[Review] Blackberry Storm 9500

Posted at January 21st, 2009 under Mobile Companies, RIM Blackberry, Review | 5 Comments »

Touchscreen phones is the hottest keyword now among the mobile manufacturers. Research in Motion(RIM) ‘s is no exception to this list.  With the launch of BlackBerry Storm phone to the public, Blackberry were obviously off the mark in the touchscreen bandwagon. The Storm, a widescreen, touchscreen device boasts many of the same features as the iPhone, but adds innovations like a clickable display, and comes packed with RIM’s legendary email and messaging services. Storm was put much into criticism to match the iPhone. The first touch-screen BlackBerry looks like a hit for consumers, but business users may be less keen. Why?  And what was more it had, to give to the consumers and how much  the most hyped touch-screen technology has liven  up requires a must-read of this article.

Blackberry Storm – in short

Pros: Full-size headphone jack , Addition of “To Go” software ,  Speaker sound & clarity, 3.2 megapixel camera with video , Robust email and messaging ,  Copy and paste out of the box

Cons: sluggish SurePress touch screen , No Wi-Fi

Peripheral Design

Front: The majority of the front panel is display, a large 3.25” (480 x 360) touchscreen sitting just shy of flush with a silver bezel that runs around the sides, top, and bottom of the device. Below the screen are four familiar BlackBerry keys (phone, menu, back, and end / power).

Along the left is a convenience key and a micro USB port.

On the right side is another convenience key, volume rocker, and 3.5mm headphone jack.

Around back, the battery cover is made from solid piece of brushed aluminum, and the camera and flash sit atop the plate.

Clickable SurePress touch screen Technology

Where the Storm differs is in its clickable screen, which lets the user press down – like clicking a mouse button – to select an option. This feature means it is possible to scroll through your emails and menus without accidentally opening one or unintentionally triggering some function, which we have found a continual bugbear with other touch-enabled phones.

The purpose of this technology, ostensibly, is to provide two aspects to touch screens which are currently lacking in most devices: the ability to “hover” without selecting or moving an on-screen element, and the physical sensation of “clicking” when you type or navigate.

But… when trying to type with any speed. You have to let the click depress before you can strike another character, and that makes for a stuttery input process. The novel technology was seemingly more annoying or frustrating and can’t be ‘the right one’ for power users.

Why the new touch screen technology a failure?

Things which flow naturally on an iPhone — flicking through lists, scrolling for a contact, moving around in a webpage or looking through photos — feel inelegant and uncomfortable on the Storm. Though the touch screen is sensitive enough, the software isn’t equally supportive to the sensitive touchL.The difference in v4.7 OS is not a paradigmatic shift, rather, the company has added touch and multi touch functionality to take the place of trackball movements which are used in earlier 4.6 Blackberry OS version.

The good side of the novel touch screen technology

But still, there are a few great implementations of the screen — copying and pasting, which is the norm on RIM phones, is fully represented with elegant multitouch functionality. One useful application of the touch screen is multi-touch support. If you place one finger at the start of a block of text and another at the end, the Storm highlights everything in between, making it easier to cut and paste.

In the browser, you can hover above a link with your finger before clicking it (a big help on crowded pages), and you can double tap (not click) to zoom into pages, though there’s no way to back out other than hitting the minus magnifying glass.

The screen itself is fairly tremendous with rich colours and solid contrasts.  Everything looked sharp and clear with incredible pixel density which is native of Blackberry models

Keypad Layouts

The Storm has two separate on-screen keyboards. If you hold the device in portrait orientation, it shows a SureType keypad similar to that of the BlackBerry Pearl, where each key has two letters and the phone uses a predictive algorithm to work out what you are trying to type. Twist the device round to landscape mode, and the Storm uses the longer side of the screen to display a full Qwerty layout instead.

The Software

The phone has two levels of “application” screens, the initial landing screen, which gives you eight app icons of your choosing, and a deeper level which displays all of your folders and programs. RIM has added a few visual tweaks to the OS on the Storm, like crossfades and sideways swipes of pages which admittedly give it a bit more polish, although they seem largely superfluous.

