[ravenskman1]

Yes, price matters, and specs matter, but even if BlackBerry were to release a super high end spec phone on par or even better than the android phones out there, the sales won't increase drastically. For BlackBerry to get back in the day to day conversation of the average consumer they need to do something revolutionary in a major way, like the first iPhone. Granted that's a hard thing to do and I'm not saying they need to create a new form factor but they need to change the smartphone experience in a big way if they want people to give them a try.

[donnation]

My brother recently bought a Z10. He complained to me that his battery life was terrible and that he couldn't find a lot of the major apps he wanted. I explained to him that he could download snap through his computer or download a lot of Android apps on his phone by simply downloading the Amazon App Store directly from the web browser from his phone. He was somewhat satisfied with the Amazon App Store but commented "if I wanted another Android phone I would have bought one." He also said he'd never go through the steps of downloading snap because to him it seemed complicated and he isn't the type of person to sit down in front of a computer and do any of this stuff. His phone also came with 10.1 installed and I told him he needed to download 10.2 and that he could find it here on Crackberry and through a few steps he could get the latest software because his AT&T Z10 didn't have the latest firmware on it and it wasn't showing as available on his device.

As far as the battery I told him he needed to make some tweaks to his phone like turn off swipe to unlock (that he never would have figured out on his own) and most likely buy an extra battery because they Z10's is pretty small, to which he wasn't happy about that.

Now I ask you, who's fault is it that he purchased the Z10 and isn't educated on BB10. He did some research and knew of the hub and gestures which pointed him in the direction of BB10. He used to own a 9900 and was tired of Android. Blackberry makes zero effort for the consumer to figure out any of the stuff I mentioned above and he has has a phone that he really doesn't like now and will most likely get rid of. Where is he supposed to get educated on BB10? He sure won't get it from Blackberry.

[sleepngbear]

I find it somewhat insulting to call anyone buying an Iphone or a Android stupid or nimrod, clueless, idiots or any of the other names people are spewing in this rant... I know you think you are smarter because you own a Blackberry (which is somewhat comical in itself)...

Was not intended to be insulting. It just seems that smart phones more than other commodities are more the whim of the carrier sales staff than consumers educating themselves.

As for BB users thinking they're smarter, I specifically avoided even suggesting that this person would be better off with a BB for that very reason. But to be honest, I find your statement that such a notion is comical to be insulting itself. Because yes, as a matter if fact, by virtue of the fact that I am using a device that *I* want to use because it works best for *me* and not something some 18-year-old know-it-all pushed in my face, I do consider myself to be more informed than the majority of the smart phone-buying public. Did I at any time even remotely suggest that more of these users would be better off with a BB? No. But I will state without hesitation that most of them would be better off with something other than what was shoved under their noses in a carrier store.

[sleepngbear]

Now I ask you, who's fault is it that he purchased the Z10 and isn't educated on BB10. He did some research and knew of the hub and gestures which pointed him in the direction of BB10. He used to own a 9900 and was tired of Android. Blackberry makes zero effort for the consumer to figure out any of the stuff I mentioned above and he has has a phone that he really doesn't like now and will most likely get rid of. Where is he supposed to get educated on BB10? He sure won't get it from Blackberry.

Well, theoretically one should be able to find such education right here at what we're told is the biggest BlackBerry site on the planet. But since more bandwidth is used pointing out everything wrong with BB and talking up every other platform, that's not likely to happen.

[MikeLip]

If you think the average user is going to sit down and look at what they want from a phone, you are sadly mistaken. And if you think the average phone salesman is going to sit down and analyze their usage habits and requirements, when their pay is predicated on how many units they can push over the counter, again you are sadly mistaken. And finally if you think that the manufacturers are going to help in all this, well, you know what I'm going to say next.

The fact is to the average person a phone is a magic box that lets them talk, somehow, to other people. And also to send words through the air by some arcane science which probably involves the sacrifice of small animals at a full moon. The fact that some of the handsets available are designed in such a way as to focus on some areas that others may neglect and vice versa are not aspects that salespeople and marketing departments concentrate on. They focus on screen size and resolution, processor speed, and camera performance. Very little of which has anything to do with how well the device will do it's actual job.

