Byebye Blackberry phones

[Gulfsailor]

After recording a record loss of nearly 1 billion Usd, and having worth another 1 billion Usd worth of unsold stock, Blackberry has just announced it will lay off half it's workforce, and stop manufacturing consumer devices. How quick things can change in the tech industry!

[Chicog]

Worst.Management.Ever.

[fasteddie]

Horrible little phones, good riddance.

[Jiu-Jitsu]

I'm happy with my BlackBerry. I have lower running costs than any of it's rivals and have no need for a million useless applications. But you can't please all of the people all of the time. Especially when most of them are sheep.

[FiftyTwo]

Internal GPS that you have to pay Blackberry a fee to use every month.

Epic fail.

[Shurup]

I'm happy with my BlackBerry. I have lower running costs than any of it's rivals and have no need for a million useless applications. But you can't please all of the people all of the time. Especially when most of them are sheep.

"most of them are sheep"... or do their homework (little research) before buying a phone?

[Jiu-Jitsu]

I'm happy with my BlackBerry. I have lower running costs than any of it's rivals and have no need for a million useless applications. But you can't please all of the people all of the time. Especially when most of them are sheep.

"most of them are sheep"... or do their homework (little research) before buying a phone?

I paid nothing for my Blackberry and my running and data roaming costs come in well below any of it's rivals.

[Jiu-Jitsu]

e

Internal GPS that you have to pay Blackberry a fee to use every month.
Epic fail.

Don't know about that. At the moment, I pay £2.66/US$4.26/B133 for BIS with unlimited data per month. So that includes the 'Internal GPS' as you put it. So maps, unlimited messaging, browsing etc.

In addition, I can data roam unlimited on any mobile signal enabled flight for a maximum cost of £4/US$6.40/B200 per day.

Further to this, I can data roam anywhere in the world at a cost of £7.50/US12/B375 per month.

So whilst the sheep have to turn data roaming off completely in order to shield themselves from extortionate bills(hands up iPhone users), mine never goes off. Android user much the same as the other sheep. Data Roaming off or the never ending search for a local SIM.

Can you match that?

As I said, I don't need a million useless apps, nor the latest and smartest phone in the world. Certainly not one of those sheep queuing up to hand over wads of cash for the latest bit of disposable hardware.

I can communicate with my friends in a variety of ways at no extra cost than what has been described above. My Blackberry was a hand-me-down. I just replace the casing if battered.

So have never paid for a phone and pay as little as possible to run them to best effect.

Edited September 22, 2013 by Jiu-Jitsu

[Shurup]

So you got a brick of the phone that can't use apps but you have an attractive roaming charges. Good for you if that what you want. Has it occurred to you that "sheep" may have different requirements from their phones and roaming is of no concern to them?

[Jiu-Jitsu]

So you got a brick of the phone that can't use apps but you have an attractive roaming charges. Good for you if that what you want. Has it occurred to you that "sheep" may have different requirements from their phones and roaming is of no concern to them?

Idiots everywhere.

I explained clearly that it does all that I need in my country for 133 baht per month. I also explained how it covers my worldwide travel needs.

My Blackberry has similar volume to an iPhone 5 and weighs 10 grams more.

So tell me about your requirements, handset, handset cost and running costs. I'm guessing that you won't and that you will continue to spout rubbish.

[FiftyTwo]

So you got a brick of the phone that can't use apps but you have an attractive roaming charges. Good for you if that what you want. Has it occurred to you that "sheep" may have different requirements from their phones and roaming is of no concern to them?

Idiots everywhere.

I explained clearly that it does all that I need in my country for 133 baht per month. I also explained how it covers my worldwide travel needs.

My Blackberry has similar volume to an iPhone 5 and weighs 10 grams more.

So tell me about your requirements, handset, handset cost and running costs. I'm guessing that you won't and that you will continue to spout rubbish.

