Dell’s stylish-but-troubled Windows Phone 7-powered Venue Pro may be exhibiting signs of yet another defect, as several owners on XDA are reporting that the latest batch of units to hit Microsoft stores are unable to read standard SIM cards. By our count, ten separate handsets — many of them sold at the Oak Brook, Illinois location — have been reported as defective, with users claiming that even phones which originally recognized their cards turned defective after a soft reset.

Ironically, several of the forum posters experienced this issue with Venue Pros that had been swapped out for defective units from the November 8th launch batch. Those units either shipped with batteries mislabeled as engineering samples or, more seriously, the inability to connect to WEP- or WPA-encrypted WiFi networks. One commenter reports being so frustrated with the SIM error, he and his brother went back to the store and swapped out their phones yet again, this time for their original handsets with their respective problems.

Perhaps the only upside to this seemingly botched rollout is that Microsoft is giving away free one-year Zune passes to everyone who requires a DVP exchange.

Source: XDA

Thanks: Dan S.