Then you come here and find that hey, there ARE differences. BB concentrates on interpersonal communication, but is weak in other areas. Android concentrates on flexibility and openness, but communications are disjointed. iOS concentrates on reliability and style, and while communications are more coherent than android, it's nowhere near as good as BB. WP8 has the best email client I've ever seen and presents a coherent aspect nearly as good as iOS, but still isn't as well integrated for comms as BB - it seems to be concentrating on games, but has a nice selection of very useful apps. But almost no one outside of this community will ever take the time to understand the pros and cons of each platform. All they know to care about (which is far different perhaps than what they WOULD care about if they cared as much as we do) are the things Samsung or Apple or Nokia marketing departments are telling them. And I will bet that they have no idea there are even online communities like this, so we mostly just talk to ourselves. How often do absolute new users show up here? And what happens when they do? They usually get inundated by evangelists talking up BB. Some folks will say yeah, BB is a good phone. So is iPhone, WP8 and Android, but while they are advised to use the phone that works best for them they have no idea how to analyze their usage habits and make a choice. Heck, either do I. I tried phones until I learned what works for me, which the average dude can't afford to do. So I have no idea what the answer is. The truth though is any phone will do an acceptable job for 95% of the people. Then there's us

[pantlesspenguin]

Was not intended to be insulting. It just seems that smart phones more than other commodities are more the whim of the carrier sales staff than consumers educating themselves.

As for BB users thinking they're smarter, I specifically avoided even suggesting that this person would be better off with a BB for that very reason. But to be honest, I find your statement that such a notion is comical to be insulting itself. Because yes, as a matter if fact, by virtue of the fact that I am using a device that *I* want to use because it works best for *me* and not something some 18-year-old know-it-all pushed in my face, I do consider myself to be more informed than the majority of the smart phone-buying public. Did I at any time even remotely suggest that more of these users would be better off with a BB? No. But I will state without hesitation that most of them would be better off with something other than what was shoved under their noses in a carrier store.

I don't think Bob's post was in response to your OP, Mr. Bear. I think he was largely responding to this:

This is exactly why BlackBerry needs to stop worrying about the consumer market. All most nimrods are going to do on their phone is take pictures, text, and check Facebook or whatever stupid social site is cool this fifteen minutes. For the top end models most people seem to want that's a lot of computing power to do very little. BlackBerry needs to find a way to appeal to the enthusiast and hard core smartphone user that they used to own, which all tails back to getting enterprise onboard, the consumer idiots looking for the next shiny thing be damned since all they want is the next new thing as opposed to something that will actually last them reliably through their contract or over a period of more than a few months.

[collinc93]

fashion is the "inthing" in the smartphone world....its like the Hollywood lifestyle....its who is 'hot' at the moment you want to be seen with that makes them relevant whether the person is talented/of good character is irrelevant

[AnimalPak200]

I think most [insert anything] buyers are generally clueless and over-reliant on packaging and/or sales reps... but what can be expected? Most people are too busy carrying on with every other aspect of their lives.

Frankly I think most buyers make their decision based on a heavy mix of (a) what they can get now at the top of their price range [i.e. aspirational + instant gratification] (b) what they have seen their close peers use [because they know it works for a similar, real-life, person,.. and they can get help from them].

Well intentioned sales staff should only be there to further solidify their pre-existing 'reasoning', up-sell to the very top of your price range, and to enable the transaction. Bad sales staff will go through extra work to 'change' your mind and make you walk out with something completely different than what you intended.

[anon(5061193)]

I think most [insert anything] buyers are generally clueless and over-reliant on packaging and/or sales reps... but what can be expected? Most people are too busy carrying on with every other aspect of their lives.

Frankly I think most buyers make their decision based on a heavy mix of (a) what they can get now at the top of their price range [i.e. aspirational + instant gratification] (b) what they have seen their close peers use [because they know it works for a similar, real-life, person,.. and they can get help from them].

Well intentioned sales staff should only be there to further solidify their pre-existing 'reasoning', up-sell to the very top of your price range, and to enable the transaction. Bad sales staff will go through extra work to 'change' your mind and make you walk out with something completely different than what you intended.

Exactly right.. A good salesperson should confirm your original thought.. and up-sell you to the max....Come to places like this to learn about the product you are considering, do your own research...Salespeople are just that SALESpeople......

