BlackBerry Storm review

By now most of us have heard this story in one fashion or another: when Steve Jobs and Apple were in the planning stages of the iPhone, the first carrier they brought the device to was America's largest network, Verizon. Even if you haven't heard how the tale ends -- Verizon refused and Jobs took his multi-billion dollar ball to AT&T -- you surely know the outcome. The iPhone has soared to become the ultimate smartphone, the must-have accessory that everyone from celebrities to your mom wants -- nay, needs -- to have in their pocket. It's changed the landscape of modern cellphones, put a serious dent in the sales of competing devices (just recently overtaking the venerable RAZR as the best-selling domestic handset), and unquestionably raised the bar when it comes to expectations for features in new handsets.

It may seem unfair to open up the review of RIM's latest BlackBerry -- the Storm -- with a history lesson on the iPhone, but if you understand the market which Verizon and RIM hope to capture, then you understand the Storm, and it helps put this critique in perspective. 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. Mainlined into the biggest (and some say best) network in the States, the Storm is an almost deafening blast to the competition at first glance, but does it hold up on closer inspection? Read on to find out.

Industrial design

The Storm is a striking device. From the second you lay eyes on it, it's clear that a lot of time and care went into crafting this phone. The majority of the front panel is display, a large 3.25-inch (480 x 360) touchscreen sitting just shy of flush with a silver bezel that runs around the sides, top, and bottom of the device. The bands seem to be plastic, not metal, and trace the outline of the moderately thick (0.55-inch) phone, looping around the back, while the rest of the surface is a high gloss, piano black plastic. 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 (RIM has eschewed the more common mini USB slot for the lower profile of the newer variation, though that seems to be the way the industry is headed), and on the right side is another convenience key, volume rocker, and (yay!) 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, covered by a glossy plastic strip. Along the top of the phone there's a single LED to the right, and lock and mute keys incorporated into either side of the casing like soft rockers -- a nice touch. Generally, the construction of the hardware and components used seem higher in quality than previous devices from the company, with buttons that click tightly and a heft that tries (and succeeds) to communicate an understated class.

It's not completely rainbows and unicorns, however. We noticed backlight leaking in through the sides of the screen, which partially killed the continuity of the design (and had us raise eyebrows at build quality), and the screen sort of slides around when it's pressed down and held (more on that later). No deal breakers, but certainly a couple minor niggles we wish we hadn't seen.

Touchscreen

The touchscreen is where most of the attention on this phone will be focused, and rightfully so. Unlike similarly stacked competitors (the iPhone and Instinct come to mind) the Storm doesn't just boast a capacitive touch display, it also utilizes a completely unique "click" technology called SurePress which actually allows you to click the screen down like a mouse button. 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. The Storm's screen certainly provides those two things in spades, but our question is whether or not they actually improve the experience of using this sort of device -- and in our opinion, they do not.

Before we plunge into why we feel the hardware doesn't work here, we need to preface it with some information about the software. You can't really talk about one without the other.

What you first should know is that the operating system used on this phone is almost identical to previous BlackBerry OSs -- notably 4.6, as seen on the Bold. The main reason for stating that is because you must understand the basis for the UI design. All modern BlackBerrys use a QWERTY or SureType keypad coupled with a trackball for navigation, in addition to heavy emphasis on a pop-up menu accessible by the "menu" key from pretty much every section of the OS. The difference in 4.7 is not a paradigmatic shift away from this approach, rather, the company has added touch and multitouch functionality to take the place of trackball movements. What this means is that unlike the iPhone, which is most certainly the closest competitor on the market to this phone, the Storm's UI is not custom built for touch navigation -- touch navigation is added after the fact. 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. There's no inertia to movement, no assurance that your finger is the lynchpin to control of the device. The screen is sensitive enough, surely, but how its software reacts to those touches makes all the difference, and here the feeling is that you're never completely in charge of the phone.

Before we plunge into why we feel the hardware doesn't work here, we need to preface it with some information about the software. You can't really talk about one without the other.

