Orange mulls pulling the BlackBerry Bold (again)

By on Jan 2, 2009 at 2:16 PM
Rumor January 2, 2009

According to a report issued this morning, European carrier Orange is considering dropping the Bold from its lineup after being unable to solve “ongoing technical issues.” Orange employees familiar with the matter have said the Bold has the highest rate of return in its category, something which is not sitting well with the higher-ups due to a previous issue with the Bold. Back in October, Orange halted sales of the Bold due to a high incidence of dropped calls, crashes and poor overall performance. After a more stable OS release from RIM however, sales of the Bold resumed. If Orange were to pull the Bold for the second time it would most likely remain sidelined for the duration of its market life which would deal a huge blow to RIM. To compound matters, this move would give a great deal of additional publicity to the woes of RIM’s latest flagship products, the Bold and the Storm. For the time being Orange has declined to comment on the matter, as was the company’s position before the Bold was pulled last year.

At the time of the first recall, every Bold on the Orange network was running OS 4.6.0.126, a very buggy release indeed. Since Orange reinstated the Bold however, it moved to OS 4.6.0.162 – also not the the most usable version issued in recent history. In all fairness to RIM and Orange customers, perhaps Orange should hurry up and release a new OS build like 4.6.0.190 or beyond (though many are a severe step backwards) as several other carriers have done.

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  • Jason

    I just got my AT&T Bold on Sunday. First day I used it, I dropped five calls within a two hour period. Next day, I dropped two calls. I pulled the battery to reset the phone, and the first call dropped almost immediately. 3g works fairly well, but this evening web browser’s data connection wasn’t responding to requests, so I had to reset it again.

    I’m going to give it another few days before I send it back. The device is great – if it would just work reliably like my Curve.

  • Steve NY

    My wife and I purchased BB Bolds back in November. Within the last month or so we have both had our Bolds suffer from intermittent unintentional reboots.

    After jumping through numerous hoops with ATT customer service and warranty department, a refurb was shipped to me.

    I received the refurb today, and within an hour or so, the refurb experienced an unintended reboot.

    A call to customer service, warranty dept, and they are sending yet another refurb out to me. So another hoop to leap through. I will keep you all posted.

  • Richard

    Well after being one of the “Bold Giveaway” winners on your site I was overjoyed at winning a competition and drooling at the chance of receiving a nice shiny Bold from you, I do have to say that I seriously wonder if any of the Bold giveaway winners actually received their phones and also is the competitions are just a ploy to increase your websites popularity. Forgive me if this is not the case but since winning this competition and sending countless emails I have had not a single email from you re the Prize.

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