Good News!!

Having just spoken to Anne again, I am able to give a date for the release of this phone... finally. She said it should be released on the 20th of January, if all goes to plan and there's no hitches. She also said there would be plenty of stock and although she didn't know the cost of the phone exactly, she *thinks* it could be around the £350 mark... which you will obviously get your retentions discount on top of, that I hope bring it down to an affordable price, considering how long most of us have waited for the phone.

She is calling me on the 19th to confirm that the phone will be released as planned, so I will update here when I hear back.

At least it's not gone another few months forward again, which is a massive relief for me.


Note to commenter 'Mightily Miffed' who asked about the X1; apparently T Mobile have no plans to release this phone from what I have heard.

Another note: I tried the G1 out of sheer desperation... a load of rubbish in my opinion! Needless to say, it's been sent back!

Last one: Happy New Year!

Another Vario IV Delay... Plus Upgrade Problems/Delays

Just had a call from Anne at the Customer Service Directors office and she has been speaking to the acquisitions department who now say they're looking at the MIDDLE OF JANUARY for the release of this phone.

I honestly do not know why I feel so loyal and am hanging on/waiting for T Mobile to get themselves in gear as they're clearly just dragging their feet.

Also, I have been told (along with many others) that I cannot upgrade now until January even though I have been eligible for an upgrade for a while now (I even tried out the Omnia - didn't like it though). I believe this is because they have run out of funds in the upgrade 'piggy bank' but that I can have a 'Christmas Customer Loyalty Discount' applied to my account which will take my bill down by £5; I've accepted but it doesn't really cut it though and I am seriously considering taking my business elsewhere now as this really isn't good business practice by them.

Hmmmpffff!

For Those Interested.. T Mobile Netherlands Web Page.

I thought I'd have a nosey at the Vario IV on T Mobile, Netherlands website, and I thought others may want to do the same, so here it is:

Click Me For T Mobile Netherlands Page Vario IV

I have put it through googles translator so it's in rough English for the most part, although this means you also have to go to shop, phones and then to the product page as the URL doesn't change from the google translated first page.

The original page is here for anybody who wants to view it, in its original state.

More Conversations With Head Office!

I rang head office again today, and have been told something slightly different to last time. The girl I spoke to, said that she had a look on the internal internet of T Mobile, and could only find ONE piece of information about the phone and that was saying Q3 release, which could be any time up to September. I told her that I had been told many conflicting things about the date and that I was told October, and she said it could be late September/early October then, but that they don't tend to get much information until the actual release of the phone and she had to look quite deep within the internal internet just to get the snippet of information she told me. I told her I'd heard that it had been released already in the Netherlands so was hoping that would mean it was a bit further on over here. She has basically said that the release over in the Netherlands wouldn't have any bearing on the release of the phone in the UK.

I then rang back and spoke to Anne again as I wasn't sure who I'd spoken to or if they had any authority to get accurate information; and she clarified that the expected release date was still at October the 1st and that whilst the phone is in the testing stages, It could still be rejected if it's incompatible with the services etc of T Mobile like they have done with many of the Nokia N Series phones; although this is apparently unlikely as it's a T Mobile branded phone so problems would be ironed out rather than just not releasing the phone at all. She also told me that the Netherlands release wouldn't have any impact over here as I'd asked if it was out of testing now, due to it being released over there. She said that although it's one parent company, each country operates in a different way and gets handsets differently based on what their customers in that country want from a phone in terms of features etc and that each country has it's own way of testing, which is a big reason why T Mobile in different countries have different/more phones available to T Mobile UK. I'll be talking to her again in 2 weeks so if there's any news then (or indeed before then) I shall be sure to post it up for you all.

On the plus side, I have been sent a loan phone (Samsung U900 Soul) from T Mobile as my N95 is having technical difficulties which need sorting.. which is partly the reason I am so desperate to upgrade to the Vario IV.

O2.

Ok, so it's not really an update on the Vario IV unfortunately, but I thought I'd post this anyway as it still seems fairly relevant to me.

It seems O2 are even worse than T Mobile as they haven't even managed to get their version of the HTC Diamond (MDA Compact IV) out yet.

Having spoken to a few customer service agents at O2 on the phone this weekend, it seems they don't have a clue about this phone at all, let alone a release date. Looks like I'lll be giving head office a ring tomorrow to see if they know anything.


What is wrong with these people? Why can't/won't they just give us a date for these phones?

Release Date Of The T-Mobile MDA Vario IV/4:

I know there's a lot of people (myself included) who are awaiting the release of this phone but are getting no luck regarding the release date from T Mobile. I've had contradicting statements from every person I have spoken to at T Mobile regarding this; the store in Manchester told me 2 weeks (2 weeks ago), customer service told me August, September and October, and Customer relations told me "I'm afraid we've no plans to release the MDA vario IV in the near future. I'm sorry if you've been advised to the contrary. However, we do have the MDA compact IV available now." via email.

I took things into my own hands and decided to ring T Mobile Head Office, which I have done today and spoken to Anne, who works in the directors office there. She actually went and spoke to the senior purchasing manager, who told her that the Vario IV has a provisional release date of October 1st 2008; and that the phone is currently in testing, but that the release date is dependant on how long the testing/tweaking takes and also the depletion rate of the current Vario III.

I asked why it would take so long, since the MDA Compact IV was released fairly soon after the HTC touch Diamond (the phone that the Compact IV is based on) and she said that it is because it has more on it to test. I don't know how correct this statement is, but I thought that the actual features on the phone weren't that different between the 2 phones so wouldn't have thought that *much* more testing would be required; I guess time will tell on this one. She then told me that it would definitely NOT be any time before this date but that she would let me know of any developments as and when they happened; so I will update this page whenever I hear from her.

It was not the news I wanted to hear anyway, I'm dying to get my hands on it.