What you first should know is that the operating system used on this phone is almost identical to previous BlackBerry OSs -- notably 4.6, as seen on the Bold. The main reason for stating that is because you must understand the basis for the UI design. All modern BlackBerrys use a QWERTY or SureType keypad coupled with a trackball for navigation, in addition to heavy emphasis on a pop-up menu accessible by the "menu" key from pretty much every section of the OS. The difference in 4.7 is not a paradigmatic shift away from this approach, rather, the company has added touch and multitouch functionality to take the place of trackball movements. What this means is that unlike the iPhone, which is most certainly the closest competitor on the market to this phone, the Storm's UI is not custom built for touch navigation -- touch navigation is added after the fact. 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. There's no inertia to movement, no assurance that your finger is the lynchpin to control of the device. The screen is sensitive enough, surely, but how its software reacts to those touches makes all the difference, and here the feeling is that you're never completely in charge of the phone.

BlackBerrys have garnered an almost mythic stature as the phone for email and messaging. One of the components of RIM's success for that model has been the inclusion of QWERTY keypads (and more recently the halved QWERTY SureType keyboards) on their phones. As any email addict will tell you, very few devices can compete. The slant from RIM's PR on the Storm is that the new clickable touchscreen delivers another high caliber typist's dream to their roster -- but that couldn't be further from the truth. Rather than the click making things easier, it actually makes them more difficult. As you press down to engage a "key," you're required to release before moving to another, which means that you can only type so quickly. In our tests, we were constantly frustrated by the staggering, laggy movement 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. Additionally, hovering over characters is represented by a blue glow, which looks nice when moving around, but in practice doesn't do a very good job of letting you know what key you're touching. We had spelling errors aplenty. All of this would be helped greatly by an intelligent software component that guessed what you meant to type -- much like the iPhone's predictive element. Unfortunately, what RIM provides is more of a glorified T9, which means if you type "fo," it doesn't know you meant to type "do." Ultimately we found ourselves slowly and carefully pecking out messages that should have taken less time to put together, clicking screen or not.

Otherwise, there are a few great implementations of the screen -- copying and pasting, which is the norm on RIM phones, is fully represented here with elegant multitouch functionality. You just grab the beginning and end of a section of text you want to snag with two fingers, and a menu pops up along the bottom for copy / paste duties. 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. We don't think the technology used for the screen is a dead-end by any measure, but it has a long way to go before it's honestly competing with the iPhone for virtual keyboard domination. Right now it's a nice idea with less in the way of usability than we need. If speed isn't a concern, you'll probably find it manageable, but for BlackBerry addicts and those accustomed to typing on the iPhone, this will be a disappointment.

Besides the new technology behind the display, the screen itself is fairly tremendous. Colors are rich, and contrast is solid. The brightness isn't quite as eye-searing as the iPhone at full tilt, and doesn't even approach the supernova 8830 we've got here, but frankly, how bright do you need it? Everything looked sharp and clear, though we've gotten a little spoiled by the Bold's incredible pixel density, and now other phones seem to pale in comparison.

Software

As we said, 4.7 isn't a huge step up over 4.6, but there are a number of improvements worth mentioning. Navigating through menus and the home screen is still very much a typical BlackBerry experience though. 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. You can use the touchscreen to hover (or select) each of the icons, giving it that blue glow, but we found it annoying that you couldn't drag your finger across the selections and have the glow follow you (as it does when typing). It gets stuck on the first thing you touch, and you have to re-press to move to another icon -- it seems like it would be more convenient to have the selection follow your movements, but the phone doesn't seem to know the difference between a quick flick up or down and a selection. You click down on the screen to launch an app or make a selection in a list, and you can swipe up and down to move through the list of apps, though it's not nearly as smooth as it should be. BlackBerry fans used to a real keyboard and shortcuts might find themselves a bit lost here when trying to get around quickly -- you can set one of the convenience keys to pop open the virtual keyboard, but it doesn't seem to recognize long presses, shortcuts, or find-as-you-type contact searches like traditional RIM devices (typing on the Storm just takes you to the dialer, why we don't know).

