We seem to keep going back and forth on the release date of the Sprint BlackBerry Curve 8330.
When Sprint first announced the BlackBerry Curve they said that it would come out in April. Then we heard a lot of rumors that the launch of the Sprint Curve had been delayed, possibly all the way into June. Just the other day Engadget Mobile reported that the Sprint Curve indeed would ship in April. And today, we see that the device won’t be available via the Sprint Store until June 1st.
Now, The Sprint Store technically isn’t Sprint, but, an authorized Sprint reseller. One could gather, however, that if Sprint’s authorized resellers aren’t carrying the device until June, the device probably isn’t coming out until June.
What do you think?
{democracy:11}
The sprint Store in Burlington, MA says April 24th is the in store state.
I am in Maryland, called 9a.m. yesterday, (like how many other 7100i die hards?) and Telesales said June. Telesales also told me 2 weeks ago when I shipped back the Pearl 8130 that the Curve would be available the 20th… go figure! ( jumped ship from Nextel to the Sprint side for 2 weeks, Hated the Pearl. it erased my address book, call log, don’t even think about having more than 3 pictures on it, even thought I brought 4G memory. THEY suggested I do a hard reset weekly, hold the alt key, press this and that, spin around 3 times—on and on WEEKLY basis to keep my file free ” within safe limits” what the hell? I ran back to the Nextel side for the April Curve. Did I say April? No May, NO June. Does anyone have Dan Hesse email? MAYBE he knows!
Who cares? CDMA is dying and so is Sprint. This Curve has neither GPS or WIFI so who’d want it? I’m glad RIM is making money off of the 8330 but if you want a cool phone get the T-Mo 8320 with WIFI and T-Mo HotSpot@Home.
ummmm the 8330 has gps
im waiting to go to the repair store and ask (and threaten to leave) for a curve or 8830 to replace my (second!) defective pearl
it goes through spells where it will delete my text msgs as soon as i get them :(((( and this is the second pearl i’ve had that does this
for sure there is gps! i was told the erasing crap is “a flaw with this phone, THEY are working on it” !! 3 week was all I could take, lol!
The 8330 also has 96 MB memory, I can still use the 4G I brought for the Pearl!
@ Wajeeha, dan@sprint.com is hesse’s email good luck getting a confirm date on curve. As for the GPS curve for sprint will have the gps. No WIFI even though they could have added the extra feature to be over the top. But I’m not the 1 who makes decisions at sprint.
Sprint has one of the industry’s best open door policies when it comes to releasing their new handsets. A great example is their CTIA announcement where they stated:
“The BlackBerry Curve 8330 smartphone will be available later this month online at http://www.sprint.com, through Sprint Telesales, Sprint business sales channels and retail locations for as low as $179.99 with a two-year service agreement, a $170 instant savings credit and $100 mail-in-rebate.”
“Later this month” has been known to change into “later this quarter” and “whenever the hell we want!” So instead of racking our brains trying to decipher exactly what sprint meant it is better just to list the facts.
Fact 1 – The phone has been delayed! Why? The Sprint TV portion of the phone was not working correctly and they did not want angry customers like they had over the botched LG Rumor Release.
This is neither rumor nor speculation and came directly from:
Amy Schiska-Lombard, 913-794-2947
amy.k.schiska@sprint.com
or
Brodeur (for RIM)
Marisa Conway, 212-515-1924
mconway@brodeur.com
Fact 2 – Sprint releases their new handsets and Rate Plans at the beginning of every new rebate period. The current rebate period is 04/20/08 – 06/28/08. This does not mean that they will be releasing the Curve at the beginning of their next rebate period. All it means is that you ALWAYS CHECK THE REBATE FORMS!
Fact 3 – On the current Sprint Rebate Form http://www.nextel.com/assets/pdfs/en/promotions/mir_042008.pdf it has listed the following phones:
Blackberry 8330
Pro 200 by Sanyo
Pro 700 by Sanyo
Z400 by Samsung
Low and behold… None of these were released on 04/20/08. Bottom line… The Blackberry 8330 Curve will be released before 06/28/08.
Fact 4 – The handsets are shipped to the warehouse so naturally Telesales and the http://www.Sprint.com get them first! But WAIT… There is more! Sprint cannot list them on their website until BrightPoint and their corporate stores have them in stock ready to sell. The ones that get them last are the indirect dealers and the mom & pop shops because they have to get them from their master agents and they get them from BrightPoint.
Fact 5 – If you want to know if the Curve is close to launching then ask the following question:”Does Ensemble or FDT show if the warehouse has created the SKU for the 8330?”
The answer as of today… NO, they have not!
The reason why you see sites http://www.thesprintstore.net/Shop/Control/Product/fp/vpid/5127659/vpcsid/0/SFV/31590 listing the phone for presale is that they ship directly from Sprint’s warehouse through a process called “FAST” or “VAD” ordering! This means that on the day the Curve is released they will be shipping all Pre-Activated and Pre-Upgraded handsets.
Seth Helgeson,
Thanks for the post, quite informative and reasonable!!
helchacha, thanks for the email. maybe i will just google “danny” and set up a lunch date! maybe I can get us a release date!:)
Seth Helgeson, forget telesales, i want to call you!!! thanks for the info, like khadijah, informative.
wajeeha, 7100i and holding strong………….. for now
this is the link in Seths note above:
http://www.thesprintstore.net/Shop/Control/Product/fp/vpid/5127659/vpcsid/0/SFV/31590
Sprint – Blackberry 8330 Curve – Available 05.07.08 for Direct Ship Only!
ok… whats the direct ship deal? telesales? $200 price difference too.
thanks anyone!
