Want to talk about the blackberry storm a bit here. I myself being an iphone fag this was quite a jump for me.
Background on why i got it… Basicly got sick of paying 120 a month for my phone, my old phone was still active on my parents account for verizon and was due for an upgrade… and it only costing me 10 a month to be added on my parents family plan I figured wtf ill pay that plus the 30 and pay 40 a month for everything I need even if its not on a pretty and deliciously smooth feeling iphone.
Basicaly figured what better phone would do the job than the blackberry storm… I like using touchscreen and I do acctualy like blackberry storms screen feedback.
Now I went into this fully knowing what I was geting myself into, all the bad reviews ive read and problems people seem to be having, even the lady in teh verizon store seemed to be tryign to talk me out of it till i told her I was in IT and dealt with the phone quite a bit after that she seemed to stfu and go get me my storm.
Upon first using it ill mention the touch screen, at first i dident like it… being that the screen acctualy has to be pushed down and not tapped I noticed in some area it seemed very hard and close to the edges nearly impossible to push down without some force behind it, this aggrivated me very much. After continuing to setup the phone I was then informed by a friend who is a blackberry admin for a company that I can adjust the screen on the storm. This made me very happy, and also very aggrivated that verizon fails to mention this anywhere in person or in the literature for the phone. Im sure this is something anyone could figure out if they wanted to look but for the average person or someoen who might not be that savvy may find this very annoying.
Anyways I am now under the impression that the one complain people have with the screen being clunky and not very responsive is due to this little tid bit. Not many people seem to know that you can adjust the screen and make it more sensitive and easier to push down and all how sensitive and how much it moves via two hex screws underneath the battery cover.
First problem solved, after fixing the screen typing and navigating was much better and i was thus very happy and found the phone somewhat enjoyable. After heavy use I find that I really like the design and love the forced feedback feel when typeing. Now I will say that the screen does feel flimsy and fragile because it moves around, this is worrying but it is quite sturdy and you start to realize this the more you play with it.
Now the screen is no iphone screen and its deffinatly not as responsive but its deffinatly not that far off.
Now for me beign a first full on user of a blackberry, while I have set a few up and messed with some things, I dont know a blackberry like the back of my hand but i knew, or thought I knew enough to get myself around without aggrivation. Well while its not bad for having seen/used the interface a bit before for a new user especialy with the storm I feel as though a new user would get lost and spend some time just trying to figure out small tasks. Its not as simple as send, copy, paste, delete etc… everything has menus and are acessed by the blackberry sysmboled key… While this isnt to bad at all at first its a little confusing, maybe for me just because the iphones interface was simple and to the point.
The interface can seem a bit slow/clunky at times but it is quite nice and allows for a ton more options/feautres than the iphone has.
That brings me up to another problem people seem to have… The OS being slow/crashing. Strictly by accident i found a nice little menu after using my phone for a few hours… something similar to the “ALT+TAB” feautre in windows, holding down the blackberry key on the storm opens up a little bar that shows current running applications, now many people seem to not realize that these are running in the background and do not just close down when pressing the back/end call button. To close these you must press the blackberry key and click close… so far I have not had a single issue with my phone running slow unless I knowing opened up a ton of shit to see if that was the issue which it seems to be… a lot of people who are not blackberry gurus dont seem to know this from what ive seen/read and talkign to other blackberry enthusiasts. With that being said if more people knew how to properly close applications the would probably have way less problmes and the phone wouldent seem as sluggish.
I could go about little tiny things in the OS that it does/does not do that bother me but there not all that important and are just a bit annoying at times, nothing that should really hinder someone from getting the phone.
Battery life isnt to bad, its better than my iphones, I used the phone for 4 hours straight, playing with settings texting etc and only drained about a bar and a half of battery, now with talktime and videos/music its sure to be less and a little more draining but for someone who istn constantly listeing to music and viewing videos the phone has no problem going a whole day with texting, a few calls, web browsing and email.
The camera is actually quite nice, takes decent pictures at 3.2mp but thats not what matter the quality of the sensor isnt to bad, darker pictures are a bit grainy but not bad for a phone. The flash is not completely useless, its quite nice acctualy and does a decent job of lighting up thigns at a decent distance, obviously nothing like a real camera flash but better than most camera phone flashes ive seen. Video isnt to bad, not extravigant but not bad, better than a phone without it, althought the 3G S does have it.
Ive come to the conclusion while not perfect, most of the problems people have with the storm seems to be user error and being misinformed about some of the things you can do to make the experiance a little better.
Its deffinatly no iphone but it does have some things that the iphone doesnt have but does have things that the iphone does better. I think its a good contender and comes down to personal prefrence, they both do and dont do things that the other does or doesnt but thats like any phone I suppose.
It does everything I need it to do even if its not as pretty and smooth of an interface. The touchscreen and force feedback has grown on me already though and its something i wish the iphone did.
Thats my little review, may have missed some stuff, but tried to be as unbiased as possible
