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Featured Article
Here is what TechRepulic's Jason Hiner had to say
about the the new Blackberry Storm on November 20th,
2008:"Research in Motion’s BlackBerry Storm has
been one of the most widely anticipated IT products
of 2008, and for RIM it is a critical product for
the future of the BlackBerry brand. This is RIM’s
answer to Apple’s iPhone, which is increasingly
chipping away at BlackBerry’s lead in the smartphone
market.
Because there are so many executives,
salespeople, road warriors, and information workers
who love their smartphones, over the past month a
lot of these folks have been asking me the same
question, “What do you think about the BlackBerry
Storm?”
Now that I’ve had the chance to kick the tires on
a review unit of the Storm that I got from Verizon
Wireless - the exclusive carrier of the device - I’m
ready to say that there is a lot to like about the
Storm.
Specs
- Price: $199 with two-year agreement and
mail-in rebate
- U.S. Carrier: Verizon Wireless
- Global connectivity via CDMA/EVDO, UMTS/HSPA,
and EDGE
- 3.25″ glass display with 480×360 screen
- SurePress touch screen
- 1 GB on-board memory plus microSD slot
- 3.2 megapixel camera
- Integrated GPS
- Integrated Bluetooth 2.0
- 3.5mm stereo headphone jack
- Removable battery
Who’s it for?
The Storm is aimed at corporate users who are
tempted by the iPhone’s flashy touch screen and
multimedia features, but can still benefit from the
BlackBerry platform for enterprise messaging,
security, and manageability. This device is aimed at
keeping them in the BlackBerry fold.
The other target audience is prosumers who are
either focused on a rich multimedia experience in
their smartphone or are buying their own smartphone
to use for both work and personal use.
What problems does it solve?
The Storm marks RIM’s first foray into touch
screens. Its innovative screen-click approach is an
attempt to bring tactile feedback to on-screen
keyboards in order to make them more usable.
Also, for those who don’t want to switch to AT&T
to get the iPhone because they prefer the Verizon
Wireless network, the Storm offers a multimedia
touch screen device that’s in the same class as the
iPhone.
Standout features
Good battery life: For a 3G
phone, the Storm has pretty good battery life. In my
tests, it lasted two days without needing a
recharge. That’s about twice as long as the iPhone.
Excellent display and speakers:
The first thing you notice on the Storm is that it
has a very high quality 480×360 screen. It’s similar
to the screen on the recently released BlackBerry
Bold, which has a 480×320 LCD. The Bold and the
Storm have the highest quality screens I’ve seen in
a smartphone, with the iPhone just a half step
behind them. The Storm also has the best speakers
I’ve ever heard on a smartphone. It is a genuine
multimedia device.
Effective on-screen keyboard:
The Storm’s SurePress technology adds a new
innovation to touch screens by making the screen
clickable. Basically you hover over and highlight
the thing you’re going to press and then click the
screen. It takes some getting used to, but I quickly
found its on-screen keyboard to be much faster and
more accurate for me than the iPhone’s keyboard,
although I still prefer a hardware keyboard like the
one on the BlackBerry Bold.
Can be tethered as a broadband modem:
Using the Verizon Wireless VZAccess software, the
Storm works as a 3G modem that you can tether to
your laptop in order to get broadband on the go. In
my tests using the Storm as a tethered modem, it
averaged about 1.5 Mbps for downloads and about 500
Kbps for uploads.
Business-ready: The biggest
benefit of the Storm for IT leaders and their
businesses is that if you already have a backend
BlackBerry infrastructure in place, then the Storm
will plug right in and immediately have the kind of
security and manageability that enterprise IT
departments demand.
What’s wrong
Interface and navigation problems:
The Storm interface is not nearly as intuitive as
the iPhone’s. The iPhone essentially needs no
instructions. You can hand it to most people and
tell them to start touching the screen and they’ll
figure it out. Not so with the Storm. It requires
instructions and it takes some getting used to. Even
after using it for awhile, I still found myself
inadvertently clicking the wrong things and ending
up in places I didn’t mean to go.
No Wi-Fi: Unlike the BlackBerry
Bold and the iPhone, the Storm does not have Wi-Fi.
This is unexplainable and a real disappointment
because Wi-Fi can help reduce phone charges and
provide a better Web experience when you’re roaming
around at home or at the office.
Non-standard power and USB adapters:
The Storm also comes with a new set of USB and power
adapters that do not match up with the standard
BlackBerry connectors on current phones. This is a
major pain in the neck, because if you already own a
BlackBerry you probably have all of the adapters you
need for the car, your laptop bag, the office, and
maybe even a cradle at home. None of them will work
with Storm so you’ll have to buy new accessories.
Web browsing could be better:
Although Web pages look great on the Storm’s high
quality display, the Web browsing experience on the
Storm is much more clunky than the iPhone, which was
the first device to make the Web usable on a
smartphone. The iPhone still has the best Web
viewing experience I’ve seen on a smartphone - by a
long shot.
Competitive products
Bottom line for business
With the BlackBerry Storm, RIM has succeeded in
building a true next generation smartphone that
takes its platform to another level. The advanced
screen, usable on-screen keyboard, tethering
capability, and enterprise readiness will make it
attractive for a lot of businesses. The biggest
caveats are that it’s not as user-friendly as the
iPhone, it lacks Wi-Fi, and doesn’t offer the same
powerful Web browsing experience that you get on the
iPhone.
For those who want an iPhone-like touch screen
experience in an enterprise-class smartphone - or
those who like the iPhone but prefer Verizon over
AT&T - the Storm will be a very attractive device.
However, for hard core BlackBerry users who work
well with the current trackball BlackBerries, as
well as professionals who send a lot of e-mail
messages from their phone and/or do a lot of data
input, the Storm is probably not going to be a great
choice.
Ultimately, I still think the hardware keyboard
and mini trackball are much more efficient for
getting work done than using a touch screen, so I
consider the Bold to be the top-of-the-line
smartphone for business users. However, a lot more
users are gravitating toward touch screens and the
Storm brings a powerful
RIM hasn’t caught Apple yet. The Storm isn’t as
good of a consumer device as the iPhone, but it’s in
the same ballpark and RIM could certainly translate
the advantages of its smartphone platform - better
messaging, monitoring, and security - plus having
Verizon Wireless as the Storm’s network partner into
wins in the enterprise market. In fact, a year from
now I wouldn’t be surprised to see more Storms than
iPhones in the enterprise–at least in terms of the
official smartphones deployed by IT."
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