I have a Blackberry 9800, sits in a drawer gathering dust because to use GPS services I need to pay 300bht a month for a Blackberry data plan. No emails either.

I have a Nokia 520 in my pocket GPS mapping free, I cart a Samsung Tab android tablet/phone around all the time, the GPS navigation is free. I can send and receive emails from both without having to buy a data plan or pay any regular monthly fees.

[Shurup]

So you got a brick of the phone that can't use apps but you have an attractive roaming charges. Good for you if that what you want. Has it occurred to you that "sheep" may have different requirements from their phones and roaming is of no concern to them?

 

Idiots everywhere.

 

I explained clearly that it does all that I need in my country for 133 baht per month. I also explained how it covers my worldwide travel needs.

My Blackberry has similar volume to an iPhone 5 and weighs 10 grams more.

So tell me about your requirements, handset, handset cost and running costs. I'm guessing that you won't and that you will continue to spout rubbish.

You seem to be confused, what I said is its great to have a choice and its great there are so many makes and models on a market as there's not a phone that's suites everyone.

You want to know my requirements? To start with, how about a big screen? When I bought my Samsung Galaxy S2, it was the biggest screen on a market at a time, the only reason why I would want to upgrade is because there are even bigger screens now. On top of that I want a phone that can more or less replace my computer, that can more or less replace my photo/video camera, that I can edit pictures and videos with, play occasional game, watch movie on, surf full size websites. Good luck doing any of this on your brick phone, and by doing I mean doing comfortably.

My voice/data requirements? I'm either in Thailand or Canada for 1/2 a year, for another half a year I'm at work far out of any cell phone coverage. I have a Canadian pay as you go SIM for when I'm in Canada and I have prepaid Thai SIM for when I'm in Thailand. I add money to them as I need, I purchase a data plan as I need when I need, how much I spend here and there - I don't count and don't care but its not much.

Do I worry about the roaming charges? No, as I don't go to other countries very often and when I do, I don't cry if I have to be out of cell coverage area for a week or two (remember, I'm at work with no cell phone coverage for 6 months per year), I can always check my emails s few times a day, do occasional report if I need to from the hotel wifi and the best part - I can do it all from my phone.

Will I take a brick phone if it saves me $50 or so per year on service charges? No I won't, don't need it even if it was given to me for free, wouldn't even take it if I was paid a small fee to use it. I'm wealthy enough to afford what I want, no live the way I want and nor worrying about saving pennies in phone service charges.

Was it a satisfactory answer?

Now I have to ask, why have you resorted to name calling? Who is a sheep and an idiot here and who spouts rubbish? If you disagree with others' opinions, it doesn't mean you have to start name calling. Just the fact that RIM is nearly bankrupt says that there are more people share my opinion rather than yours.

Sent from my GT-I9100 using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

[Chicog]

Enjoy it while it lasts. It seems that particular business model is unsustainable.

Sent from my GT-I9505 using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

[Jiu-Jitsu]

Enjoy it while it lasts. It seems that particular business model is unsustainable.

Sent from my GT-I9505 using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

That is exactly what I'm doing.

I don't care if the business model is unsustainable. I'm enjoying the phone and the service whilst it lasts.

[MB1]

I'm happy with my BlackBerry. I have lower running costs than any of it's rivals and have no need for a million useless applications. But you can't please all of the people all of the time. Especially when most of them are sheep.

Some sheeple like Blackberry, some sheeple like Samsung, some sheeple like I phone, same, same, same so baaahlocks to your sheep thoughts...

[Jiu-Jitsu]

So you got a brick of the phone that can't use apps but you have an attractive roaming charges. Good for you if that what you want. Has it occurred to you that "sheep" may have different requirements from their phones and roaming is of no concern to them?

Idiots everywhere.

I explained clearly that it does all that I need in my country for 133 baht per month. I also explained how it covers my worldwide travel needs.

My Blackberry has similar volume to an iPhone 5 and weighs 10 grams more.

