Verizon! - Keep your 8330 DO NOT upgrade to TOUR

I recently got a new blackberry Tour, I upgraded from my 8330 Curve from Verizon. Let me tell you how BIG of a mistake that was. Looking at the Tour�s specs and comparing it to the 8330, the Tour has a 600 mhz processor vs. 8330�s 225mhz processor. I thought for sure the Tour would be faster and better. Well no doubt it�s a little faster device but definitely not better! The only 2 things about the Tour that I like better then the Curve is the 3.2MP auto focus camera and ability to watch videos in higher resolutions. But what good is that when the battery doesn�t last a full day. The first phone (Tour) I got from Verizon appeared defective to me because the battery only lasted 10hrs, so by the time I was coming home from work the phone was pretty much useless to me since it shuts off the radio when the battery is low. I got a brand new phone and it did the same exact thing, but now the trackball didn�t work right which is a known problem with the new blackberries. It wouldn�t move horizontally half of the time, so I had to get my 3rd phone. I got my 3rd phone it still sucks� the trackball works ok but definitely not as good as the Curve 8330. By the time I�m coming home from work the battery is dead, I had to buy a new battery with a wall charger and when I come home I replace it so I can continue using my phone through out the day. I miss my 8330 CURVE! So if you�re thinking about upgrading you phone, think twice before you do it, especially if you use your BB a lot.

My curves battery doesnt last a full day, but i use it alot and signal at work sucks so it makes sense. And my curve also shuts off radio when the battery gets extremely low.

Sounds like a lemon, sorry to hear that. I'm on Tour #2, and it works great. Did you exchange it through Customer Serivce, or the store?

BlackBerry - Tour 9630 Specs �€“ Blackberry Tour Specifications

Battery & Battery Life

Battery: 1400 mAHr removable/rechargeable cryptographic lithium cell
Talk Time: 5 hours
Standby Time: 14 days

BlackBerry - Curve Battery Life, Memory and More Specifications

Approximate Battery Life (8330)
Talk: Up to 260 minutes
Standby: Up to 11 days

That is interesting, both the Talk and Standby time are greater on the Tour then the comparable Curve.

A heavy user should consider a second battery for continued service. Fortunately, the BlackBerry can do that.

I got a new one through Verizon's customer service and they had me do 1.5hrs of troubleshooting before they decided it is the trackball that's broken, right now i'm at work and I just power off my phone so i can use it on the way home. I wish they had a bigger battery for it so it lasts all day. When i had my curve it lasted 2 days no problem.

My tour rocks. Might be your device.

I got one of the newer ones, build date: 8-12.

Check your box, right above the "Handheld made in ....."

Originally Posted by ryoujyoku

Sounds like a lemon, sorry to hear that. I'm on Tour #2, and it works great. Did you exchange it through Customer Serivce, or the store?

Customer Service, they shipped it to me FedEx 2day. I wish Verizon had the 8900 Curve, I would like to have that instead of the Tour.

Originally Posted by Duvi

My tour rocks. Might be your device.

I got one of the newer ones, build date: 8-12.

Check your box, right above the "Handheld made in ....."

I just got my 3rd one, like 3 weeks ago. It didn't come in a box, the device came w/o anything (it was a replacement). One other thing that grinds my gears is that the USB interface on the phone isn't the same as the old curve, and all my chargers and cables are no good and can not be reused. Why would they do that?

Originally Posted by jeden87

I got a new one through Verizon's customer service and they had me do 1.5hrs of troubleshooting before they decided it is the trackball that's broken, right now i'm at work and I just power off my phone so i can use it on the way home. I wish they had a bigger battery for it so it lasts all day. When i had my curve it lasted 2 days no problem.

