The first thing to note about the BlackBerry Storm 9500 is that while this handset features the first touchscreen from RIM, its design was specified by Vodafone – so the mobile network is obviously taking some of the kudos for what really is a very slick handset. The home screen is similar to the ‘normal’ BlackBerry experience, and the four buttons at the bottom, the BlackBerry key, return, call and terminate combine with the touchscreen to allow interaction with the device. The 3.25in half VGA screen is marvellous, and more than what you’d expect on any other BlackBerry device. It really signals RIM / Vodafone’s attempt to aim this device not just at the business market, but the consumer too. User defined buttons are present in portrait mode, and pressing the BB key will bring up the entire icon menu. The user can also turn the device into landscape mode to get the full range as well, which we found to be a nice touch.
Best touchscreen ever. But then we got to use the touchscreen, and finally, finally a company has come up with a competitor to the iPhone’s efforts at touchy-feely interaction. If one criticism could be levelled at the iPhone’s touch screen, it was the lack of feedback. Haptics help the problem somewhat, but the Storm’s click-screen is a stroke of genius. The screen is mounted on a clickable dome, which we were told uses heat sensitivity to work out where the input is coming from. The results were startling. We composed a message using the landscape QWERTY mode and the accuracy was somewhere around 80 per cent. This will obviously improve over time, but even the first go made us feel like we were using the next step in touchscreen interaction. Using the touchscreen on the web was very good as well, though the lack of multi-touch a la the iPhone meant it was pushed into second place… albeit a pretty close one, as the link hitting accuracy was far greater in our opinion, and the movement of the webpage was easily as good as the iPhone’s.
However the lack of Wi-Fi is very disappointing. Vodafone pointed out to us that it has invested significantly in its 3.5G network, so it thinks there’s no need to pack Wi-Fi into the handset when there’s a 3G signal all around… we think the company is missing the point, and it’s a bit unfair to make customers eat into their data plans when many people are used to using Wi-Fi on their BlackBerries for downloading large files. Messaging is obviously a strong point for the BlackBerry Storm, and was much as expected. The company has kept things simple for text input, allowing you to have the Pearl-esque Sure-Type system or the standard T9 texting in portrait mode, as well as the previously mentioned QWERTY in landscape. Messages and emails are pushed straight to the phone from the usual email sources, including Google and Yahoo Mail.
Another interesting innovation is the Facebook App, which has previously been seen on a couple of other BlackBerries but Vodafone is obviously making a big song and dance about. Any pokes or messages or wall scribblings are sent straight to your home screen where a small blue F pops up to let you know you have alerts waiting to be read.
Media frenzy. As we said before, RIM and Vodafone clearly want this to be a phone that is as good for media as other top end handsets, and again, it has built on the great experience from handsets like the Bold to deliver. The thing that irked us most was the lack of inbuilt storage… if you’re going for the multimedia market, and the hi-def screen clearly says the handset is aimed at such, then give us more than 1GB of storage. Yes, you can add in up to 16GB through an extra microSD, but with the likes of Apple and Nokia throwing 16GB in handsets out of the box, then we’d have hoped to see RIM and Vodafone follow suit.
Snapper. The camera wasn’t anything to write home about though. 3.2MP is good enough in our opinion for most phones, but the snaps taken on the Storm didn’t exactly rock our world, as well as taking an age from when the shutter button was pressed for the picture to actually take. However, the amount of applications, including the finest mobile YouTube experience we’ve seen after the iPhone, as well as the little tweaks like ‘bedside mode’ for the alarm clock, really make the handset stand out at a time when every company and its dog is releasing a touchscreen ‘iPhone killer’. The UI was slick and probably the best we’ve seen in a BlackBerry, but we’re sure all you addicts out there will have your own opinion. Basically, and this is said with a great amount of rationality, the BlackBerry Storm 9500 is up there with the iPhone 3G as the phone of the year. Depending on your preferences or point of view you’ll probably side with one or the other, but the touchscreen interaction is simply marvellous and can’t be beat.
The size, operation and sheer functionality of the device brings the entire BlackBerry brand messaging strength and packages it up in a way that consumers will love.