So tell me about your requirements, handset, handset cost and running costs. I'm guessing that you won't and that you will continue to spout rubbish.

You seem to be confused, what I said is its great to have a choice and its great there are so many makes and models on a market as there's not a phone that's suites everyone.

You want to know my requirements? To start with, how about a big screen? When I bought my Samsung Galaxy S2, it was the biggest screen on a market at a time, the only reason why I would want to upgrade is because there are even bigger screens now. On top of that I want a phone that can more or less replace my computer, that can more or less replace my photo/video camera, that I can edit pictures and videos with, play occasional game, watch movie on, surf full size websites. Good luck doing any of this on your brick phone, and by doing I mean doing comfortably.

My voice/data requirements? I'm either in Thailand or Canada for 1/2 a year, for another half a year I'm at work far out of any cell phone coverage. I have a Canadian pay as you go SIM for when I'm in Canada and I have prepaid Thai SIM for when I'm in Thailand. I add money to them as I need, I purchase a data plan as I need when I need, how much I spend here and there - I don't count and don't care but its not much.

Do I worry about the roaming charges? No, as I don't go to other countries very often and when I do, I don't cry if I have to be out of cell coverage area for a week or two (remember, I'm at work with no cell phone coverage for 6 months per year), I can always check my emails s few times a day, do occasional report if I need to from the hotel wifi and the best part - I can do it all from my phone.

Will I take a brick phone if it saves me $50 or so per year on service charges? No I won't, don't need it even if it was given to me for free, wouldn't even take it if I was paid a small fee to use it. I'm wealthy enough to afford what I want, no live the way I want and nor worrying about saving pennies in phone service charges.

Was it a satisfactory answer?

Now I have to ask, why have you resorted to name calling? Who is a sheep and an idiot here and who spouts rubbish? If you disagree with others' opinions, it doesn't mean you have to start name calling. Just the fact that RIM is nearly bankrupt says that there are more people share my opinion rather than yours.

Sent from my GT-I9100 using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

Where did you write before that it "was great to have a choice"??

Brick phone?? Your phone is most certainly larger than mine. Edit pictures?? Why would I need to do that on a phone? That's largely a gimmick.

If for half a year you are outside of cellphone coverage, why are you wasting everyone's time posting on a thread about cellphones??

If you need a toy to play games on, who cares? You don't sound like a typical user anyway.

I'm talking about a useful communications tool at a low cost. That what I have.

As to wealthy....I don't need to work at all. But I don't make a point of it in a thread about Smartphones.

Edited September 23, 2013 by Jiu-Jitsu

[Shurup]

Where did you write before that it "was great to have a choice"??

Brick phone?? Your phone is most certainly larger than mine. Edit pictures?? Why would I need to do that on a phone? That's largely a gimmick.

If for half a year you are outside of cellphone coverage, why are you wasting everyone's time posting on a thread about cellphones??

If you need a toy to play games on, who cares? You don't sound like a typical user anyway.

I'm talking about a useful communications tool at a low cost. That what I have.

As to wealthy....I don't need to work at all. But I don't make a point of it in a thread about Smartphones.

- Where did I write it's good to have choices? My first 2 replies. "Sheep" do their homework before buying, and "Sheep" have different phone requirements.

What it means is there are many choices and people to make their choices. You didn't get it so I had to clarify it for you.

- By brick phone I didn't mean size but usefulness of the device.

- Who needs edit pictures on the phone? I do... as well as millions of other users all over the world. If it's something that you don't need, doesn't mean others don't need it either.

- SO really, Just because I'm out of cell coverage area often if means I'm somehow not qualified to post? Are you a moderator here? No? Then stop making rules! This is a mobile device forum and I'm talking about the mobile devices.

- If I'm not a typical user, then neither are you. Mobile devices (Smartphones) are not just phones if you didn't know that, can be used in a number of other ways other than making a phone call or sending an SMS. Further on, don't put the words in my mouth that I didn't say, I'm not a gamer but I do play on it occasionally. Even if I was a gamer the hardware/software specific questions still fall into this Mobile Internet and Devices category.

