Blackberry Web Portal: Is the Longevity of BlackBerry Devices Still What They Use to Be?

Recently my BlackBerry Stom2 9550 internal radio stopped working, forcing me to get a new replacement from Verizon Wireless. As this happened, it made me start to think about if the BlackBerry devices of today could out live the BlackBerry Devices of yesterday. I mean if you think about it, those who started their BlackBerry Addiction with the 5790 and later models would probably be able to fire up those models today and later on down the roads and they would still work.

However for the devices that have been coming out lately, I don’t know if you would be able to do the same thing with them.

I know there are a lot of people who put a lot of things onto their device such as a boat load of apps, phone contacts, BlackBerry Messenger contacts, etc. There are also a lot of people who install OSes and programs that are leaked. I know there are a number of people who don’t take very good care of their devices as well. I don’t just mean take care of as in making sure the outside of the device looks good, but also making sure that the device runs smoothly by making sure the event log, the web browser cookies, and the memory all stay clean. With the old devices you didn’t really have to do all that because you really didn’t have the options of running all of the applications on your BlackBerry device.

If you look at the return rate of two of the most recent models of BlackBerries, The Tour 9630 and the Storm 9530, you will see some scary numbers. The return rate on the Storm 9530 was between 35-50% in 2008 and the return rate for the Tour 9630 was 50% as well. Now the return rate on the Tour was mostly because of the trackball failure, which RIM quickly fixed by releasing later models of BlackBerries with TrackPads. You might also argue that the return rate on the Storm 9530 was because the device was rushed out too early and people didn’t like the way operated.

I know a lot of people who have had to get a new phone due to hardware and software issues. This would be the second BlackBerry device that I have had to send back in the past two years. One return was due to software failure and the other was due to hardware failure.

Could this be something that scares people away from RIM products? I mean if you think about it one of the things that people always loved about the BlackBerry brand was how durable all the devices were. Is that really true these days?

Hopefully this is not a trend that keeps going in the near future.