I’ll be the first one to say how much I love Verizon’s network and pretty much recommend it to anyone who travels and / or needs to know that they are going to get a strong signal pretty much everywhere and never drop calls.
I will also say that all the crap that Verizon installs on their devices in an effort to control or lock down what said devices can do natively unless, of course, you are willing pay an additional fee, is a horrible way for them to treat their customers and if T-Mobile or AT&T work well enough for you, go with them.
Case in point, the Verizon Droid, which happens to be coming out this weekend, can connect to Microsoft Exchange without any help from Verizon, however, because Verizon says that the Droid is “primarily a consumer phone” they are going to charge you an extra 15 bucks per month to do so even though they aren’t providing you additional service. To be completely honest Verizon probably spends less money supporting customers who pay the $15 Active Sync charge simply because they don’t have to actively block you from accessing Exchange Servers which the Droid can do out of the Box.
If only AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint didn’t suck when it comes to network coverage in comparison to Verizon.
[Source]
If you go back to the the latter part of September, Research in Motion’s stock price (ticker RIMM) was over $88 per share. At the time of this posting the price is down below $56. A Large chunk of this decline was because of poorer than expected Q2 fiscal 2010 earnings where the stock price got hammered over a day and a half long period. Things, however, seemed to settle down with not much movement, up or down, through most of October.
This was the case, at least, until Google announced Android 2 and Verizon started hyping the upcoming Verizon Droid while almost completely ignoring the BlackBerry Storm2. RIM’s stock price has dropped about another 10 bucks since the Android 2 announcements.
Should RIM be worried about Android? I am guessing that they should at least be concerned… I’d love to hear what you think in the comments.
Remember when the BlackBerry Storm came out last year? Verizon hawked it everywhere possible. Magazine ads, billboards, TV commercials, contests… The BlackBerry Storm was the most hyped BlackBerry ever.
Move up a year and Verizon didn’t even officially announce the BlackBerry Storm2 until 2 days before the the device became available. Verizon didn’t market the BlackBerry Storm2 before it’s release at all. Whether they will now that it is available remains to be seen.
That being said, it is hard to miss the buzz in front of the upcoming Verizon Droid, which Verizon just happens to be marketing the heck out of. Word on the street is that Verizon is creating an interactive experience named Droid Does Times Square where people will be able to control both the Reuters and NASDAQ digital billboards.
Do a Google search for Verizon BlackBerry Storm2 (at the time of this posting) and you don’t get a single sponsored ad for the Verizon BlackBerry Storm2. You may actually get a sponsored ad for the Droid. Search for Verizon Droid, and you most certainly do. Probably several of them.
There is no question, at least from initial advertising efforts which device Verizon is betting on.
The Verizon BlackBerry Storm2 9550 is now officially available on Verizon’s website. It is $179.99 after a $100 mail-in rebate with a 2-year contract.
If you are looking to get a solid BlackBerry device with a touch screen and you don’t already own the Storm, get the BlackBerry Storm2. You won’t feel screwed like many consumers did when they bought the original Storm with the initial FUBARed to the tenth power OS that it shipped with.
If you already have a Storm, I strongly recommend that you upgrade it to OS 5.0.0.328, play with it for a while, and seriously debate on whether or not your really need Wi-Fi. Yes, the BlackBerry Storm2 has better build quality than its predecessor. Yes the BlackBerry Storm2 has more memory than it’s predecessor. Yes, there are undoubtedly other things the the BlackBerry Storm2 does better than it’s predecessor. At the end of the day, however, the really big difference, in my opinion, is Wi-Fi.
I doubt that we will see any more BlackBerry devices that don’t include Wi-Fi. I would recommend to anyone buying a new BlackBerry get a device with Wi-Fi. That being said, Wi-Fi in the BlackBerry Storm2 is not a compelling enough enhancement for me to recommend that existing BlackBerry Storm users move to the BlackBerry Storm2. This isn’t and indictment on the Wi-Fi or the BlackBerry Storm2. It is an indictment on the BlackBerry OS and the BlackBerry Browser. That, however, is a topic for another post…
BGR was able to get a hold of a Verizon holiday flyer that features a few of the newer BlackBerry devices that we’ve heard of like , the Tour, the Flip, and the recently announced Storm2, as well as a new device, the BlackBerry Curve2, also known as the BlackBerry 8530. This naming convention for the 8530 is a bit confusing because there is a BlackBerry Curve 8900 that is just called Curve.
I am curious as to if the Curve2 designation is the idea of Verizon as compared to RIM? The Curve was, and, still is a strong device and has very good brand recognition so this is a pretty good marketing move regardless of who came up with the name. If it was RIM, however, it does kind of make you wonder if they put a lot of forethought into naming conventions.
[Via BGR]
Verizon’s official announcement of the the BlackBerry Storm2 9550 wasn’t the only big BlackBerry news coming out of the largest wireless company in the nation today. They’ve also released BlackBerry OS 5.0.0.328 for the BlackBerry Storm 9530.
A little credit goes to Verizon for actually releasing OS 5 for the BlackBerry Storm before releasing the BlackBerry Storm2. I am sure that a bunch of head to head BlackBerry Storm with OS 5.0.0.328 vs. BlackBerry Storm2 reviews will hit the web in the next 24 hours or so, but we’ve heard that even though the Storm2 has clear hardware advantages over the original Storm, the new OS 5 update gives the original Storm many of the same OS enhancements coming in the Storm2.
You can find a list of some of the OS 5.0.0.328 enhancements after the jump.
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Verizon has finally officially announced the BlackBerry Storm2 9550 and the device will be available Wednesday, Oct. 28th. Why it took Verizon a week and a half to come out with their official announcement after RIM officially let the cat of the bag on Oct 15th is beyond me. RIM clearly isn’t repeating the marketing efforts that we saw with the original Storm which I believe to be the most hyped BlackBerry ever.
Check out the full press release after the jump…
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There are some pretty solid rumors out that the BlackBerry Storm2, although still not officially announced by Verizon, will launch on October 28th for $179.99 after a $100 mail-in rebate and a 2 year service agreement. The BlackBerry Storm2 launching next Wednesday sounds great. Having to shell out 28o bucks up front, even with the $100 mail-in rebate, sounds a bit expensive.
Verizon and especially Research in Motion need the BlackBerry Storm2 to do very well with consumers and if $279.99 plus a $100 mail-in rebate is indeed where the pricing will be set when the Storm2 launches I’d be willing to bet that there will be a price drop of at least $50 to $100 before Black Thursday. I’d also venture that third party retailers such as Amazon and Wirefly, etc., will offer the Verizon BlackBerry Storm2 for less at launch.