- Right, you don't need to work but you do seem to be living under the rock, pennies counting and raving about your low mobile costs... The POINT i was trying to make in this thread about SMARTPHONES, is that you're missing the point! A lot of users me including don't seem to be concerned with service costs, we use the phones we like and we are happy with them, you have resorted to name calling instead. Grow up! is all left to say.

I will follow the advice in my signature, nothing more to say here. Goodbye!

[Chicog]

I'm happy with my BlackBerry. I have lower running costs than any of it's rivals and have no need for a million useless applications. But you can't please all of the people all of the time. Especially when most of them are sheep.

Actually it has lower running costs because it's shit and they can't give them away nowadays.

[Jiu-Jitsu]

I would read through your post, but I don't want to prolong any argument.

Suffice to say that perhaps you read more into my post than I wanted to say. I'm certainly not saying that "BlackBerry is the way". Just that it works for me. If fact the only reason why I liked them was for the Qwerty keyboard. The rest just grew on me. I hate typing on a TouchScreen or a normal mobile telephone keyboard.

I certainly didn't mean to suggest that everyone who jumps on the Apple/Android/BlackBerry bandwagon is a sheep. But there are many.

I'm happy with my BlackBerry. I don't need the latest gadget....to replace my last 'latest gadget'. It does everything that I need it to do. I just use the same Apps each time. I don't need access to millions of low quality Apps. I don't want to pay hundreds of pounds every few months when Apple decide to release their next gadget/status symbol.

I don't need a status symbol.

But I love the fact that I can stay in touch with my girlfriend all the way to Thailand from the UK and that i don't have to pay through the nose for it.

The fact is that most people aren't living mostly out of cell range and the six months in Thailand. Many are presented with hefty bills each month.

iPhone users would be presented with bills for hundreds, even thousands of Pounds when their iPhone decided to update itself whilst abroad.

Now they mostly panic and switch data off altogether.

I know about these things because I deal with them on a daily basis. Advising people on how to avoid the pitfalls.

There are a load of sheep out there

[Totster]

It's pointless arguing about which phone is best, horses for courses.

Blackberry was always preferred by business users due it's security, but I have seen friends who were staunch Blackberry users move to Android or iOS because they simply don't need RIM controlling their email and internet access, and more importantly the outages that have been experienced. In short, RIM will probably survive as a corporate service, but not IMO as a service for the individual.

totster

Edited September 23, 2013 by Totster

[wolf5370]

e

Internal GPS that you have to pay Blackberry a fee to use every month.

Epic fail.

Don't know about that. At the moment, I pay £2.66/US$4.26/B133 for BIS with unlimited data per month. So that includes the 'Internal GPS' as you put it. So maps, unlimited messaging, browsing etc.

In addition, I can data roam unlimited on any mobile signal enabled flight for a maximum cost of £4/US$6.40/B200 per day.

Further to this, I can data roam anywhere in the world at a cost of £7.50/US12/B375 per month.

So whilst the sheep have to turn data roaming off completely in order to shield themselves from extortionate bills(hands up iPhone users), mine never goes off. Android user much the same as the other sheep. Data Roaming off or the never ending search for a local SIM.

Can you match that?

As I said, I don't need a million useless apps, nor the latest and smartest phone in the world. Certainly not one of those sheep queuing up to hand over wads of cash for the latest bit of disposable hardware.

I can communicate with my friends in a variety of ways at no extra cost than what has been described above. My Blackberry was a hand-me-down. I just replace the casing if battered.

So have never paid for a phone and pay as little as possible to run them to best effect.