I believe the extended battery is now available for purchase. Although, if its not, as Mr. McLay suggested, as second battery never hurt anyone. I've always had a second battery for all my devices.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

I used to have problems with battery life on my 8310 Curve, to fix it I left the phone plugged in for a full day and overnight (like on a Saturday or Sunday). After that I haven't had any battery life issues. Same thing worked for a friend of mine with a Bold too.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

Originally Posted by jeden87

I just got my 3rd one, like 3 weeks ago. It didn't come in a box, the device came w/o anything (it was a replacement). One other thing that grinds my gears is that the USB interface on the phone isn't the same as the old curve, and all my chargers and cables are no good and can not be reused. Why would they do that?

To meet the unified cell phone charger standard. micro usb is what they decided upon. Considering that most bluetooth devices come with the micro usb instead of the mini usb, it's not that big of a loss.

I got my Tour right when it came out and the battery lasts for a good day or two under heavy use. Why not just buy a car charger and plug it in on your way to/from work? Also make sure that you fully charge your phone in the first place. The battery might look full but it is not fully charged until the little lightning bolt disappears.

Because I am still on my FIRST Tour! I must be a glutton for punishment... Because I have had the frozen trackball, low battery life, frequent reboots, real hot device, and yet I am still on my FIRST Tour! Hmm, I got mine on the 2nd day of its release. Why I am still holding on to it? Because it works?? Yeah!!

I had a Mac long before I had a PC. One of my biggest complaints back then was the fricken trackball on the mouse. That thing got stuck more often than my Tour trackball gets stuck! So, I guess for me, a frozen trackball is nothing to cry about. It's just an inconvenience that I need to fix. So, when my Tour trackball got stuck, I hit the forums and found a solution. With the Mac mouse trackball, it was dirt, hair, oil, etc. that caused it to get stuck. Sometimes the mouse trackball got misaligned. I imagine with the Tour, it's similar. Just clean it. If that doesn't work, then press firmly on the two buttons around it and the trackball itself until you hear a pop, then it will work just fine. Some threads have suggested that ring around the ball is not set properly.

What's the difference between talk time and standby time? Why is talking on my phone going to give me shorter battery life than just letting it sit around? Ah-hah! There's the problem with short battery life. We all get the Talk Time battery life because we are constantly USING the device. It's not in standby mode when we surf the internet, stream to Pandora and radio scanners, text and email. If you look at the Tour specs, Talk Time is not 2-15 days. It's not even 1 work shift! It's about 5 hours. Sound familiar? Yeah, during those my first 2 weeks, that's about how long mine last!Today, I get much better battery life. I took advice from the forums, observed which applications were draining the battery the most and made adjustments accordingly.

My point here is that instead of running down to the store to replace your phone at the first sign of trouble, know that it will get better if you seek the advice of the forums and apply patience and troubleshooting efforts to your experience. The Tour is a great device. It works. IMHO, the reason to upgrade is for compatiblity with future applications and features. The increase in Memory alone makes the upgrade worth it.

Originally Posted by jeden87

Customer Service, they shipped it to me FedEx 2day. I wish Verizon had the 8900 Curve, I would like to have that instead of the Tour.

I totally agree! I just posted a thread in the VZW forum talkin about this. I'm disapointed that they're releasing an 8530 instead of an 8900. The "upgrades" are minimal, so what's the point?????????

I'm gonna try to take really good care of my 8330 because it looks like it will be over a year before Verizon releases a Curve worth purchasing. :mad:

Originally Posted by Duvi

My tour rocks. Might be your device.

I got one of the newer ones, build date: 8-12.

Check your box, right above the "Handheld made in ....."

From what I understand, the date on the box is the date the phone was packaged... There's a 4 digit # behind the battery cover (week,year) that tells you when the phone was actually manufactured. At least, this was the case with the 8900

For instance, on mine, it says MFC DC:5108, which means it was manufactured during the 51st week of 2008

My first battery was bad at first, but then got better. I also got a new battery just in case, and my new battery is incredible. I made it through 17 hours and still had 60% left on my battery

Originally Posted by Dr.Sadistic

I believe the extended battery is now available for purchase. Although, if its not, as Mr. McLay suggested, as second battery never hurt anyone. I've always had a second battery for all my devices.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

You do not need an extra or extended battery, a simple wallcharger at work keeps it at 100% until you leave the office for lunch or when you go home.

