Man of Honour
OK, I've had the opportunity to spend the evening playing with the Storm (courtesy of a friend at RIM) and I thought I'd write you good people up a review. No photos I regret to tell you but there are plenty out there. Any questions please ask away.
A few notes first of all. I am in the market for a new touchscreen smartphone in the next couple of weeks, so I'll be buying the Storm or something similar soon but I don't own it yet and my view isn't clouded by already buying it. I'll also be comparing a lot to the iphone because, well, thats the main alternative for me.
Design/Build - I like it, it's smart and quite simple, I'd say it shows the business origins of most blackberry's but it's not consumer unfriendly at all. I actually prefer it to the iphone and it's a lot better than most windows mobile devices. The most noticeable thing is obviously the screen, which appears to be 'standard' aspect rather than widescreen but it is big, clear and very nice quality.
Screen/Clicky Keyboard - The big feature is obviously the funky clickable screen. Basically, I like it a lot, it's fantastic for text entry and it not bad for navigation. Test entry is natural and you get used to it very quickly, it's accurate and fast which is all you can really ask for. It's by far the best onscreen keyboard I've ever used by a long way, beats the iphone/itouch hands down. Navigation is slightly less natural though because you have to physically click, touching just selects and I felt that launching apps on an iphone was more natural for not having to click. But, this should be a software change to fix (or it's already a setting but I couldn't find it)
OS - Stolen from the Bold with touch added basically, it's good, it's reliable, it's not flashy compared to the iphone or even some windows mobile front ends. Haven't seen it crash yet (in fact, I've never seen a blackberry crash)
Web browsing - Good but not great, best I've seen on a blackberry yet but thats mainly down to the touch screen. The iphone beats it easily but I'd say it's marginally ahead of Windows mobile.
Email - Fantastic, not flashy but very functional. This was always going to be good on a blackberry, there's no better mobile email client out there.
Music playback - Fine, it's no ipod but it syncs with itunes and does everything it needs to. It also supports stereo bluetooth as I understand, which might matter to some people though I personally think bluetooth headphones are a stupid idea.
Video playback - Good, looks really nice on screen and a nice interface, only let down is the screen isn't really widescreen so widescreen content doesn't look quite right in my opinion. That said it's still very good.
No wifi - Bugs me a bit, RIM seem to be being honest and admitting it plain wouldn't fit at least. Sitting at home playing (central-ish london) it's pretty responsive over 3G and there's no app that springs to mind where wifi would be necessary. But it limits it in terms of future youtube or iplayer apps for video streaming. It's not a deal breaker but it is annoying.
Camera - 3.2MP, looks alright, I'm not a fan of phone cameras so I can't say 3.2MP here is a huge benefit from 2MP in the iphone in my mind, either is good enough for facebook and neither is good enough for printing at a decent size.
Battery life - I'm going by my friends experience (and he works for RIM bear in mind) and a few reviews online, but it's truly awful. A day of real world usage only. This is disappointing on the grounds it doesn't have wifi to run and previous blackberry's have had brilliant battery life, even my 8800 lasts 3 or 4 days of constant use without a charge.
Price - My biggest issue with the Storm actually, £35 a month for 2 years! Or £40 a month for 18 months. I'm not wild about either really and vodafone aren't offering much even for long term customers.
My conclusions...
I really do like the Storm, which is quite something considering how little I like most touchscreen smartphones. The clicky screen (I'm sure it has a proper name) is great for text entry and good enough for navigation, the interface is good and most applications are well thought out.
The downside is most obviously the battery life, which is a major problem. That aside there isn't anything really wrong with the Storm, as a business device it's fantastic.
As a consumer device (which is where my interest is), it's still very good but it has a few things against it. It's, in my opinion, better than any windows mobile device available. Compared to the iphone though it lacks the app store as a starting point and wifi (and with it iplayer/youtube streaming), the web browser and media players aren't as good and the great email is less important.
As I said I'll be buying one in the next few weeks, my thinking at the moment is it'll be the iphone. But that taken aside, the Storm is exceptionally good and about the best touch screen smartphone going.
RIM deserve a real pat on the back for coming up with the clicky screen, it's great for text entry and the first real innovation in the market since the iphone. Plenty of other manufacturers (HTC, SE, etc) deserve a good beating for failing to come up with anything new in that time. I'd say they've come up with the first real 'iphone killer' and if anybody buys it they'll be very happy with it.
