UPDATED: New Blackberry Curve user: Please wait 6 days before using device

This is absolute bollocks.

I hear from Imogen. She occasionally follows Mobile Industry Review, mostly via my Facebook profile. On Tuesday, I published a Facebook status update and said I was playing with/impressed with the new Blackberry Curve 8520 8900. In particular, I commented that it was a brilliantly conceived device for the the ‘normob’ marketplace — your mother, your sister, your brother.

For you and I though, we’re Storms, we’re Bolds, we’re the 600-700 pound handset people. So it’s nice to take a look at a device squarely aimed at the main population of the country — and sit back and consider all the really cool things they’ll be able to do with their new ‘entry-level’ mid-level Blackberry.

That is, if you get it activated any time soon.

Imogen was already thinking Blackberry before she saw my comment. We had a brief status-comment-chat where I said it looked like a well made device that would probably be a good fit for her.

She headed down to the Orange store yesterday and signed up to a new 24-month contract on ‘Panther 30’. She’s delighted with the device. She even got it free of charge.

The problem?

Read this.

“How d’ya like it?” I ask.

“Getting there. the bb package hasn’t started yet so no email or internet yet,” she replies.

I nodded to myself.

“Ah yes, it takes a wee while,” thinking of whenever I’ve bought a Blackberry in the past. Often you need to wait a couple of hours for it to ‘activate’.

“I have to wait until my next billing date,” she says, “Another 6 days.”

So right now she’s got this brand new Blackberry Curve 8520 8900. And her DICKHEAD operator has given it to her.

But you know what, she’s no better than she was yesterday morning. She’s got a brand spanking new device and she can do NOTHING with it, other than what she was previously used to, with her old ‘feature’ shit phone.

Imogen is in her mid-Twenties and *precisely* the target audience for the Blackberry Curve 8520 8900. She wanted to get connected. Use Facebook. Use the email. Stay in touch.

Not for 6 days.

Because the total arse who wrote the Orange UK billing system decided that, NO, she can’t have what she wants, for an arbitrary period of time until her next billing date.

Blackberry should, righly, be apoplectic.

What’s Imogen thinking of her brand new Blackberry? The one specifically targeted for her segment?

She’s bemused. She’s doing her best to hide her sincere disappointment (“this didn’t happen when my friend bought an iPhone”) and she’s trying not to look at the brand new sexy piece of technology on her desk for the moment.

Absolutely, totally ridiculous.

You need to fix this Blackberry.

And Orange? You need your head examined.

What total arse let Imogen walk out the shop with a flipping Blackberry that DOESN’T do data… yet?

You know what Imogen, I think you should tell them to stick it. I think you should take the Blackberry back and go and get an iPhone on o2.

I will happily bear the technical bollocks associated with mobile handsets. But I can’t stand normal mobile users having to be exposed to this rubbish.

There is absolutely no what Blackberry will be a success in the consumer marketplace if they’re foisting their legacy bollocks issues on them. This is a Blackberry issue because that’s the brand Imogen bought. Blackberry, get on the phone to Orange and fix it.

Orange: Ridiculous. Shoot the chap or lady that sold this deal. It’s 2009 and a normob still can’t walk out of a mobile phone shop with a sodding data connection *working*?

Update: I talked with Conor at Orange and he explained that if a customer changes handset to a Blackberry — and is already on a package that doesn’t include data, then they will need to wait until their next billing date before their new data inclusive package kicks in. This, it seems, is normal practice. If the customer doesn’t want to wait until the next billing cycle, they can buy a data bundle straight-away.

Now, the problem I have with this is that it appears to be incumbent on the customer to do the thinking. Surely it doesn’t make sense — at any level — to give a customer a new device without a data connection. Even for just 6 days. Upgrade them gratis. Or add a quid to their bill, with their permission, (i.e. a pro-rata data bundle) so they can start using the device as it’s intended, right-away?

Now — Imogen and I had a bit of a communications error. I was given to understand she was talking about the Blackberry 8520 — the one I’d done the posts on. This was slightly confusing for Orange, given that they don’t actually offer it as yet. Imogen tells me, after looking at the details on the device box, it’s the Blackberry 8900 Curve. That’s the device in question, so I apologise for the inconsistency.