Dell responds to complaints of a Venue Pro Wi-Fi bug

By on Nov 11, 2010 at 11:36 AM
mobile November 11, 2010

Earlier this week, BGR exclusively broke news concerning a bug plaguing several owners of the new Dell Venue Pro smartphone. Users reported an inability to connect their devices to secured Wi-Fi networks. Dell issued an official response to the report on a company blog Thursday morning:

We have confirmed that the Wi-Fi connectivity issue that was reported in blogs like Boy Genius Report and Ubergizmo resulted from a software glitch during Dell’s manufacturing process. The issue affected some of our initial phone shipments and was not a hardware issue or a Windows Phone 7 one. Customers who purchased Venue Pro smartphones on Monday or Tuesday (November 8 or 9) at a Microsoft Store and who are experiencing the protected Wi-Fi network connectivity issue also have the option of bringing your phone back to the Microsoft Store for an exchange, beginning at the end of next week. Your new phone will fix the Wi-Fi issue as well.

Dell’s claim that the issue was neither hardware or software related is rather odd, but the important news is the solution. According to Dell, affected phones were all sold by Microsoft Store locations. Users experiencing the bug should return their devices to a Microsoft Store location beginning “at the end of next week,” at which time working replacement units will be available.

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  • http://www.shoutpedia.com/ a_usman

    Great, at least they accepted the fault and didn’t react like Apple. I hope you can remember the lame excuses of Apple after the reception and signal issues were reported in iPhone 4.

    • Anonymous

      where do you see Apples name being mentioned..oh wait, it wasnt…

      • http://www.shoutpedia.com/ a_usman

        I am just mentioning being a user of both companies, yes I don’t see any Apple here.

      • Sighmonsez

        So, what are you saying? We can only comment about Dell and Microsoft. Don’t get so defensive.

  • http://twitter.com/300mhz Justin Hernandez

    Got the call from the Oakbrook, IL Microsoft store last night regarding the engineering sample batteries but they didn’t mention anything about the WiFi issue. It is nice to see how quickly they’ve responded and how they are fixing the issue. Only thing that sucks now is that I have to find time to drive an hour to get the store.

  • DinaLS

    Does anyone even care? Windows Phone 7 bombed hard in sales.

    Even the Kin failure got more coverage. It’s like Microsoft’s latest failed attempt at the cellphone market isn’t even worth making fun of.

    • Rederikus

      Windows Phone 7 is THE way forward. Make no mistake about that.

    • Anonymous

      Initial sales mean nothing. Look at Android. It wasn’t until Verizon commercial that Android started taking off. If you want a better perspective, look at Xbox.

      • DinaLS

        Xbox???

        The RRoD plagued Xbox 360 is in last place in worldwide sales. Even selling millions and millions of duplicate consoles couldn’t keep Microsoft piece of junk console out of last place.

        Get example dimwit.

      • FuckinFanboy

        STFU fanboy. You obviously haven’t even touched a Windows Phone 7. I fuckin changed my droid to WP7.

      • http://jcheng.wordpress.com/ JCheng

        > The RRoD plagued Xbox 360 is in last place in worldwide sales

        Link?

    • Mgl323

      DinaLS Troll harder.

  • http://twitter.com/vj_k Vijay Krishnamoorthy

    They probably hardcoded a static ip. Thats why its neither software nor hardware

  • Rederikus

    Maybe Dell wonlt give up their BlackBerrys just yet, eh?

  • Anonymous

    Hey, doesn’t this deserve a bumper? Also, in the meantime, should Dell Venue Pro users try using Duct Tape to solve the connectivity issue?

  • JKE

    Wow I hope they still had their Blackberries…LOL

    • DVPguest

      hahaha good one!

  • Norm

    Why are you fools messing around with these phones? VZW offers the DROID line with the DROID OS. I don’t understand why you would mess around with these inferior carriers with inferior maps as well as these garbage phones not running DROID. Wanna know why VZW only offers DROID OS phones? Because everything else sucks. DROID FTW!

  • Brad

    Okay, I’m stumped. How can this be neither hardware nor software? It’s one or the other, because that’s all that makes up the phone. Either it’s defective hardware, or a software programming glitch that prevents the hardware from working right, or a combination. If it’s neither one of those, the problem doesn’t exist, and obviously that’s not the case. This sounds like a big load of double talk to me. The real problem is probably too embarrassing for them to reveal.

    Oh, and no, it is not a static hard-coded IP address, as one commenter suggested, although that would be considered a software problem if it was. The problem was failure to connect to a WiFi access point with encryption enabled. You can be connected to a WiFi access point without ever getting an IP address. Connecting to it is the same as plugging in a network cable; the connection comes first, then your computer is given an IP address by another device on the network.

    • A b

      From Dell statement above:
      “resulted from a software glitch during Dell’s manufacturing process”

      They ARE saying it is a Dell software glitch. Dell has presumably their own software that configures the phones during manufacturing. That software had a bug, which probably misconfigured the phones, hence the bug.

      • http://twitter.com/LionelatDell Lionel Menchaca

        Yes AB. You are correct. I submitted a comment earlier that’s still stuck in moderation.

  • Webe Dumbusers

    Not a h/w or a s/w issue ?!?!? I guess it must be a user error like people holding it wrong!

  • http://rendion.myopenid.com/ render

    What an ugly phone. Sorry I just come here for the pictures.

  • RealDeal

    It would be pretty funny if the 25,000 Dell bought for their employees were affected.

  • http://twitter.com/LionelatDell Lionel Menchaca

    Maybe linking to the Knowledge Base article is holding up my comment in moderation. This time without the link:Sorry for not being more clear. The point I was trying to make is this: The Wi-Fi issue that affected some Venue Pro phones prevented users from accessing protected Wi-Fi networks that were not hidden. That specific problem was caused by a Dell manufacturing software issue. I was trying to say it was a software issue that was independent of the Windows Phone 7 operating system.Hidden networks are a different topic. Per Microsoft, Windows Phone 7 does not support connections to hidden networks. See Microsoft Knowledge Base article # 2447719 for more.

    Thanks,

    LionelatDell

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