[eddy_berry]

I agree with you sleepngbear, but not completely. There are so many things that influence people's buying that salespeople are not the main problem. Public perception of both the devices and the company, peer pressure, advertising campaigns and even platform bias all play a part in someone's choices. For me, I guess it would be platform bias that made me stick it out with BlackBerry. I was lucky enough to have good devices that never gave me problems. It was not that long ago that I found CB so that didn't play a role. I loved my BlackBerrys. Now mind you I had to fight with the salesperson to get my curve quite a while back, but I bought my phones second hand after that. It would seem that BlackBerry has the biggest hill to climb in regards to salespeople, but they haven't been doing themselves any favors either in advertising and clearing public perceptions.

[BBUniq01]

My brother recently bought a Z10. He complained to me that his battery life was terrible and that he couldn't find a lot of the major apps he wanted. I explained to him that he could download snap through his computer or download a lot of Android apps on his phone by simply downloading the Amazon App Store directly from the web browser from his phone. He was somewhat satisfied with the Amazon App Store but commented "if I wanted another Android phone I would have bought one." He also said he'd never go through the steps of downloading snap because to him it seemed complicated and he isn't the type of person to sit down in front of a computer and do any of this stuff. His phone also came with 10.1 installed and I told him he needed to download 10.2 and that he could find it here on Crackberry and through a few steps he could get the latest software because his AT&T Z10 didn't have the latest firmware on it and it wasn't showing as available on his device.

As far as the battery I told him he needed to make some tweaks to his phone like turn off swipe to unlock (that he never would have figured out on his own) and most likely buy an extra battery because they Z10's is pretty small, to which he wasn't happy about that.

Now I ask you, who's fault is it that he purchased the Z10 and isn't educated on BB10. He did some research and knew of the hub and gestures which pointed him in the direction of BB10. He used to own a 9900 and was tired of Android. Blackberry makes zero effort for the consumer to figure out any of the stuff I mentioned above and he has has a phone that he really doesn't like now and will most likely get rid of. Where is he supposed to get educated on BB10? He sure won't get it from Blackberry.

I have helped plenty of Android and iPhone users with their phones too. The days of getting manuals with phones r long gone. We rely on posts like Mobile Nation, YouTube videos etc to learn more about any devices and equipment that we buy nowadays. It is up to the buyer to get the information to make an informed decision. I am not rich, so I do a lot if research before and after making any of my purchases. Same with my teen daughter.

Zed 10 with 1925 leak

[--TommesJay--]

It's all so simple, it doesn't have anything to do with 'stupidness'. It's just product involvement. The smartphone market is a mass market now, meaning that instead of business users from 25 to 50 you now have kids, teens and old people too. Thpse people buy smartphones because it's "the way to communicate in 2014". But that doesn't mean that those people are high involved into those products, it's rather that for them the smartphone is just like a door in their house, or a toaster, or a toilet. They have to have it and it has to work. And they will just go out and buy what everyone else has and what they know. They buy what they is commonly known as the best. This is why HTC found out those stats. People either buy an iPhone or a Galaxy, because both phones are already carried by millions (= must be the thing to get). And it's done.

So actually smartphone market share today has absolutely nothing to do with product quality at all. Plain and simple.

[anon(5061193)]

The fact we are all here shows a platform bias..... That is half the fun!!

[fanisk]

Totally agreed ! I know many people like that !

[Bbnivende]

It's all so simple, it doesn't have anything to do with 'stupidness'. It's just product involvement. The smartphone market is a mass market now, meaning that instead of business users from 25 to 50 you now have kids, teens and old people too. Thpse people buy smartphones because it's "the way to communicate in 2014". But that doesn't mean that those people are high involved into those products, it's rather that for them the smartphone is just like a door in their house, or a toaster, or a toilet. They have to have it and it has to work. And they will just go out and buy what everyone else has and what they know. They buy what they is commonly known as the best. This is why HTC found out those stats. People either buy an iPhone or a Galaxy, because both phones are already carried by millions (= must be the thing to get). And it's done.

So actually smartphone market share today has absolutely nothing to do with product quality at all. Plain and simple.

Totally agree. In theory the Q10 could have been such an iconic device but they made the screen too small.

People want to see and try a working model before they buy. Difficult to find a working BB. Even if you find a BB that is plugged in , most first time users expect and want the iPhone OS experience.


Sent from my Nexus 7 using CB Forums mobile app

[k-fos]

wow. For a forum about cell phones, we have a real nice view of the people maintaining this industry.

[Troy Tiscareno]

Many people buy smartphones based on word of mouth and advertising. They want to buy phones that are popular so they can fit in.

