To those in the know...
Are BB10 devices still being manufacture or has production stopped?
PassportSQW100-1/10.3.2.2876
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To those in the know...
Are BB10 devices still being manufacture or has production stopped?
PassportSQW100-1/10.3.2.2876
My Classic has 161215 as the date on the box, so is pretty recent
Posted via CB10
That's not how it works.
Devices are manufactured in large batches (usually just a few in the case of BlackBerry) and then they are kept in bulk storage. They are only packed into a box when they need to be shipped (to a distributor). The box date you see is the packing date, which is not representative of when the device was actually made.
Posted via CB10
Why do you ask?
Q10 (SQN100-3 : 10.3.2.158), Passport (SQW-100 : 10.3.1.1779)
The is all this speculation on the faith of BB10 going on. Knowing if production is still going on or has been halted might be just the hint to end the speculation...
PassportSQW100-1/10.3.2.2876
I always thought the final stage of manufacturing was to package the product, as not doing so means handling twice at additional expense, time etc
Posted via CB10
It's more efficient to do separate packaging runs that include loading latest shipping OS to include carrier specific software, any carrier specific literature/manuals and the actual manufacture of the device may be months earlier. The reason being that one specific Blackberry model such as Classic SQC100-2 can be used for many carriers.
That's exactly what you do... if you have a product that has such a high demand that you'll be shipping everything that comes off the line directly to a distributor for sale. Apple does exactly this when they start making a new phone model, for example.
But if your production batch is larger than your immediate demand, as is the case with BB (and tons of other manufacturers for lots and lots of products that still eventually sell), then you have decisions to make.
There are still Z10s and Q10s being sold as new today, yet they were last produced in June of 2013. So much has changed since then that there's no way BB could have known when these phones would sell, or which distributor and retailer would sell them - especially for models that are compatible with many carriers all over the world.
So, they have their phones bulk-packed and shipped to their own warehouse. If a distributor orders 20,000 phones, they pull that many out of storage, flash a recent version of the OS on them (possibly with the localized language set as default as well), package the phone with the latest insert/user manual/marketing materials in the correct language, include the correct local version of the charger, and then send the phones to that distributor. It's a lot cheaper to do that than to, say, have to re-open a bunch of UK-packaged phones, reflash them, throw away all the packaging and inserts, replace the chargers, and then repackage them for sale to Indonesia, or the UAE, or Brazil.
Anyway, the last phone that was actually "manufactured" was the Passport SE, which was really just a standard Passport in a newer case (it was rumored that this design had been ordered by a carrier, and then canceled before delivery, and BB went ahead and completed them and marketed them as the Silver Edition). The last new model was the Leap, and it was last in production in April of 2015.
BB's hardware manufacturers can produce several hundred million phones a week, and will BB's sales levels where they are, it only takes a few weeks to make a production run that will last for a couple of years of projected sales. Given the high costs to take a production line off-line to retool it, every effort is made to project the needed number for the lifetime sales of the phone and then to make that many on the initial production run, where you only have to pay retooling costs once (for the motherboard and perhaps a few other components like antennas, it would be one production run per model/radio variant).
Thank you for taking the time to respond in such detail and well written fashion. It was a captivating read and informative. Much appreciated!
PassportSQW100-1/10.3.2.2876
And what about the batteries sitting around for so long? Like if you buy a new Z10?
Passport SE
PS very interesting rumour about the Passport SE, where did you hear it? Any additional link?
Passport SE
Li-Ion batteries will store without damage for quite a long time (4-5 years), as long as they are stored in the correct way (partially charged - not full or empty). What wears them out is charging cycles, especially when used down below 20-25%. If you run your battery down that much, you only get around 400-500 charge cycles. If you recharge before it hits around 40%, you can get as many as 1000 recharges out of a Li-Ion battery.
The Passport SE rumor came from a couple of BB employees - anonymously, as you can understand. It's not been officially confirmed, but then, that's not the kind of thing that likely would be officially confirmed. It's unlikely that we'll know for sure while they're still selling them - it's the kind of thing that is only eventually released long after it matters, like the information in the book "Losing The Signal" - none of that stuff would have been officially released while it still mattered to the business.
Thanks!
Passport SE
In the earnings call of March 2015, John Chen confirmed they were developing a special Passport model for Verizon. It never came out, but a few months later the SE came out.
I put two & two together.
Posted via BlackBerry Passport