Has BB Spoiled Us With High-Quality Hardware -- And Are We Doomed With Foxcon?

I have used BB's forever and am now realizing that my BB's have caused me zero hardware problems. ZERO! I have a drawer full of old BBs that were retired simply because technology moved on.

The only BB hardware issue I ever had was the rubber rim piece of my Playbook came out. It was replaced.

I'm fearing that things will change like the did for Lenovo. Every Lenovo I own has issues. Weird stuff. Like a cheap (but for business) compact laptop that made vibration noises because they did not properly screw down the HDD.

I'm typing on a Lenovo Carbon that has collapsed mouse keys that don't give any feedback or operate consistently.

I've never had issues like this on BBs. But what other electronics maker pulls this off these days? They all manufacture in China and crank out garbage.

Will BB still make high end phones outside of China? And, no, I don't think you can make a first-class phone like the Z30 outside of China.

why isnt quality possible in china?

About 85% of phones contain Foxconn parts anyway, the same goes for your tablets, computers and laptops. The quality seems to work well for Apple, so why can't it work well for BlackBerry.

Posted via CB10

I don't know about iPhone. It might not break but NO way is it as quality as the Z30. Everything made in China is compromised in terms of quality. No one makes a garment in China instead of Italy because they make the clothes better there. Same for gadgets.

The fit and finish on our phones kills Samsung and even iPhone. They never break.

Its all in the cost price and MOQ. QUALITY is justified by price and also qa qc of end product.



Via my Z30&Q10

I think that their flagship phones will still be made in Mexico, the Foxconn deal was just to slash the cost of the Jakarta phone. It's supposed to be a very low-cost, 0 on carrier subsidy at launch type of phone.

Posted via CB10

I'm pretty sure that the high end phones will still be designed and made by their traditional facilities and only the cheap and cheerful emerging market phones will be made by Foxconn. That said, the more hardware that's out there the more chances we have for more great native apps.

It's a shame to hear about the quality of the X1 Carbon. I've had my eyes on that laptop.

To my knowledge, Foxconn is ONLY manufacturing the Jakarta. It will be a low end device. I too prefer the quality BlackBerry gives us compared to the competition. There are many that will disagree, but I'd be pissed if the next gen BB10 phones turned out to be aluminum

Posted with my Q10!

Doesn't Foxconn build the iPhone? As far as I can tell the iPhone quality is pretty high up there whether you actually like the phone or not. In the end, its still Blackberry I think that makes the final call on what is acceptable and not acceptable.

A low end device is a low end device. Foxconn could manufacture a high end device and it would be... high end. where is the evidence that a blackberry built low end would be better than a Foxconn built low end and same with high end too.

BlackBerry has a history of really good handsets. They will expect a certain standard from Foxconn to make sure it's undeniably 'blackberry'

Posted via CB10

You guys are missing the major point.Quality does not always mean durability. Look at iPhone 5s. I think it is one of the highest quality and firm feeling device that has a total sense of solidity. Drop it once on concrete and it is dead. 9700, all plastic, the battery cover flexes and gets lose over time, drop it from 2nd floor window, just a tiny scratch. Even though iphones are made in china they have a quality feel, most if not all lines match nicely there are no awkward gaps or artifacts, it just looks like a nice device.

I have been using X220 that I got about 3 years ago, it is an amazing laptop, did it have issues? Yes. Is it working like a champ, Yes. What is my next laptop going to be? Another Thinkpad.
I always considered thinkpad to be the blackberry of laptops. I don't think I can ever use another laptop. It can take a beating, with 12.5" it is extremely portable and I can toss it from place to place it won't budge, but it's plastic parts that they attempted to give it a nice look can chip very easily..

So you see they need to forget about fanciness and give us a decent device with latest hardware and a screen that won't break with a single drop (look at all Z30 broken screens, it is really bad, whole thing shattered with one drop on Z30).

Anyway, any direction BB takes towards manufacturing new devices is a good direction but it is a terrible direction at this exact point, before they fix BB10 and iron out all the issues they got going on, getting a new device to the market is not the best decision.