While travelling back from Reading this afternoon on the train, I took it upon myself to install the Twitter application. Mistake. The phone killed itself with the same error as before; the error where you cannot start the phone, switch it off, or basically do anything with it until you have done a factory restore on it.
After arriving home, and almost unbelievingly showing the dead Blackberry to W, we ate lunch and then headed into town.This is a fairly close transcript of the conversation I had with the guy in Carphone Warehouse (where I originally got it).
“I bought this phone from you in January, and I’m not happy with it - it keeps crashing, causing a full system restore each time. Also, the holster drains the battery.”
“We can send it back to Blackberry to be serviced. It will take 3 weeks.”
“Can you not do some kind of exchange for a different type of handset?”
“No.”
The rest of the discussion centered around the HTC Wildfire handset, which Carphone Warehouse are trying to sell SIM free for almost double it’s market price. Unbelievable.
When I got home, I called Orange to find out what options they might provide me with.
“When is the earliest date I can upgrade the handset to something else?”
“October next year”
“Is there any way I can re-start the contract, and extend it further out - changing the handset in doing so?”
“No.”
“Is there any kind of trade-in deal you can do with this handset?”
“No.”
I then went on to have a conversation with the girl from Orange on the phone about her phone - which turned out to be the same model I’m having all the problems with. Turns out she never had it in a holster, and doesn’t use half the applications I do.
And so it was I decided to keep the damn Blackberry - mainly because I’m not dishonest enough to throw it at the floor, and replace it through an insurance claim.
I’ve spent half the evening resetting the Blackberry (three times!), removing applications, restoring applications, and finally getting it to a point where I was able to back it up.Of course I have no idea if restoring from a backup will work, but here’s hoping!
I promise not to write about the damn phone again any time soon.