Same here - my little 4 person family have, 3 Blackberry phones and 2 PlayBooks (Mrs has an IPhone) - pay True H+ 450b each per month and all calls, texts, data, BBM are included - just as above, never turn off mobile roaming (though it is set to prefer wifi for speed reasons). Once they sort out the over demand for BBM on IPhones and Android, BBM will be pretty much across the board. Plenty of Apps on the BB World and PlayBooks put my IPad to shame in all but app choice.

Edited September 23, 2013 by wolf5370

[wolf5370]

So you got a brick of the phone that can't use apps but you have an attractive roaming charges. Good for you if that what you want. Has it occurred to you that "sheep" may have different requirements from their phones and roaming is of no concern to them?

What do you mean "can't use apps" - you obviously have no idea of a Blackberry at all. BB World has thousands of apps - OS automatically updates (as required) as to apps.

Roaming has got to be more important than playing Angry Birds, surely - its a phone not a Gameboy!

[wolf5370]

So you got a brick of the phone that can't use apps but you have an attractive roaming charges. Good for you if that what you want. Has it occurred to you that "sheep" may have different requirements from their phones and roaming is of no concern to them?

Idiots everywhere.

I explained clearly that it does all that I need in my country for 133 baht per month. I also explained how it covers my worldwide travel needs.

My Blackberry has similar volume to an iPhone 5 and weighs 10 grams more.

So tell me about your requirements, handset, handset cost and running costs. I'm guessing that you won't and that you will continue to spout rubbish.

<snip>

You want to know my requirements? To start with, how about a big screen? When I bought my Samsung Galaxy S2, it was the biggest screen on a market at a time, the only reason why I would want to upgrade is because there are even bigger screens now. On top of that I want a phone that can more or less replace my computer, that can more or less replace my photo/video camera, that I can edit pictures and videos with, play occasional game, watch movie on, surf full size websites. Good luck doing any of this on your brick phone, and by doing I mean doing comfortably.

<snip>

"Good luck doing any of this on your brick phone, and by doing I mean doing comfortably."

How about a big screen: Galaxy S4 screen size 5 inches - Blackberry Z30 5 inches - whoops

Camera:

S4:

Primary: 13 MP, 4128 x 3096 pixels, autofocus, LED flash

Secondary: 2 MP,1080p@30fps, dual video call

Z30: Rear Facing Camera: 8MP Auto-Focus, Back Side Illumination, 5 element F2.2 lens, Flash, continuous & touch to focus, image stabilization, Proprietary Enhanced Super, Resolution Digital Zoom (5x), 1080p HD video recording

Front Facing Camera: 2MP Fixed-Focus, Image & video stabilization, 3x digital zoom, 720p HD video recording

Computer:

S4:

CPU: Quad-core 1.6 GHz Cortex-A15 & quad-core 1.2 GHz Cortex-A7 with PowerVR SGX 544MP3 GPU

Z30:

CPU: Dual Core 1.7 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro Processor with QuadCore Adreno 320 GPU

Both have video/graphic editing apps, can watch full HD video and surf (can surf with just wifi and no data contract - I did for 3 months while True sorted out BIS).

They are pretty a much of a much (and I would suggest BB World is not as good as Apple App Store, but much better than Android (Z30 can also run Android apps by the way) - which is full of useless tat, fakes (like the many pretend versions of Android BBM for the last month) and buggy code.

Your, and others here, continual confusion as to no apps (which is incorrect - I can even do all of the things you mention on my old 9900 including surfing and watching videos!) and that you need a data contract - you can make calls without it - you can use wifi to download apps (including GMail etc) and use them with wifi - this is a fact, I did as I said already whilst waiting for the pin to be reassigned (that was due to my old carrier and not BB) and had no BIS. BB phones are meant to have a data contract - it is their main use - and just like IPhones, not much more than a phone outside of home without one. Buying a BB and not going for a data plan is like buying a car without wanting to pay for petrol - you can still sit at home and listed to the radio!

[wolf5370]

I've been following this on Appy Geek.

It is 40% not 50% staff cropping (just to correct that - still a big cut of course).

