If you're one of the many, many BlackBerry Storm buyers who
cleaned out inventories at Verizon stores on Friday, all that time spent waiting in the cold just became a bit more worthwhile. Online orders are being subject to shipping delays and, while you might think this is just another case of holiday supply versus demand, many are calling shenanigans. Supposedly the Storm was set to launch with OS version 4.7.0.82, but due to a last-minute security glitch every last handset had to be downgraded to .65 -- a surely time-consuming task that resulted in many fewer handsets in-store and online for release. Right now Verizon is indicating that orders placed before noon on November 21 should ship on the 25th, those received after noon will ship on December 5, and anything received on November 22 or later will not ship before December 15. That's close enough to a certain major holiday to make BlackBerry-loving kids of all ages nervous. If a Storm is high on your Christmas list you
might just want to plan a few extra good deeds on your schedule to boost your placement on the "nice" list -- nobody wants a
7100i in their stocking.
[Via
CrackBerry]
posted Nov 22nd 2008 1:34PM
Noon? Eastern? Pacific? Greenwich Mean Time?
I placed my order and was off the phone by 8.30am Pacific. I was originally told mine would be shipped on the 25th but when I called back today to verify they said that because the order was approved after noon, it wouldn't ship till the 5th. I'm ready to ditch Verizon. I'm so fucking pissed right now.
@snowenloe
Do it, do it, do it, doooooooooo it! I cancelled my service just this month. Verizon doesn't care, they have Alltel customers coming in, so they give a rats ass if they lose customers. The CSR didn't even try to retain me, just asked me why I was canceling and then did it.
Okay seriously? Relax, you ordered the phone way after it was released. Thats as bad as the customers that were calling in complaining about waiting in line. If you want to get a hot phone, wake up before noon and complain less please.
Seriously.
@bernadino
I called back and cancelled my order and the CSR did not want to even try to retain me. He just kept saying shit like, "well Verizon has done this and this and this for you, so you shouldnt be mad about a single mistake by us." I kept trying to explain that I wanted to leave because of so many different reasons on top of this screw up, like;
1. Locked GPS
2. Lack of Wi-Fi on most devices
3. Lousy handset selection
just to name a few. We then got into a discussion about VZ Navigator and he actually told me that he loves it. WOW. I have 3 lines all with Blackberrys, I spend over $200 a month with Verizon, am considered a VIP customer and he did NOTHING to try and retain my services. It looks like Im buying a BB Bold here soon...
I don't think software updates in the next few weeks can fix everything. the storm's just so undercooked like what gizmodo said
http://admiralh.wordpress.com/2008/11/21/why-the-blackberry-storm-is-no-iphone-killer/
^^^ this link is crazy long but should be considered if you're going to deciding to buy it.
To my above, Noon eastern, which again is around the same time you were doing this. But my point still stands, you need to be prompt about things like this in a situation with a brand new, over hyped phone like this. Just my .02cents that you wont care about but i'll secretly
It's over hyped all right. :)
I ordered my phone online at 3am EST. Around 8:30am EST I got an e-mail saying my phone shipped. The tracking info provided says my phone is sitting at my local fedEx center till monday.
I almost feel bad for you storm people... Blackberry and Verizon has made this launch a disaster. Hope you guys get some thing for this launch being so bad...
Loving my iPhone 3G :)
and how many hours did you stand in line or wait for activation of your iphone?
THAT release was a disaster, if you ask just about anybody. inventories may not have been AS strained, but the main difference is that AT&T and Apple couldn't handle the load of people wanting to activate.
also, talk about a disaster of too many options- the storm just has *1* device, whereas the iphone had 2 (8 and 16 GB). if you want a storm, you get a storm. if you want an iphone, you have to determine which you want (and how much you're willing to pay) and then hope the inventory supports it. furthermore, if you get the 8GB iphone and decide later that you want 16GB, you have to swap phones... the Storm you can just swap the memory card (when the 16GB becomes available).
Both releases were a disaster, but at least AT&T customers could actually walk out with a phone in hand. Verizon screwed this launch up in the worst way. Why couldnt they just sell the damn thing and give me the link to the OS that actually works? Im assuming all smartphone users are capable of figuring out the OTA upgrade/downgrade or at least connecting to the computer and installing the target OS, right?
There needs to be a correction in regards to the shipping times. It says phones ordered BEFORE this time will ship BY December 5th.. *NOT* ON Dec...
Same thing with the phones ordered after 12 noon (the time zone is local time so, 12pm of whatever time zone your account is in).. they will ship BY December 15th NOT ON Dec 15th.. There is a big difference between "by" and "on" and it even says "BY 12/5" in the screen cap that was posted...
I agree with what "The D Train" said. With this big of a launch you need to get your ducks in a row AHEAD of time. Wake up early if you need to (just like black friday), stand in line, pre-order, etc.
People who are asking for exceptions (i.e. people who want to upgrade early and are not eligible) have to have the orders **approved** FIRST by a sup (which CAN take several hours), then it gets sent to the warehouse for processing (which can vary from several hours to DAYS), THEN it goes to FedEx for shipping (which is when your "overnight" delivery kicks in if you asked for it. If we make an exception, be happy we let you do what you wanted because we could have said NO :) If you were PATIENT and waited until you were actually eligible your order would have gone through several hours earlier. Be patient, this kind of thing should be expected with a huge launch such as this. Please keep this in mi abovced the next time you ask for something you aren't really entitled to just yet :)
As far as the people who ordered "late" and WERE eligible to upgrade and got a later shipping date, ignore what I said in the paragraph above.
One thing to help keep you updated on all of your orders is to have a current email address on your account file as the warehouse will email you with shipping info when it becomes available.
Also, FedEX does NOT deliver on the weekends (unless you pay for it). Even then keep in mind that it will not be overnighted right away if your storm order has not been processed by a certain time (such as late Friday). Orders are being processed in the order they are received (of course).
OK so that was more like $2, but it needed to be said..
BY... not "ON" :D
I guess Scott has amnesia. I remember that Apple and Att had launch issues with the orginal iphone and the 3g version. Seems that our society has a short attention span.
No, fanboys have very short attention spans :P
At least when it comes down to bad info about their favorite company anyway.
I hate Apple.
I love Blackberry. I got my Storm at 8am on the 21st.
The software on this phone is SO bad it is almost unusable. Enormous load times, slow response time for clicking/rotation, even UNCAUGHT EXCEPTIONS???
I am returning my phone this week unless they release some emergency update. This is absurd.
There will be bug fixes.....give it a month or two. I've already downloaded and patched one set of updates. My phone seems to get faster the more I use it. Also make sure you are closing apps the proper way and not just hitting the red *hangup* button because then they become hidden not closed and still take up memory/processing power.
I got mine overnighted andrecieved it saturday. It's sweet. Take a bit of getting used to for an avid BB user, but it's a nice transition. Hopefully facebook, gmail, and instago update their apps for the flip screen keyboard.