BlackBerry Bold drops off Orange website
Video software problems to blame?
Software issues affecting the BlackBerry Bold appear to have spurred Orange to suspend all UK sales of the 3G handset.
Orange's website does nothing to dispel the broken Bold myth
According to an allegedly leaked internal Orange memo, which was seen by website Mobile Tech Addicts, the network operator has said that: “Following reports of software issues with the BlackBerry Bold handset across a variety of mobile operators, Orange has decided to act in the interest of its customers by suspending shipments of the device in the UK.”
Although no other UK mobile operators have spoken up publicly about the problems said to be affecting the Bold, Orange’s memo went on to state that it could take up to “a couple of weeks” for manufacturer RIM to fix the problem.
It’s not clear exactly what problems the software issues are causing on the phone, but a report by Australian IT has said that a limited number of Bold buyers Down Under have experienced video playback problems on the handset. RIM is expected to release a software update to fix this.
In the UK, Orange currently has the BlackBerry Bold listed as “out of stock” on its website. Calls to the company have, so far, gone unreturned.
If you’ve experienced any “software issues” with the BlackBerry Bold, please let Register Hardware know.
COMMENTS
SAP & No Support
I have the Bold on O2 and it works fine for normal use except the Sim Access Profile (SAP) which just will not work properly and RIM won't help and O2 can't as the phone is too new for them.
Let's hope that some new OS patches also fix the battery life as well.
I appear to stand corrected...
...on my earlier comment about maybe it just been stock shortages. Looks like Orange do indeed have an official statement due for release about the withdrawal of the Bold due to quality issues.
Storm in a teacup?
It's not just Orange who are having problems with Bold - not a single US carrier has yet released the device, citing "testing issues".
And if this is happening with Bold, which is basically a 8800 with aircon and electric windows, what about the upcoming Storm, the first BB with touchscreen etc? I do hope RIM and carriers have done their homework, otherwise there'll be much crowing over in Cupertino.
@katie
yeah, i find poor batery life, but when running 3G, GRPS, WiFi, Bluetooth, sending and recieveing emails all day, this is very power hungery,
Maybe not quite the Orange conspiracy suggested...
Just spoke to my friend who runs a large city centre Orange shop and Orange have simply run out of stock in virtually all their stores and the RIM UK distributor appears to be diverting most new stock to the latest carrier roll out (Vodafaone). He wasn't aware of any major alarm bells over software or stock withdrawals because of it. Plus the Orange online shop is notoriously crap at managing it's stock and handset availability, let's not forget that fact.
Whether that is Orange not telling the whole truth to their store managers I can't say, but the mobile phone store business is very incestuous and the neighbouring Vodafone manager had bragged his company has gotten first dibs on the latest UK stocks of the Bold.
Whether those are the key facts and not those in the article I don't know. It's just what I was told. But it seems odd that I can't find a single Bold user with problems and there are about 25 in my organisation using Orange handsets. Me included.
