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Storm Watch: Early morning lines form for BlackBerry Storm
Customers lined up outside Verizon stores all over Washington, D.C., and all over the country today to snap up Research In Motion's BlackBerry Storm, which Verizon Wireless is launching today.
One FierceWireless team member was able to snap a few shots of the lines earlier this morning. Verizon's Storm Center website was also reporting lines elsewhere in the Washington metro area.
The phone retails at $199 with a two-year contract. This will mark the first touchscreen device from RIM and another contender for "iPhone Killer" crown.
Some Storm fans said they had waited in line at retail stores for the phone, but weren't able to get a device because others ahead of them had purchased multiple devices. Verizon spokeswoman Brenda Raney said that because certain customers, especially business customers could have multiple lines on their account or multiple contracts that were up, they could have purchased more than one Storm.
For more:
- see these photos of the lines for the BlackBerry Storm
- check out the Verizon Storm Center for more updates
- see our Unboxing slideshow
- check out our review with photos
Comments (9) | Post a comment
Comments
Posted by Anonymous | November 21, 2008 - 10:55am
In Miami, each store only got 15 units, leaving many of us out in the cold. My number? 13. Yet no Storm. They ran out at No. 11 because they allowed some people to buy more than one unit.
What a pathetic launch. Shame on you Verizon.
Posted by Anonymous | November 21, 2008 - 11:24am
Same thing here in NY. A big fat shame on you to Verizon....I had to waste an hour in the store and go back to work to order on-line
Posted by Anonymous | November 21, 2008 - 12:23pm
I'm from Souther California and man... I have two corporate stores by my apartment.. I chose the wrong one this morning.. The store I went to only had *9* phones. The other one had 43.. Very disappointing Verizon..
I heard the President of Verizon Wireless was stopping by the corporate store I was at.. Shouldn't that be a incentive to have as many Storms as possible?¿
Posted by Paul 'PC' Cook | November 21, 2008 - 2:18pm
Glad I ordered mine from my Verizon corporate rep. It'll be delivered tomorrow. CAN'T WAIT!!!!!!!! Hopefully Verizon didn't think that limited #'s would increase the buzz and desire for the Storm. They should've had enough in stock to SMASH iPHone sales!!! Actually, nothing could dwarf what Apple did with their launch, but I'd love to hear some good buzz about Verizon selling a million phones the first day. Not going to happen.
Posted by T | November 21, 2008 - 9:39pm
Up in Cambridge Mass, I was first in the store when it opened, I already had assistance from a sales rep to help me reserve a phone the week before, and the sales rep tells me they are sold out... No one else was in the store but me when they told me that. Thats a big F you from Verizon. How can they sell out, when I'm the first customer?
So apparently you can order them and they will overnight it to you, and i should expect "overnight" delivery to take several days... They told me its a 5 minute process that will take maybe 15 to 20 minutes because of the high volume of people using the sales network trying to get storms. 2 hours later... they told me to go home because they had no idea how long its gonna take for their corporate network to respond. 6 Hours after that, I had to call the verizon store to get confirmation that my order was processed, when they had said they would be calling me.
I hope i forget this terrible experience when my phone arrives.
Posted by Anonymous | November 21, 2008 - 10:55pm
I went to the store in Chevy Chase MD and they had 60 phones - but no one was getting a Storm because they system had crashed. Again - same on you Verizon - you're not even as good as Apple.
Posted by caboflipper | November 22, 2008 - 10:31am
get a life...its only a cell phone... why not donate some of that wasted time waiting in line to the needy or starving children...geesh,nunch of self centered materialistic consumers who lives revolve around the latest gadget that will be technologially obselete in 3 months.....
Posted by Anonymous | November 23, 2008 - 11:09pm
i went to the store in my area and i was told that they were sold out and that I could order it and it would arrive in a few days. BUT when trying to process in the system the computer systems went down and was taking so long that I said I would come back. I tried to order online but it took hours to get to the check out page and then it went back to the home page. Verizon should have thought this out a little better and expected this. Now when I can order it they say it will ship by 12/15.... I wonder if they will restock the stores at all this week????
Good luck
Posted by Anonymous | December 23, 2008 - 12:31pm
Gee I didn't have any trouble at Sprint getting two very nice HTCs...
Maybe if Verizon didn't spend so much on FiOs and having all those network people following people around they'd get it together...