The previous CEO/founder (pushed out a year ago) is trying for a private equity buy out (he already holds almost 6% of the stock) - BB has over $5bn in patents and $4.5bn business subscription (20 million business users) plus a valuable 72 million private subscribers. It also owns most of its premises (some very new). Fairfax Holding is also a possible buyer as it already holds a large stake. Several other companies have been linked with takeover too.

It is likely that it will be split and the device side sold off as the software moves to multiplatform (starting with BBM). Devices are non performing, but with the patents side could be a good investment - remember Microsoft bough Nokia when they started having real problems.

[sustento]

If BB disappears what are all the spies (and the teenies) going to use

[Tywais]

Consortium offers to buy BlackBerry for $4.7 billion

Summary: Fairfax Financial, a Canadian financial firm that owns 10 percent of BlackBerry shares, led a consortium with an offer to buy the company.

BlackBerry said Monday that it will be sold to a consortium led by Fairfax Financial in a deal valued at $4.7 billion, or $9 a share.

Following a profit warning on Friday, BlackBerry was burning cash and appeared to have limited options. Wall Street analysts were urging a quick sale.

Looks like BlackBerry delivered. Analysts were looking anywhere from $7 a share to $12 a share for the company. Here's a look at how Macquarie valued BlackBerry.

ZDNet.com

[sustento]

New phone (allegedly)

http://www.trustedreviews.com/news/blackberry-kopi-to-launch-as-budget-phone-below-blackberry-q5

Edited September 23, 2013 by sustento

[Tywais]

BlackBerry confirms 4,500 jobs cuts, slashes device portfolio

Summary: BlackBerry shares were halted on the Nasdaq stock exchange on Friday afternoon, ahead of news of massive job cuts.

BlackBerry said late Friday afternoon that it will cut 4,500 jobs as the Canadian company continues to struggle in the face of steep competition in the mobile space.

The news follows earlier reports that the company was preparing to cut as much as 40 percent of its global workforce.

The smartphone maker said it will retain approximately 7,000 full-time employees around the globe as it attempts to generate traction for its next-generation mobile operating system, BlackBerry 10, and the devices that use it.

ZDNet.com

[Shurup]

So you got a brick of the phone that can't use apps but you have an attractive roaming charges. Good for you if that what you want. Has it occurred to you that "sheep" may have different requirements from their phones and roaming is of no concern to them?

What do you mean "can't use apps" - you obviously have no idea of a Blackberry at all. BB World has thousands of apps - OS automatically updates (as required) as to apps.

Roaming has got to be more important than playing Angry Birds, surely - its a phone not a Gameboy!

Right I don't follow BB phones - not interested. At the time when attractive smartphones started coming out and I became interested, BB didn't have anything good to offer and were still pushing phones with hardware keyboard, which some folks still prefer to use even now??

BB came too late into this market their app store was the last one to acquire the useful number of useful apps... They are still not an open source platform from what I know. Apple still keeps on going, or keep on rolling on its name, but they keep loosing the market over to Android. Why do I and many others use Android? Because we can do what we want with it! We don't need the big companies telling us what we can or can not do with our devices, we don't need nobody telling us how to do things on our devices.

I am not saying they don't have any good phones at the moment, in fact you demonstrated they actually do but it's a little too late for them, they've missed a good chunk of users who switched from their Nokias and Motorollas over to iOS and Android.

Regarding sheep, it's actually corporations and businesses who fall into this sheep category, many were getting RIM devices just because they were being pushed as the business phones... Guess what, I know more than one global corporation who first jumped on the BB bandwagon to only let their employees chose the devices they want some years later.

They have a bad business model and they made some poor choices.

I didn't want to get into argument with anyone but another forum user here decided to call other platform users a sheep, just because they made different choices than him.

[Digitalbanana]

Worst.Management.Ever.

I guess so: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2429965/BlackBerry-executives-bought-20million-jet-just-phone-company-sacked-4-500-employees.html