I've heard all the people talking about how the device is "new" and thus we should expect bugs (RIM's co-CEO also mentioned this in a speech several months ago). I think this is total BS and a lame excuse. My Curve came error free on release day, yet every Blackberry since then has gone down hill. Oddly enough, every OS update to the Curve since my original one has done more harm than good (think speakerphone blast, etc. on 4.5).
Below are the problems I experienced, and why I returned mine back to Verizon only a few days after purchasing.
- Muffled audio - I tried 5 different handsets in the store and 5 different friend's handsets and they all sounded bad through the speakerphone and handset (Bluetooth and wired headset did sound fine).
- Trackball - it was more sensitive going vertical than horizontal. Even after I changed settings, the thing quit working for scrolling down after only a few days.
- Doing a battery pull not only takes like 5 minutes, but it erases your home screen image (goes back to OOB).
- They took away my "r" shortcut for the alarm and replaced it with....nothing!
- Battery door is just unacceptable for a $500 retail price device. Keep in mind that even if you're getting the phone free from your provider, they still paid close to $500 for it, and you're repaying them through higher monthly bills.
- Vibrate was so weak, I couldn't even feel it when I sat it directly on my thigh and called myself.
- Profiles - this has been discussed already on the forums. I really don't like how they did this on the 4.7+ OS build. I don't believe the talk that it was intentional (anyone in IT can recall a time when something shipped with a "bug" that was renamed a "feature").
- Themes - ships with two. Are you kidding me?
As you can see, I was not happy at all with my Tour. I'm frankly so frustrated with the RIM devices as of late that the Curve is likely to be my last. Either RIM QA is asleep at the wheel or they just don't care and ship it w/o proper defect resolution. I understand the idea of getting something to market quickly, but we're not talking about a hugely innovative product like the color television replacing B&W. The Tour is an incremental release (all I was looking for was GPS capability on Verizon's network) that should've been shipped when it was more stable.
Do I have any seconds? (I'm sure I'll have plenty of blasts against my opinion).