BlackBerry Storm 2 On Vodafone Withdrawn From Sale
It seems like BlackBerry’s second bite at the touchscreen cherry has gone a little sour, with the Storm 2 no longer available directly from the Vodafone UK website.
Whilst the BlackBerry Storm 2 page URL is still live on the network’s site, all purchasing links are curiously missing, nor is it accessible through the handset search pages.
The Bold 9700 and Curve 8520 are still present and correct.
This ties in with a recent e-mail alert from our affiliates echoing this removal, with other sources citing software problems and battery life concerns as driving factors towards the phone’s premature demise.
The Storm 2 was a refinement of the original BlackBerry Storm, equally as famous for being lambasted by Stephen Fry over Twitter as it was for being the first handset from manufacturer RIM to be devoid of a physical keyboard.
BlackBerry’s method of emulating a ‘clickable’ QWERTY keyboard on a touch display (dubbed Surepress) was not warmly received first time around and was swiftly done away with on the Storm 2. The Storm 2’s new peizo-powered touchscreen was said to combine the benefits of multi-touch with a good bit of feedback, but it seems not to have done enough to stave off the phone’s death.
Third party retailers are however stocking the device, so there are still BlackBerry Storm 2 deals to be found on our site, but the absence of Vodafone’s former flagship touch phone cannot be unrelated to a hugely successful launch of the iPhone 3G and 3GS through their stores.
If the Storm 2 was doing poorly before, then the presence of Apple’s iconic touch-driven device on the same shelves is sure to have send sales plummeting….whether the handset is still available from Voda’s high street outlets is unknown at present.
Vodafone is yet to give an official statement regarding the phone’s removal from sale.
What will T-Mobile UK and O2 make of this, given they will soon be selling the beleaguered BlackBerry on their respective networks? We’ll see soon enough.
Tags: BlackBerry, blackberry storm, storm, storm 2
[...] Perhaps exclusivity rather than software faults were the reason for the handset’s elusive nature on Vodafone earlier in the week… [...]