I’ve got to say I was kind of excited when I heard back from the Verizon reps about getting a demo unit of the Blackberry Storm.  I’d read reviews elsewhere, but this is definitely the kind of product you want to try yourself.

A Touchscreen Phone You Click

I would have say it’s probably one of the best phones Verizon offers, read on for my review of the BlackBerry® Storm™ 9530 smartphone.
Really quick off the top, I’m not so much the business-enterprise user, so there are some features of a “Blackberry”-type device that are lost on me.  I don’t need to integrate 10 personal email accounts–but it’s nice to know that I could if I wanted to do so.

Now to the rest.

The “Touch”screen

The first thing you notice about the Storm is the “clicky” touchscreen on the phone.  You can move your finger around, tap the screen and you won’t get

a “click.”  You actually have to press down on the screen to get a response.  This feature is probably the make or break feature for most.  Your finger

glides over the screen, highlighting different options, and when you see the option you want you click.  The screen isn’t hard to press, I’d say it’s

about the right amount to avoid accidental clicks.  There are only four buttons that are separate from the click screen: call, options, back and end

(power.)  It’s important then, to get the clicking right on the Storm and in my opinion I think Verizon and RIM did exactly that.

As for its measurements, the 3.25″ screen is has a 480×360 resolution and has more than 65k colors.

Typing the Blackberry way

If you’re heading to the cell phone store to pick up a Blackberry, I hope you plan to use it to do a lot of texting and emailing.  The Storm fits perfectly into that mold.  The review unit I had felt quite responsive when shooting off text messages and emails.  I loved that it had a sort of keyboard feeling, even though there was no physical keyboard present. (A first in the Blackberry mold.)

Like the Blackberry devices before it, this is a phone that is made for sending emails and text messaging. I can’t understate how much I enjoyed using the QWERTY keyboard on the device.  Just like the iPhone/iPod Touch it auto-corrects words on the fly if the user hits the spacebar.  If you double tap the spacebar, it adds a period which I thought was a nice feature.

I continually punched out messages for a good 20-30 minutes and didn’t get any thumb fatigue.  I think that speaks to the spacing on the unit in QWERTY mode.  Once I got accustomed to the unit, the speed of my texting ratcheted up a notch and I could keep a good pace going.  The QWERTY mode is only available when you rotate the phone to be horizontal in your hands, and it automatically recognizes when you rotate it.

One knock against the QWERTY mode was the number placements on the phone.  You have to press a button to access the numbers, and when you did they were all on the left hand side of the keyboard in the traditional phone layout not a keyboard layout.  That was irksome because I then had to presss numbers with my left hand and it felt unnatural.

When holding the phone vertically, there’s an option for a T-9 like “SureType” method of typing.  This pairs up almost every letter on the keyboard with another letter, q&w, e&r and so on.  It automatically recognizes which words you’re trying to type because of the SurePress technology behind it.

If, while typing, a letter appears that you don’t want you can backspace and hit it again and the other letter pops in.  I wasn’t a huge fan of the SureType method because it seemed unnatural.  My hands also felt a little cramped while trying to punch out messages.  Still, there are some who prefer this method and that’s fine, it just wasn’t for me.

If you want a phone that’s a phenomonal typer for email and messaging, the Storm is it.

Clicking on the “real” Internet

I’m more impressed with the Storm’s browser than some of its competitors, but it still underperforms when compared to the king of mobile browsers (the iPhone’s Mobile Safari.)

Speed of the network was quick and snappy.  I had no complaints when heading to websites that I knew had mobile versions.  ESPN, CNN and Live8.com were all great to read, as were some of the tech sites that I go to like Gizmodo, Engadget and CrunchGear.

Instead of tapping to zoom in like on the iPhone, you click with the Storm.  I frequently found myself zooming when trying to click on a link, because I wasn’t pressing on the precise spot.  The Storm’s browser did fine with mobile sites, but I felt struggled on sites that weren’t mobile-accomodating.

One interesting thing I thought might be firmware related, when trying to go to Verizon’s own Ringers, Applications and Games site from the phone, it wouldn’t let me.  It required that you punch in your phone number, and I couldn’t because it wouldn’t respond when I brought up the keyboard.  That was unfortunate because I couldn’t download Tetris to confirm that it is still awful on any touchscreen phone.

Music To My Ears (Just not a high bitrate)

While I didn’t have access to that store, I did have access to the V Cast Music service.  Call it an iTunes-like service available from your phone.  I downloaded Ben Folds’ “Effington” from the store to check out the quality.  For the $2 purchase, I was given a 1.6MB file to download over Verizon’s 3G network.  That’s not real exciting, but probably necessary because it is mobile downloading.  (For reference, the size of the current “Effington” track on my iPod is almost 6MB a much higher quality file.)  It was nice to have the feature available on the phone, but I’m not 100% convinced the value is there.  Especially because you can put MP3’s and other files on the Storm.

