BlackBerry Bold sales suspended in Japan
NTT DoCoMo stops selling the smartphone after a handful of consumers complain about it overheating.
The largest cell phone operator in Japan said Friday that it has stopped selling Research In Motion's BlackBerry Bold because the phone overheats while the battery is being recharged.
NTT DoCoMo began selling the Bold in Japan last week. And so far it has sold about 4,000 devices. Of those devices, NTT DoCoMo says it has received complaints from about 30 users that the phone's keyboard area had heated up, Reuters reported. The company said it doesn't know of anyone getting burned from the overheating nor has it received any reports of the phone catching on fire.
RIM said that it is looking into the matter even though the company believes the temperatures appear to have "remained within the safety range of regulatory standards." Still, RIM and DoCoMo decided to suspend sales anyway until they can figure out what is causing the overheating.
AT&T sells the Bold in the U.S., but RIM said in a statement that the overheating issue isn't a problem outside of Japan.
"This issue appears to be specifically limited to the BlackBerry Bold devices sold in Japan since last week," the company said. "And sales of BlackBerry Bold devices in other countries are unaffected by this matter."
RIM noted that it doesn't believe the problem is caused by the battery. But it's still investigating the root cause.