Shades of the Storm? Owners of the new BlackBerry Tour hope not, but communities like Crackberry.com and BlackBerryForums.com are full of complaints about the newest CDMA device from RIM. It was released last month on both Verizon and Sprint and was highly anticipated.
It didn’t take long for the complaints to start rolling in, though. Reports of loose battery doors, bad trackballs, screen ripples, muffled sound quality, and poor reception are numerous. Several users on Crackberry.com are on their third, fourth, even fifth Tour. According to Verizon, RIM has acknowledged the trackball issue and more recent shipments are said to be much improved. The upcoming 5.0 OS is also said to contain several software fixes.
I am a Tour owner and aside from a loose battery door (it appears all Tours have this issue – some are just barely loose, others, like mine, are so loose you can slip your fingernail under it and pry it up!) I have no real complaints. Signal quality is definitely not as good as it could be – some say this is because the Tour is a world phone and the CDMA radio must compete with the GSM components, but aside from people like me whose homes, for some reason, get horrible reception, it’s perfectly acceptable.
It is disappointing that a device like the Tour, which retails for about $500 and costs new and upgrading customers about $200, would have such shoddy QC. I haven’t experienced the screen ripple issue. Audio quality is definitely soft but, at least with my Tour, people still have no problem understanding me. Oddly enough even the software CD included with the Tour has generated complaints! It appears that not a single one actually works when inserted into the user’s computer. Mine didn’t, nor did those of anyone I know!
That said, the Tour has an absolutely beautiful screen and interface, it’s fast and it has reliable email and messaging services. There are a lot of great apps available for it and the camera is absolutely amazing! The problems with the Storm are near legendary, and you’d think RIM would have learned its lesson but perhaps not. Do I love my Tour? Absolutely. I just wish the quality was a bit better.
Do you have a Tour? If so leave us a comment and tell us what you think of it! Have you had problems with it?
Read: [CrackBerry Forums]
I had a tour and returned it. Screen was great but that's about it. I went back (again) to my 8830 world phone. I also went back to that after trying the Storm.
The comment about "Maybe the reception is bad because it's a world phone" is NOT true. My world phone 8830 has GREAT reception. The battery also last about 4 times longer on my 8830.
I HOPE the next phone has wi-fi, and they can iron out some of these complaints.
I am now on my second Sprint Blackberry Tour within two weeks for the same problem, the trackball. Sprint is aware of this issue and yet they continue to sale these defective phones daily. Any solutions or luck with Sprint customer service? My complaint is why do they continue to decieve their customers? Did they do no testing before launching these phones?
I've had my Tour for about a month. My last phone was a Palm Treo 800w with MS Windows for mobile. I hated MS Windows for mobile and like the blackberry OS much better. The Tour is beautiful and outside of the very poor reception, an awesome phone. I am holding out for the OS upgrade, hoping the reception will get better.
I am on my third Tour within 3 months. My first one had issues with mic. I have to say that my third one has the same issue. The placement of the mic was not well thought out. Instead of having it on the lower portion of the front face plate, it's located on the bottom edge. The biggest complaint I hear from callers is that either they can't hear me or it sounds like I am in a cave. My second phone worked fine until I flew to Los Angeles and back. When I returned to Michigan, my phone would not allow me to make or receive calls. Verizon said that the flight may have done something to my phone.????
I have a Blackberry Tour which i recently purchased thru the upgrade, verizon was kind enough to send out a second phone when the first had ripple issues in the lcd because of the pressure you need to place on the volume knobs and quick app buttons but that one had the same issues , so I refused a third one and said i want a different model.. Verizon offered me another Blackberry Tour and i laughed so they said how about a downgrade and i said i want to talk to rim without paying their tech fees and they said let us resolve the problem and i said this a manufacturing defect flaw that only rim can handle .. i gave verizon so many oppurtunities to do the right thing by letting me opt out and terminate the contract since it has only been like 40 days since i renewed but no go , they will terminate only after the early term. serv fee is payed. What a crock , so what do i do !!!!!!!!
It is a shame that the consumer gets stuck with a defective product. Verizon and Sprint tested this product and surely must have encountered these issues before launching this cell phone. Im on my third Tour/9630 and it now sits in a drawer. I reconected my 8830. Great thought went into making a great Blackberry and at the end a useless product was made.
