Poor Passport Build Quality?
Out of all of the BlackBerry devices that I've had, starting with my trusty BlackBerry 8700, I've never had to replace any before it was time to upgrade (~2 years). Within about 30 days of receiving my white BlackBerry Passport, I had to send it back because there was a discoloration on the screen.
On to Passport #2 - The sim card cover didn't sit flush with the metal bezel, and the keys on the keyboard did not sit even with one another. I thought maybe the keys were slanted for ergonomic purposes, but they don't follow a pattern - some slant right, others left, and some perfectly flat. Neither of these issues really bugged me - I just figure it gave my phone some character. What DID bug me, however, is that the proximity sensor wasn't working so the screen would turn itself off/on at inopportune times.
On to Passport #3 - I just received my replacement in the mail. The keyboard is fine, but the sim card cover still doesn't sit flush. Also, the 'volume up' key rattles. Again, I can live with these issues, as long as all the hardware components function properly, but should I really have to? Shouldn't everything just be the way its supposed to?
Maybe I've just gotten some bad luck, but it's a little worrisome that all 3 phones have had very noticeable issues. Am I the only one?
Consistant bad build quality / Poor quality measurement
To date, I have purchased 22 Passports for my company. Not a single one has been perfect. The ones I purchased originally, when it was first released, all had the issue of the screen becoming loose. Clothes pegs and about a dozen hot charge cycles with the pegs in place almost sorted the issue, but not satisfactorily as the screens would always start to lift again.
Some had loose sim / sd covers that would not come off, but rattle freely and not fit flush against the metal frame.
I bought one for my CTO last week and have not had any feedback - as is only used for international travel and he has not been on a flight since.
I gave my one - which after months of clothes pegs, and bending etc, was almost perfect ( had to use a hard shell case to disguise the fact that there is a design fault that makes the strip of plastic at the bottom of the keys bow, so as to show a bit of the "I-beam" at either end) to another employee as there were none in the shops in the area.
My replacement arrived today from Carphonewarehouse and feel quite honoured that they hired Stevie Wonder to put it together...
Within an hour, I could see the top right hand corner of the screen was already higher than the rest of the screen (all 22 have been line this to start with) - but this one has frets that are raised too high, has light bleed above the "R" key thet spreads to the screen and aldo has severe light bleed on the left of the Q key and the right of the "P" and "backspace " keys.
This will be returned tomorrow.
Whilst I'm at it, I purchased a classic for my wife a few weeks back. When the staff in Carphone warehouse unboxed it they immediately noticed it had not been put together properly - the slide in and out bits for the sim and micro sd card did not fit and stick out at an angle by a mile, so they sent it back to Stevie and ordered a replacement.
How the hell is it that:
1) Blackberry have such poor design of their screens (Z30 was fine, screen was clearly designed by an engineer, not an art student)
2) They only employ blind people in the manufacture and QA departments.
Do I have to wait for Porsche to bring out their variant of the Passport - which is a great phone, if you ever find one without a fault.