The BlackBerry Storm is the first full touchscreen smartphone by RIM. Research in Motion (RIM) has made its mark in making great mobile devices for the business segment with its BlackBerry handsets. RIM’s signature work in most of its devices include a very dependable full qwerty keyboard and the push email technology that’s geared towards the corporate crowd.
It was then not surprising when RIM announced the BlackBerry Storm with a full touch screen interface — an arena that competing manufacturer Apple is making big waves with its iPhone. It was a move that RIM needed to do in order to slow down if not stop Apple’s attempt at eating away its long-dominated market.
The biggest challenge for the BlackBerry Storm when it shed the physical keys was the virtual keyboard. The screen itself is recessed so you need to press down on the display panel instead of just tap. Users familiar with other touch screen phones may find this mechanism a bit odd but for first timers, it only takes a little while to get used to (I still often forget to press down a bit harder every once in a while).
Only four physical buttons are found at the bottom of the display panel that’s dedicated to Send, End, Menu and Return. The virtual keyboard also rotates automatically in landscape mode when the device is positioned sideways.
The Storm sports a large 3.25-inch screen with a resolution of 480 x 360 pixels of up to 65,000 colors. The display delivers bright and crisp details especially when playing video and multimedia files in MPEG4 format. The user interface is very similar to other previous versions of the BlackBerry but the touch navigation becomes a bit frustrating especially when scrolling webpages.
For connectivity, the Storm is equipped with Bluetooth and 3G/HSDPA. RIM completely skipped WiFi functionality which could turn off a lot of data-heavy users expecting this feature to be there. As such, 3G (including GPRS) connectivity is practically essential as the BlackBerry relies on it for delivering push email. But as I said in the TV interview for QTube last week, the lack of WiFi is a deal-breaker.
The built-in autofocus camera is 3.2 megapixels with 2x digital zoom and coupled with a flash. It takes good pictures under decent lighting conditions although the shutter is a bit slow and could result to blurry images even with the flash activated. The handset has a 128MB flash memory and a 1GB internal storage that can be expanded to 16GB with an external microSD card.
The BlackBerry Storm has a 1400mAh battery with a capacity of 6 hours talktime and 15 days on standby. My experience with the push email set to “On” gave me about 2 days worth of usage. To maximize and use the push email functionality, the device requires a BlackBerry service subscription with a RIM partner telcos (both Smart and Globe offer BlackBerry Personal Plans).
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nice looking business phone but no wifi mmm…
and cost of this unit?
lack of wifi is a turn down…
business phone with no wifi these days? thats weak on some levels…
Scrimping on features, eh? No WiFi just doesn’t sound good for a business phone. Right, folks?
Maybe the WiFi would be too taxing on the battery time so they left it out.
But surely, RIM can resolve this issue easily.
No wifi? How much is this phone? If it goes beyond the 18k price range then what the heck were they thinking?
I’ve watched this on Qtube! Great!
You had me in “no wi-fi”.
No Wifi is no good…
Tried my friend’s blackberry storm. Nahihirapan ako because kelangan talaga ipress down sya.
All the while, akala ko wifi capable siya, maybe RIM is just targettng a certain market segment. Which they have been doing naman talaga even before. Thos who will prefer to receive push email in a nice newly designed BB.
Great phone if you are on postpaid plan with unlimited data connection. Not for me then.
No WiFi.. No way!
Except Wifi blackberry storm is a nice kool phone in design and also other fetures. Hope RIM can resolve this issue easily
the battery drain off very fast and its hard to recharge the battery. Original battery is so expensive
Where can I buy BB storm 9500 here in the Philippines? Please tell me? Thanks
Hey Abe thanks for this. I wanted an unbiased review for this actually. But I think I stopped reading at no-wifi also. LOL.
hello
does anyone know where can i buy a charger replacement for the blackberry storm 9500 in the philippines?
makati? which mall?
Where i can buy brandnew Blackberry Storm & Blackberry Bold here in the philippines?
Any updates on when and for how much would the blackberry storm 2 would be out in the market? No wifi made me think twice on getting the storm1. thanks!
I bought a storm 2 months ago and I was actually quite excited at getting one back then even after reading some negative reviews of the phone. I was very happy with the first month even with it’s minor problems like “lags”, no wi-fi, a bit bulky and some minor, very minor probs that i didn’t seem to mind at first. But the longer you use it, the more irritating the minor problem becomes. Fortunately though, the latest OS 5.0 fixed all of it in just one update (not including the wi-fi though). After updating the OS the other day, I felt like I am using a different phone. A very cool phone actually. No more lags, accelerometer works pretty well, sms looks like a chat box now with smileys to boot which I seriously enjoy! haha! scrolling through pix is so smooth now unlike before. lots of other features have been added that an owner of a storm with an old OS version will surely appreciate. I can’t wait to get my hands on storm2 though. Anyone selling them yet here on the phil?
the blackberry storm2 got a wifi. fyi. TA!