Blackberry Bold – Hot stuff…

When you’re looking to take on the likes of the mighty iPhone you don’t want to have any problems that has to end with your products being taken off the shelves faster than hot cakes – and not for the right reasons.

Unfortunately for Blackberry this is exactly what’s happening – Japan’s biggest telecoms provider, NTT DoCoMo, has announced that it has had to stop selling units of the Blackberry Bold due to the fact that it constantly overheats when being charged.

The company has said that they have only sold around 4000 units of the Smartphone and from those only 30 have brought the handset back to the store to complain about the issue which sees the keyboard getting too hot to handle.

RIM: Only in Japan!

Research in Motion, the developers behind the Blackberry, are claiming that they are investigating the problem and have stated that the overheating is only apparent in the Blackberry Bold devices in Japan, no others.

“This issue appears to be specifically limited to the BlackBerry Bold devices sold in Japan since last week and sales of BlackBerry Bold devices in other countries are unaffected by this matter,” said RIM in a statement.

RIM have underlined the fact that they will be able to sort out the issue soon and claim that the Bold will be back on shelves very soon.

Tough times for the Bold.

The Blackberry Bold has had a pretty tough time on the world market – In France the Orange network pulled their sales of the handset for different reasons.

Meanwhile the launch of the Bold in the United States was set back for a significant period of months as it was expected to be launched in July but didn’t actually see the light of day until much closer to the festive season.

However, these overheating issues are only being reported in Japan and the United States and currently not experiencing any issues with their copies of the device.

RIM have apparently ruled out the battery as being a cause of the problem but as of yet the real cause of the overheating keypad is a mystery to the company.

The complaints don’t bode well for Blackberry who only launched the Bold in Japan a mere week ago – to have the handsets pulled off the shelves and have the Smartphone taken off the market is quite a serious issue for Blackberry who will want to get the overheating issue sorted out as soon as possible.

Stocks yet to be affected…
Nonetheless the problems with the keypad haven’t seemed to have affected either party’s stock prices.

Research in Motion’s shares have been up in recent trading by 1.5 per cent to $40.13. Meanwhile DoCoMo, the telecoms provider that brings the Bold to Japan, enjoyed a 1.6 per cent increase in the share prices to $15.47.

The Bold’s issues in the world market haven’t been quiet or simple, but what are your feelings about the Smartphone?� Do you feel that it’s worth getting your fingers burnt for the Smartphone or would you look for another option?