BlackBerry Bold 9900 and 9930 phones are bricking themselves, RIM acknowledges

By Jeffrey Van Camp November 21, 2011

blackberry-bold-9900-9930 — Image used with permission by copyright holder

RIM’s problems continue. It’s only been a few weeks since the Canadian company faced massive global outages of its smartphone services, but now some owners of the new BlackBerry Bold 9900 and 9930 are complaining that their phones have suddenly refused to turn on, bricking the devices. Owners have had to get the phones completely replaced to solve the issue.

A RIM spokesperson spoke with CNBC, acknowledging the problem: “A limited number of customers have reported an issue where their device does not power on,” said the spokesperson. “[RIM is] actively working on a software update to resolve this issue.”

The issue is believed to be related to the BlackBerry 7 operating system, but a hardware issue is still possible. This isn’t the first time RIM has had issues like this. About 1,000 BlackBerry PlayBooks had to be recalled due to bricking issues like this. Our first PlayBook review unit experienced a similar issue to the one reported by Bold owners. After a charge one night, it simply wouldn’t turn on again. The problems are likely unrelated as the PlayBook runs a different OS than the Bold phones, but they are both BlackBerry products.

If you’ve experienced problems with your Bold 9900 or 9930, please let us know in the comments below.

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