Though built with v7.6 Blackberry OS replacing the earlier v7.5 with trackball navigator in Blackberry Bold, it has nothing new to offer.

Browser

4.6′s browser is, in a word, unusable. Load times are painful, rendering is only sometimes accurate, Pages load quickly and are generally formatted correctly, navigation is much snappier (zooms don’t take hours to redraw), and scrolling is tolerable, if not as buttery smooth as we prefer. it’s still a bit behind Mobile Safari and the G1′s Webkit-based “Chrome light,” lacking support for more advanced features like multiple tabs.

Media

The media players / browsers are almost identical to 4.6′s options, though again there’s some nice visual flair added. The bigger screen allows for larger artwork to be shown off, and it’s a match made in heaven for video playback. Management of media is still pretty standard — we copied files back and forth between the microSD card (8GB is included with the phone), but there’s no flashy Cover Flow or anything. In fact, we noticed a slight graphic glitch when moving from portrait to landscape, which might be nothing, or may be due to the fact the phone has no hardware acceleration for graphics.

Sound Quality is sure a catcher

When it comes to sound quality and reception for making actual phone calls, you can’t beat this combination. RIM phones generally have loud and clear earpieces and speakerphones, and Verizon — love it or hate it — has a great network. Those two facts are certainly apparent when it comes to the Storm. We found the earpiece to be plenty loud, and the speakerphone equally booming.

A Drawback again with Speed Factor

In general, picture quality was excellent on the camera, which offers a healthy 3.2-megapixel resolution. The only problem we had — and it was a big one — was the fact that it took ages to focus and snap a shot. The camera looks nice, but it just need to take photos faster.

Hey… Note this!

You can tether the Storm to your laptop and get the same speed that you would from one of mobile service providers USB modems or PC cards. Despite the fact that there is no Wi-Fi, this can be one good feature.

Miscellany

The BlackBerry Storm smartphone includes:

- Many other applications look like they are ready installed, such as Facebook, Flickr, YouTube and Google Maps, but touching their icon actually triggers a download from the web. The same is true for most of the IM applications, such as ICQ, Google Talk and Windows Live Messenger.

- 3.2 megapixel camera with variable zoom, auto focus and a powerful flash that also provides continuous lighting when recording video

- Built-in GPS supports location-based applications and services, as well as geotagging of photos

- 1 GB of onboard memory storage and a microSD(TM)/SDHD memory card slot that supports up to 16 GB of additional storage

- Media player that can play movies smoothly in full screen mode, display pictures and slideshows quickly and manage an entire music collection; playlists can be created directly on the handset and there’s an equalizer with 11 preset filters – including “Lounge,” “Jazz” and “Hip Hop” – for customized audio ranges when using wired headphones or external speakers

- A 3.5 mm stereo headset jack, support for Bluetooth(R) stereo audio profile (A2DP/AVRCP) and dedicated volume controls

- Sleek, elegant design with contoured corners, stainless steel back and chrome accents surrounding its large (3.25″) glass lens; its exceptional 480 x 360 resolution at 184 ppi is crisp and bright with eye-pleasing clarity

- An ambient light sensor that automatically adjusts backlighting for ideal screen viewing and an accelerometer that allows customers to view applications in either portrait or landscape mode by simply rotating the handset

- Removable and rechargeable 1400 mAhr battery that provides approximately six hours of talk time on 3G networks and 15 days of standby time.

Price

Blackberry Storm 9500 is available in Indian stores at a price tag of Rs. 27,000 onwards

On a closing note…

The selling points are easy: the phone is gorgeous to look at and hold, it’s designed and backed by RIM. And it’s packed with features that, at first glance, make it seem not only as good as the iPhone, but better. The only hitch in this plan is a major one: it’s not as easy, enjoyable, or consistent to use as the iPhone, and the one place where everyone is sure they have an upper hand — that wow-inducing clickable screen — just isn’t all that great.

If speed isn’t a concern, you’ll probably find the Storm manageable!

Tags: Blackberry, india, iPhone, Photo, picture, Review, RIM, Smartphone, Storm, Touchphone