A few notes first of all. I am in the market for a new touchscreen smartphone in the next couple of weeks, so I'll be buying the Storm or something similar soon but I don't own it yet and my view isn't clouded by already buying it. I'll also be comparing a lot to the iphone because, well, thats the main alternative for me.
Design/Build - I like it, it's smart and quite simple, I'd say it shows the business origins of most blackberry's but it's not consumer unfriendly at all. I actually prefer it to the iphone and it's a lot better than most windows mobile devices. The most noticeable thing is obviously the screen, which appears to be 'standard' aspect rather than widescreen but it is big, clear and very nice quality.
Screen/Clicky Keyboard - The big feature is obviously the funky clickable screen. Basically, I like it a lot, it's fantastic for text entry and it not bad for navigation. Test entry is natural and you get used to it very quickly, it's accurate and fast which is all you can really ask for. It's by far the best onscreen keyboard I've ever used by a long way, beats the iphone/itouch hands down. Navigation is slightly less natural though because you have to physically click, touching just selects and I felt that launching apps on an iphone was more natural for not having to click. But, this should be a software change to fix (or it's already a setting but I couldn't find it)
OS - Stolen from the Bold with touch added basically, it's good, it's reliable, it's not flashy compared to the iphone or even some windows mobile front ends. Haven't seen it crash yet (in fact, I've never seen a blackberry crash)
Web browsing - Good but not great, best I've seen on a blackberry yet but thats mainly down to the touch screen. The iphone beats it easily but I'd say it's marginally ahead of Windows mobile.
Email - Fantastic, not flashy but very functional. This was always going to be good on a blackberry, there's no better mobile email client out there.
Music playback - Fine, it's no ipod but it syncs with itunes and does everything it needs to. It also supports stereo bluetooth as I understand, which might matter to some people though I personally think bluetooth headphones are a stupid idea.
Video playback - Good, looks really nice on screen and a nice interface, only let down is the screen isn't really widescreen so widescreen content doesn't look quite right in my opinion. That said it's still very good.
No wifi - Bugs me a bit, RIM seem to be being honest and admitting it plain wouldn't fit at least. Sitting at home playing (central-ish london) it's pretty responsive over 3G and there's no app that springs to mind where wifi would be necessary. But it limits it in terms of future youtube or iplayer apps for video streaming. It's not a deal breaker but it is annoying.
Camera - 3.2MP, looks alright, I'm not a fan of phone cameras so I can't say 3.2MP here is a huge benefit from 2MP in the iphone in my mind, either is good enough for facebook and neither is good enough for printing at a decent size.
Battery life - I'm going by my friends experience (and he works for RIM bear in mind) and a few reviews online, but it's truly awful. A day of real world usage only. This is disappointing on the grounds it doesn't have wifi to run and previous blackberry's have had brilliant battery life, even my 8800 lasts 3 or 4 days of constant use without a charge.
Price - My biggest issue with the Storm actually, £35 a month for 2 years! Or £40 a month for 18 months. I'm not wild about either really and vodafone aren't offering much even for long term customers.
My conclusions...
I really do like the Storm, which is quite something considering how little I like most touchscreen smartphones. The clicky screen (I'm sure it has a proper name) is great for text entry and good enough for navigation, the interface is good and most applications are well thought out.
The downside is most obviously the battery life, which is a major problem. That aside there isn't anything really wrong with the Storm, as a business device it's fantastic.
As a consumer device (which is where my interest is), it's still very good but it has a few things against it. It's, in my opinion, better than any windows mobile device available. Compared to the iphone though it lacks the app store as a starting point and wifi (and with it iplayer/youtube streaming), the web browser and media players aren't as good and the great email is less important.
As I said I'll be buying one in the next few weeks, my thinking at the moment is it'll be the iphone. But that taken aside, the Storm is exceptionally good and about the best touch screen smartphone going.
RIM deserve a real pat on the back for coming up with the clicky screen, it's great for text entry and the first real innovation in the market since the iphone. Plenty of other manufacturers (HTC, SE, etc) deserve a good beating for failing to come up with anything new in that time. I'd say they've come up with the first real 'iphone killer' and if anybody buys it they'll be very happy with it.
