Comment by rogerbinns | Hacker News Reader

Comment by rogerbinns | Hacker News Reader

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They lost me for two reasons. The first was updates and bug fixes. For example on my BB pausing the music player resulted in the battery being drained flat in less than an hour. They fixed that but of course the update never made it my phone and carrier. Add in 5 minute boot times, and randomly finding it locked up and needing a physical reset. Or the survey on a website about what your favourite app was to daily reboot your phone!

The second reason was them not standing behind their hardware. The warranty was a year. The bluetooth module failed after one year and 3 months, and it turns out this happened to a large number of people with that model. Tough luck.

There is so much choice these days, that narrowing down is done by using any reason. That is why I wouldn't touch another BB and as a recommender to my friends they don't either. This kind of thing can be fixed, but it requires a long track record of redemption. (HTC is also on the do not touch list due to a lack of sustained redemption.)

That. Very much that.

Plus, global roaming. It's kinda sad nobody ever thinks about it…

BlackBerry was able to provide worldwide flatrate roaming (well, they could, but it was up to each carrier to sell it as a product or bill each user to death).

Now, BB10 loses that capability. In fact, BB10 is completely and absolutely dumb when it comes to be an enterprise phone: multiple massive inboxes with different providers/technologies, many contacts, busy agenda, roaming and travel planning.

BlackBerry could have been today the perfect companion for people who really mean business. Or, at least, a very powerful one (people sometimes don't mind carrying two phones). But with an utterly expensive, beta-grade[1] device that does none of these things, I can't find a single reason why someone wouldn't pick an Android or an iPhone. Even for business.

[1] http://blackberryq10.tumblr.com/

Unless I'm mistaken, every cell phone maker has only a standard one-year warranty. I agree with all the points you made. I just don't think a longer warranty would have helped them.

They could have addressed the issue and it doesn't matter if it was the warranty or some other mechanism. eg all they had to say was that if bluetooth failed on that model then they would replace the phone or give you a certain amount of credit towards a new one.

Bluetooth is critical functionality for anyone who commutes by car, and those who talk a lot. It isn't some rarely used side feature. A phone where this stops working is very notable, a huge pain and you are forced to resolve it almost immediately.

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