "spot on" like you fanboys claim. It is a "world" phone. Then I went on a cruise to the Caribbean and told everyone to text me at will, just don't call due to expense. 1 day into the cruise the phone crashed. I was without a phone for 7 days while people were probably texting me. I got back yesterday and asked Verizon for another phone. They told me it would be 5 days unless I paid to expedite it. I left the phone there. Verizon denied that the phones were defective and when I pointed out that it was on the web, the rude manager at the Pine Ridge Naples Florida store replied that "you can find anything on the web, because you are using a search engine." Verizon continues is rude and atrocious in store service. Rim continues issuing defective products. Fanboys keep trying to prop up this phone company when it is one of the worst phone companies ever created. Worse than Nokia, motorola, htc and whoever makes droid. I have been without a phone for 12 days before my next 9930 arrives. I am writing a complaint to verizon asking to buy any other phone they will sell me. IF that doesn't work, I am going back to sprint and buying an iphone or a droid. Now on an emergency basis, I am using a trac phone that works better than the blackberry although more limited. I will never never never buy another Rim Product. Yes, they are seen in a bad light, but for bunch of very good reasons.

James Daniels
[email protected]
Naples Florida