Direct ship is for online sales via the sprint website and telesales. The launch date is the 7th of may and was confirmed from the head of the sprint product development team. For more info please see… http://www.thesprintstore.blogspot.com
I’m not sure if you guys have looked at the weekly ad from bestbuy.com but in there they have sale for blackberries and what do you know. Sprint’s curve is listed in there. So either bestbuy has false advertisement or the phone is actually coming out. Like Seth said the date could be may 7th. You guys should check out sprintusers.com also. Oh and thesprintstore i wouldn’t buy anything from them. They have had listing for curve for a while and have kept changing stuff. Not a reliable site to buy from.
Just got off the phone with telesales and they said they were given May 12th as the offical release date
In the Verizon Curve blog, they’re saying that the release date is May 5. A few of them have already “pre-ordered” and it should ship on the 5th. What? Where’s Sprint in this? I want one too!
In re: to the BestBuy ad, I called several stores and they said that they had them in but they were not going to be released until May 5th too. Sprint cust. svc. till says June 1. So…
Ive been to all the major outlets to get some info on a the Blackberry 8130 and 8830 and now it looks like the Curve is here. Not one of the mojor outlets could hardly give the time of day other that try to fix me up with anything they could do right then. I went to a Sprint privately owned store and the guy there spent 30 min educating me on Blackberrys and suggested I at least wait on the release of the curve or go with the 8830. This guy had been in the business for over 10 years. He said he quite chewing bubblegum about 40 yrs ago. Forget telesales find a Dealer,the price is the same but the after the sale service is very different. Oh ! Telesales told me I was required to add a line to get the Simply Everything Plan. I found out thats not true so watch out.
Wajeeha
By the way. They dealer should have informed you like they did for me. You have to have a SD card of you gonna do pics , etc. Blackberrys only have 64mb on board memory. Its compressed for applications so its plenty but for other files like music and pics you need SD gigabites. There cheap too. If your Blackberry’s outa onboard memory what else can it. Ive got 20-30 pics plus music with room to spare on a 4 gig SD card.
i sent the 8130 back after 3 weeks in delete hell, but not before buying a 4 gb sd card. so…WHENEVER the 8330 drops i am ready.
i’ve got $2.00 on may 7th. i will be in new mexico next week but i am so on it for wednesday. we will see.
i called my local bestbuy (i am in maryland) when that add posted and was told they didn’t have the 8330 and were as surprised as the rest of us, lol!
Wajeeha, you owe us all $2.00!! I’ve been back and forth with Sprint e-care and they say tomorrow, May 9th but also added that that was subject to change. Plus I might add that I got a sweet deal since they’ve been back and forth so much with the release. So we really could be looking at June 1. Who the hell knows at this point!! I hope so. Let’s see if it pops up on the site at 12:00 am???
IT’S HERE! IT’S HERE! IT’S FINALLY HERE!! CHECK THE WEBSITE!!! YOU GOTTA SCROLL DOWN IN THE PDA PHONES – IT’S HERE!!!!!
so ok… i have been in albuquerque new mexico since tuesday. bright and early east coast time on the 7th i called sprint. june 1st they tell me. so, i called back 2 or 3 times and got june 1st. i was going to have it shipped here as i won’t return to maryland until monday! i have my $2 bills khadijah. you’ve seen them, some pink some yellow monopoly bucks 🙂
Check the website Wajeeha, IT’S FINALLY THERE! I’ll let you slide on the $2 debt though because with the upgrade price of the BB, you’ll probably need every $$ you can get!!
khadijah!
omg!! i saw your post as i was leaving one. i have been on the phone with them already! i have to wait until the 9th “the official date”. with my years of service and all the blah, blah, blah, it’s costing me $179!!
i have a meeting at 830a, i think i may be a few minutes late, see, what happened was….
what do you mean with your years of service? are you eligible for an upgrade? I had to bytch and moan to get anything from them and then they want to give me the discounts off of the REGULAR price and not the sale price??? I have a funeral to go to at 10 and the store opens at 10!! I hope they’re not gone by the time I FINALLY get to the store. The rep did tell me that not every store will have them though…
i find the better deals are with telesales. going into the stores in my experience has not proved favorable.
here goes,
i have been with nextel since 2002.
it APPEARED i’ve only had this 7100i a year, i had to explain to her it was replaced a year ago, i’ve had this brick since 2005.
that brings the price to $279 and there is a $100 mail in rebate.
fight! i have found that saying thank’s but no thank’s and calling right back to another rep works too.
Ok, cool. I’ll see what the store brings and if not, I’ll be calling telesales. thanks!
SWEET!!!!!!! phone arrived yesterday, well worth the wait. I brought a case-mate case from a t-mobile store! i love this case! $40 at the store, cost even more on case-mates website.
I got mine yesterday! I LOVE IT! Now all I need is for it to come out in red so I can exchange it and be fashionable! Waj you got a link to the case, I wanna see.
khadijah
don’t you love it? i don’t even miss my direct connect!
the site is case-mate.com
BlackBerry Curve Signature Case/Holster Combo
Form-fit Napa Leather Case and Holster
Price: $49.99
i purchased mine from a t-mobile store for $39.99!!
Man oh.man do I. I think I want the red one though.I’m using it right now to reply. It’s the greatest!