I had purchased a blackberry 9530 on the 30th of October'09 at Hyderabad from one Mr. Ahmed who introduced himself from Blackberry directly ( mobile no : 99893 33750 ) by paying him the complete amount, and with an assurance that he would provide the invoice and warranty certificate the next day. While on one hand Mr.Ahmed never handed over the invoice and the warranty certificate till date, he completely started avoiding my calls when I had called him wrt a defect in the piece and has not responded to any of my calls and the numerous sms's sent to him, resulting in my blackberry not working even today. While blackberry could be a good instrument but how strong is their service back up and that too with staff/people like Mr. Ahmed, who are probably cheating so many people like me. Taking money and vanishing in thin air. I cannot much comment about blackberry as an instrument,since I have not really experienced the same, but with people like Mr. Ahmed who only know how to collect money and disappear it is better I or numerous people like me stick to our old handsets or go in for NOKIA, for which service is available everywhere.
I purchased a Tour on the recommendation of a friend who work for Verizon. She stated, that the phone was an awesome phone and for the first month and half it has been. I like alot of the app's and the password keeper. I haven't made the second or I believe third payment on the phone and today it crashed. It worked fine in the morning and early afternoon, but around 5pm I checked my emails and put the phone back into my holster. I walked out to my car and pulled the phone out as I was waiting for a phone call only to have the phone say "Reload Software 552" Called Verizon and the tech wasn't of any use like they normally are. I am trying to reload the updated desktop software at a hugh file of 258MB's. I know that doesn't seem big, but when you run with a broadband modem it is a hugh file to download. That wasn't much success either. Windows is stating that the Windows Installer Service is not available..I am going to go to the store and have my Treo 755 reactivated and then work on the Tour. I will probabaly will have to contact my Pre-Paid Legal Attorney to get this one straightened out for me. Grrrrrrr…I am done with RIM
Kamisha, your anger is grossly misplaced. Verizon customers also have complaints about the Tour. The problem lies with RIM. The first batch of Tours had absolutely horrible QA. From what I've heard the current shipments at stores and the inventory at Sprint.com is much, much better.
Sprint isn't decieving anyone. Not all Tours have problems. I've had mine since 8/10 and it's just fine.
Todd,
The comment about the reception issues being tied to it being a world phone is not my opinion, but that of others at the link provided and elsewhere.
FWIW, my battery life is pretty darn good. As for WiFi, if you have great 3G coverage it's useless really. CDMA doesn't yet support UMA and WiFi radios are battery killers.
SonnyCrockett,
You are thinking of getting an attorney because your phone crashed? Whoa! Calm down! The 552 error is not a big deal. It means something got corrupt on your phone. It's a fairly easy fix. Just go here for instructions:
http://crackberry.com/blackberry-101-lecture-12-how-reload-operating-system-nuked-blackberry
Just follow the directions and you'll be fine. I assume you meant you don't have broadband internet because 256MB is a tiny file these days and takes just seconds to download over broadband.
There is absolutely no reason to get sue happy or hostile over this. It can be fixed and pretty easily at that. Follow the link above and good luck!
I've come very close to losing my business because the reception is terrible. I returned the first tour I had right away but the second phone I got is no better. Phone calls are completely dropped in the middle of a conversation and the phone doesn't even ring when people call. I have to keep using my wife's phone just to check sure no one has left me a voice message. The phone is terrible and I'm no happier with Sprint. I'm shocked that after paying so much money, I'm on my way out to buy a new phone with a new company.
The only thing that I would like Blackberry to do for the Tour is add a "Today" theme so that I will know what calendar events will be coming up!!!
Ok, Im now on my 3rd Blackberry Tour!!! I hate this damn phone, would never ever recommend this product to anyone! My problem is that i have to charge the damn thing 3x a day!! Ive replaced so many batteries and its not the problem, the problem is this crap-ass phone!!
my husband and i got a tour a few months ago. since we have had nothing but problems with it. for starters…it won't work where we live…and were promised it would. also…we had gotten insurance on it for 7$ a month…well..it broke…we don't know how..just sitting in my husbands pocket…it wasn't dropped or anything. when we got the insurance we were told that if ANYTHING went we could get a new phone, no problem…now the story has changed to, the insurance is only good if something stops working…not if it's broken, stolen or lost. WTF? so basically we were paying for something that should have been covered by normal warranted THAT'S INSANE! also we didn't get our rebate like we were supposed to. so, we've already paid almost $1000 dollars for a phone we've maybe spent 2 hrs on. and now they don't want to let us out of our contract. DO NOT GET A TOUR!! TOTAL JUNK!!!
we have since gone back to using a 20$ prepaid phone that we had before getting the piece of crap tour and we are much happier with it.
I had the blackberry curve and with all the hype about the new tour being so much better, including faster, I upgraded about 6 months ago. Of course it wasn't really much faster and after a while it kept freezing, so 2 months ago they replaced it. Well last night around 10:30 it restarted and has been stuck on the loading screen ever since and it never turned back on! So now as an inconvenience I have to drive out of my way to a repair center around my work schedule so in the meantime I have no phone! I am PISSED to say the least! I will never buy another blackberry! These phones are pieces of SHIT on a hot summer day!