I re-conditioned my battery the second I got my tour. It lasts a really long time, since I send emails, use bbm heavily and send an ungodly amount of texts. Never had an issue with my battery. I thought it was kind of short at first, but after I let it die 3 or 4 times, it got better over time.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

Count me in the returned my Tour and waiting for something better group. :cool:

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

To OP,
Two things I found ate up my battery.
1. Hiking in an area with no cell signal - the phone looked for a signal for two hours with no luck. I now turn of the wireless conncetion when I go hiking.

2. Leaving google maps with directions open as I drove around.

I sure hope nobody takes this thread seriously. The Tour is better than the Curve in every way. NO QUESTIONS ASKED.

If people would do some research and have some patience, they'd find out that the battery life improves drastically after the first 3-4 days of use.

I honestly can't believe the stores are exchanging devices for people like this.

Tscharf, I didn't return the Tour after 2 weeks because I wanted to stick with a mediocre phone. And no, I didn't have any complaints about the battery performance. Lol.

The 8330 is a very capable phone and then some. Maybe that's the problem. The 8330 is too good, making it harder to justify using an upgrade and NE2 discount for an incremental improvement and dropping $150 to get the Tour. ;)

I'm serious, I'm waiting for something better than the Tour. :cool:

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

Originally Posted by jeden87

I got a new one through Verizon's customer service and they had me do 1.5hrs of troubleshooting before they decided it is the trackball that's broken, right now i'm at work and I just power off my phone so i can use it on the way home. I wish they had a bigger battery for it so it lasts all day. When i had my curve it lasted 2 days no problem.

Originally Posted by Dr.Sadistic

I believe the extended battery is now available for purchase. Although, if its not, as Mr. McLay suggested, as second battery never hurt anyone. I've always had a second battery for all my devices.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

Originally Posted by petie

I got my Tour right when it came out and the battery lasts for a good day or two under heavy use. Why not just buy a car charger and plug it in on your way to/from work? Also make sure that you fully charge your phone in the first place. The battery might look full but it is not fully charged until the little lightning bolt disappears.

Originally Posted by granadzo

You do not need an extra or extended battery, a simple wallcharger at work keeps it at 100% until you leave the office for lunch or when you go home.

All what I was going to say. I'll make sure I have a car charger and an extra charger with me at work. That's the nice thing about the unified charger thing.....I always have a micro-USB in my computer bag so I can always charge via computer. And my local (authorized seller) store tossed in a second AC charger at half off. Mind you, this was all for my LG enV, but they will help me out when I buy my Tour.

The Tour is a 8830WE replacement. For those who had the World Edition, this is a great upgrade. It wasn't meant to be the Curve replacement (heck, even the 8530 isn't the Curve replacement - just a lower-end entry-level BB).

Trackball problems have been a well known issue with the first round of Tours. It sounds like the most recent batch has hte trackball issue fixed. It sounds like you haven't received one from the most recent batch (which have only been out for a very short time).

There are days when I use my BB and the battery will last longer than a day. Then there are days where the battery lasts maybe half a day - I'm using it a lot more. The more you use it, the quicker it will drain the battery. The Tour is rated at 5 hours of talk time. Run applications in the background? It will drain the battery. GPS? Calls? Browsing? IM? All of that is active use and the battery will drain. The simple solution is get a desk charger and just set the tour in it while at work. It'll have a nice home to sit in, easy to look at and even be able to use while keeping the charge up.

I have had my tour since the first day and I never had a problem. Even though I don't have a problem with my battery, my Storm would drain like no tomorrow and to fix that, I put the screen's blacklight down to about 70%. That seemed to help me alot with the Storm battery, maybe it will help you! Good luck.