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Tech Check
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AP Blackberry Storm |
Today should be a momentous day for Research in Motion [RIMM
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] and Verizon [VZ
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] as the two unleash the new BlackBerry Storm on the market.
It's a slick, touch screen BlackBerry that could offer Apple's iPhone its first real competition. We've been playing with the device for much of the week and think some of the hype might be a little overdone.
This isn't an entirely technical review, since those of you who understand the software, pixel count and various apps have gotten your information before now. This is a far more consumer-oriented look at the device and whether you might want clip the Storm to your belt.
First, some background: I'm a CrackBerry. Addicted. I check and re-check for new emails. Feel compelled to respond to everyone. I text, I snap photos. I've shot video. When I'm out in the field, working out of a satellite truck, I write my scripts on this thing. I surf the web. I usually write my blogs on it as well, though I'm using my desktop this morning. When I'm at an Apple event, I live blog via the BlackBerry as well. I like it, a lot.
I tried to make the switch to Apple's [AAPL
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] iPhone. I love the concept. I love the screen; the multi-media concept; the flexibility of the device. And most recently, I really liked 3G access. But after trying and trying and trying, I just couldn't get used to the touch screen interface. My mind and fingers couldn't mesh and I kept losing my place on the screen. It was a deal-breaker. I wanted to love the iPhone so much. But I'm touch screen challenged and just can't get there.
BlackBerrys past gave me the keypad I needed, but the screen was substandard. The net surfing was substandard. When I saw the Bold ($299 retail with two year agreement), it was love at first sight. A spectacular screen, 3G, a completely different web-surfing experience, a little video camera, incremental but nice tweaks to the operating system and graphics. For me, it was a huge leap forward from the Curve I had been using. It's yummy.
So enter the BlackBerry Storm ($199 with two year agreement), hyped as an iPhone killer, and the bridge device everyone was waiting for; combining the touch-screen advantages of iPhone, but with a unique tactile feedback system that would appeal to those of us who have that whole finger-mind-touch-screen issue. All of us in the Silicon Valley Bureau have spent some time playing with Storm, and we all have strong feelings about it since we're all BlackBerry users. As mentioned, I've been using the Bold; producer Annie Pong has migrated to the Storm; and editor John Chiala has been using the BlackBerry 8800.
Annie found the Storm very "hesitant" when she typed. There was a "lag time" between hitting the keys and seeing the letter or number appear on screen. That's something that can be adjusted, but it never quite seemed to work well enough for her. She also noted that when you swing the device around to change the screen to a "landscape" appearance, when you turn the device from a vertical to horizontal field, there was a delay and that seemed kind of strange.
John also found that the Storm wasn't intuitive enough. "Seemed like there was lot of times you had to tap two or three times to get it to do what you wanted to do." He added that, "At first glance, I wasn't real thrilled with it. Looks cool though. Video and graphics look awesome."
Another knock: the tactile response constantly made me feel like the thing was going to fall apart. When you touch the screen, the thing you're touching is highlighted. Then you have to click the entire screen glass to launch whatever it is you just touched. But when the whole screen moves, it feels like the glass is going to fall out.
Storm's biggest positive may also showcase its biggest drawback: The screen is gorgeous. There's something amazingly simple about buying an iPod or iPhone and instantly being able to connect to one of the easiest, broadest, most robust online media stores available. And with the Apple App Store, you can constantly upgrade and add new programs. In other words, if you aren't touch screen averse, and you're trying to decide between BlackBerry Storm and Apple's iPhone—and your company supports iPhone (mine doesn't yet)—I don't see why you wouldn't choose iPhone just because of iTunes.
For me, I'm extremely happy with my Bold and my iPod Touch. The fact is, watching video or listening to music on my phone is nice in theory, but it eats up a lot of juice. And not being able to communicate with my communication device because messing around with all my extra-curricular activities ate up all my battery life just doesn't work for me. Until iPhone, and Storm for that matter, dramatically improve battery life, I'm happy to carry two devices. One for communication and occasional entertainment, and one for entertainment only.
The Storm will sell well because it's tough to break the BlackBerry addiction, it's fun to play with, it looks so cool, and there's a huge amount of buzz around it. iPhone challenger? Maybe. iPhone killer? Hardly.
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