Which folks here were completely okay with 5 years ago, when the popular phone was a BB, but now that it isn't, these same people, buying phones for the same reasons, are idiots.

Oh, the irony...

[Craigash]

I've come to the conclusion that maybe, maybe 10% of smart phone buyers and users are in any way educated about what's the best phone for their specific needs. A woman I work with was complaining yesterday that her brand new Android phone was almost dead after just half a day, and she'd barely been using it. First off, the thing looked like she was carrying around a flat screen TV when she took it out of her pocket. Then to listen to her carrying on about it, it was obvious that she was yet another 'victim' of an Android-happy sales person and otherwise had absolutely no idea what she wanted or needed.

I'm not saying that a BB or an iPhone or WP would have been better for her, though I'm sure she'd be happier with one of those than with the monstrosity she did get. But it just got me to thinking -- phone manufacturers are more at the mercy of sales people than I think almost people realize or care to admit. They'll push whatever the latest and slickest-looking crap is at the time onto generally uneducated customers with zero regard for how they'll actually be using the damn thing. And then they're usually stuck with them for two years and become nothing more than a market share statistic.

To be honest. I think the phone sales assistants don't have a clue.

Posted via CB10

[Tsepz_GP]

Just wondering, if BB were still on top, would the PW have made this topic?

[Jouster]

I don't know how the Cell-phone industry works, but in my industry we "spiff" our salespeople to promote a certain line of items.... If the Salesperson got an extra $5 bucks for every Samsung he sold, he would push Samsung....They are not there to educate.. they are there to sell and make MONEY....

Seems fair.

[AnimalPak200]

Just wondering, if BB were still on top, would the PW have made this topic?

No because obviously buyers would have had a clue!!

Lol jk. ... we're bitter... let us make ourselves a bit happier by pretending to be smarter than "most buyers.".

Posted via CB10

[bakron1]

The problem is (if you are in the US) is that no sales rep is going to push BB because none of them carry the devices in the stores, and when people come in they want to:

A. Not buy something they can't physically hold and try, and

B. Not wait for something to be ordered and shipped. They want to walk out of the store with something.

We'll put, another reason folks tend to go the iPhone route is the customer support is second to none. Wether you choose to accept it or not, that's just the way it is.

One of the main issues here in the USA is folks who have Blackberry devices complain about is customer support if they have a warranty issue.

They are are the mercy if the carriers here and most of the time they have to use the device insurance which has a 170 deductible which is BS.

If an iPhone user has a problem, you make a Genius Bar appointment, a Apple tech looks at it and if needed, you get a replacement right there on the spot.

Until Blackberry can improve their relationship with the carriers here in the US and have devices in the stores for the consumer to look at and better customer service, it's only going to get worst.

I am loyal to the brand, but lately I feel like I am a isolated dinosaur here and I am worry about future Blackberry support from my carrier T Mobile USA?

So far nobody up there in those offices in Waterloo has told us faithful here in the USA that they are going to be there for the long haul??? Mr Chen!!! We are waiting!!!!


Sent from using CB Forum App

[BobWalker]

Luckily she doesn't have to be stuck with it though. It sounds like she got a lemon device, unless she got a low end Android with a battery that's half the size of current flagships. Even if she's out of the return period at her carrier she can still get it exchanged through warranty.

Also, if all larger devices are "flat screen monstrosities" what do you call the Z30? .

I call the Z30 a thing of beauty. It stands head and shoulders above the pack.

Android simply doesn't do power management well. You can argue that it's fun for tinkering, but it's not an OS for serious people. Look how fast the Moto X guy had to drop out of the Wired CES competition. It's just not in the same league with BB10. Sorry. It's just not.

Android Central is right down the hall, by the way.

[DenverRalphy]

Android simply doesn't do power management well.

That problem disappeared about 3 years ago. Pretty much every Android device (excepting maybe bargain basement no-name budget models) made over the last few years have had very good battery/power management.

Look how fast the Moto X guy had to drop out of the Wired CES competition. It's just not in the same league with BB10. Sorry. It's just not.

The dude dropped and broke his phone. What does that have to do with the OS and/or it's power consumption?

[bigbadben10]

Welcome to the pablum sucking public. People are afraid to think for themselves and just go with what the masses do.

Perfect for Apple and the like. It is remarkable how stupid people are these days. I mean for everything not just mobile phones. It is much safer to have somebody tell you what to do and buy!

Posted with my gorgeous Z30