Which takes me to the Rhapsody service that Verizon offers.  If you don’t want to own your music, it’s fantastic.  I had access to the entire Rhapsody library, and could drag and drop them right onto my phone when it was connected to my PC.  After the download was finished, the tracks synced up and I was ready to go.

As for the user interface quality on the music player side of things, it was functional.  You can do anything you’d expect to be able to do.  It maybe just lacked the polish that you see on an iPod.

The video player is also integrated into the media section and provides a nice experience provided you’ve got the mobile videos to play.

The phone comes with 1GB on-board memory and an 8GB microSD card (and supports upto a 16GB card)

Smile! The Camera’s Worth It

Another highlight of the Storm for me was its 3.2MP camera with flash.  It let me snap great pics compared to other camera phones I’ve tried.  It’s really a plus.  You can also take movies.  In that mode, the flash can turn into a light for illuminating the scene.

Things that work like you’d expect:

Verizon’s GPS navigation and Visual Voicemail.

The navigator got me to work along and took me the way that’s quickest to get there.  It showed me food along the way.  It even let me email people a quick note that said I was 10 minutes away. Alternatively, you can also call the place you’re headed right from the directions. That’d be nice in the case of a restaurant so you can make reservations.

Visual Voicemail continues to be a great feature if you’re the kind of person that gets/keeps a ton of voicemails.  I answer my phone, so that’s generally not me.  But it is nice to have the feature for when there’s a message you want to keep, and not have to rifle through the other kept messages.

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Ultimately, I really enjoyed the Storm. It made me want to steal the keyboard onto my own phone, but I couldn’t.  Check out the plans though, because like any smartphone they’re going to more expensive because of the data-usage involved.

That could keep some people from jumping on, but the phone definitely took me by storm.

Plus:
+Touchscreen Typing that clicks
+No Thumb fatigue
+Clarity of the calls
+Speed of the network
+Bright Screen
+A 3.2MP camera AND a flash
+Picture AND video messaging
+Turn-By-Turn Navigation
+Visual Voicemail
+Downloading Music away from a computer
+8GB microSD card comes with it and is removable
+Removable Battery
+Using silly phrases like “took me by storm”

Minus:
-Browser not Mobile Safari
-Zooming on a click, instead of hitting a link
-Couldn’t try Tetris
-SureType

Other:
+-Smartphones still not priced for everyone
+-An Average media player interface

Have questions about something? Post a comment or email me at matt(dot)schuler(at)woodtv(dot)com. And for more, shorter updates, check out my Twitter by clicking on twitter.com/mattschuler.

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Other Stats you might be interested in straight from Verizon’s site:

* SIM Card: pre–installed in BlackBerry® Storm
* Memory: 128MB Flash Memory, 192MB RAM, 1GB On–board memory
* BlackBerry 4.7 Desktop Software Integrated Email, Phone, SMS, Browser, Calendar, Address Book, and additional organizer applications
* BlackBerry Internet Solution (BIS) – integrate up to 10 personal email accounts
* BlackBerry Enterprise Solution (BES) – works to provide functionality such as single mailbox integration, remote address book look–up and more
* Integrated speaker and microphone, Hands–free headset capable (3.5mm 4 Pole)
* Bluetooth® (v2.0) including A2DP for Stereo sound
* Ring Tones: Polyphonic + vibrate
* Text, Picture, Video and Instant Messaging
* VZ Navigatorsm for spoken turn–by–turn directions
* Visual Voice Mail compatible
* BroadbandAccess Connect capable (Windows only)
* Instant Messaging applications for BlackBerry
* Password protection and Keyboard lock
* Device Insurance is available

Size:

* Dimensions: 4.43″ (H) x 2.45″ (W) x 0.55″ (D)
* Weight: Approximately 5.47 oz. including battery

Battery Life:
* Usage: Up to 270 minutes of talk time OR
* Standby: Up to 372 hours

It comes with a:
* Lithium Ion Battery (1400 mAh)
* 3.5 mm Stereo Headset
* BlackBerry® Travel Charger with International Adaptor Clips
* USB Data Cable
* 8GB SanDisk® microSD™ memory card pre–installed in device
* SIM Card pre–installed in device
* Documentation Kit (including BlackBerry Tools CD)
* VZAccess® Manager™ CD (including User Guide)
* Quick Reference Guide
* Global Support Kit

Update from Verizon on App store issue I had:

 ”I was able to get to the screen to purchase Tetris on a store demo this morning. The path was to launch the browser, select applications from the VZStart page and then select EA Games. The issue that Matt experienced may have been tied to a browser setting. If Java was not enabled on the device, he would not have been able to input information in the appropriate fields to make the purchase. The process to check those settings would be to select the BB Menu key with the browser open and check the General Settings. There are a series of boxes to select the first one being Java.”