Most components of the UI which require scrolling don't seem drastically changed, but you can now jump through lists by up-down gestures. Again, we found that the lack of inertia made this seem stiffer than expected, though it worked well enough when moving around the phone. 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 (don't worry, we feel the same way about the iPhone's zooms and scrolls). Overall, transitions between screens and inside of apps do seem a bit more sluggish than the performance on the Bold, but whether this is due to those new effects or a higher CPU load given the touch recognition and screen size, we can't say. We did find ourselves missing the speedy response of a traditional BlackBerry, and also felt like responses lagged behind our movements enough to be annoying. There seemed to be a few noticeable bugs floating around, and at least one that ground the phone to almost a halt -- when quitting the browser on a page that was still loading, it turned the navigation on the home screen to molasses. Another flaw we had crop up was accelerometer related, an irksome bug that rendered the portrait-to-landscape switching (and vice versa) non-existent. We can't say if that was hardware or software related, but the details count, and those little snags take points away.

Thankfully the browser has been considerably updated. If you have any experience with RIM's last attempt at mobile browsers (the Bold), then you know what manna from heaven any fixes would be. 4.6's browser is, in a word, unusable. Load times are painful, rendering is only sometimes accurate, and mostly it's just a tortuous mess to get around in. We can honestly say that the Storm's implementation is leaps and bounds beyond what the company has previously offered. 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. And ultimately, that's a point that must be made -- while the browser is much better than earlier versions, and is an admirable attempt, 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. Why RIM doesn't build something from scratch (or buy a license from Opera) is a question for the ages -- we can't imagine anyone has any real affection for this experience. Still, for casual tasks and most browsing, you could certainly do worse, and it's nice to know that a lot of energy went into this update.

On the messaging and email front, very little has changed here from earlier RIM phones, save for some of that visual flair. Particularly when it comes to email, the use of screen real estate and selection of fonts seems dated when compared with the iPhone. We won't complain about the email service itself, delivery of messages was rock solid (of course), but a quick glance at the iPhone versus a quick glance at the Storm provides a strong juxtaposition of design languages. Reading email on the BlackBerry was an inconsistent experience, and highlighted the feeling that not too much trouble had been taken to freshen up this UI and format it for the bigger screen. Under the hood, we found account management simple enough, but those looking for solid Gmail integration (like, say, all the people Verizon and RIM hope to lure away from Apple's camp) will be seriously let down. There doesn't seem to be any decent alternative for getting Gmail the way you're used to, save for Google's own app (which is remarkably good save for a few issues).

On that note, third-party software is still a bit weak for the platform, and essentially non-existent for the Storm itself. It doesn't look like using this phone will break any (or most) of the software already out for BlackBerry devices, but there's also not much taking advantage of the new format and screen real estate. In particular, something like the Facebook application -- which Verizon and RIM are pushing hard with the launch of the Storm -- is a poor stand-in for the iPhone offering, sporting exactly the same functionality it does on an older RIM device. Reps from the company assured us that their version of the App Store was coming, and they do have a tidy application manager on the phone already, so we're hoping that third parties really step up their game with the introduction of the Storm.

Because the phone is being marketed as a convergence device, it's got an extra emphasis on media functions. In truth, 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.

All in all, the software feature-set the phone ships with is incredibly strong. There's a broad selection of applications, including the "To Go" suite that allow you to view and edit Word, PowerPoint, and Excel documents. Average (and even not so average) users will be hard pressed to find something that's missing, and RIM makes it easy enough to grab key software if someone wants it. You have to hand it to them, they cover pretty much all the bases... save for one nasty omission.

We were a bit stunned to find out that we couldn't sync the Storm with our Mac out of the box. We don't mean "hey we couldn't sync with iTunes" (we're not insane), we mean, "hey, we can't sync this, at all, in any way." For the few Mac users that also happen to dig BlackBerrys, there's a piece of software RIM offers free of charge called PocketMac, which does a half decent job of at least throwing your contacts, calendars, and other assorted must-haves onto your device -- but you're out of luck if you buy a Storm. Apparently, the software needs an update badly, and if you expect to enjoy the same service it provides to something like a Bold, you'll be surprised and annoyed (as we were) to find this doesn't let you sync your data. For that, right now, you're going to have to go download (and pay for) something like Missing Sync. It's pretty outrageous to us that in crafting a device so obviously aimed at the iPhone's marketshare no one thought to make it accessible to Apple users even a little. Look, we know it's not a huge segment of the market, but it's there, and if history has taught us anything, it's a segment to be reckoned with.

Phone / Data

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. If we had a complaint, we'd say the mid-range was a bit shrill on the phone. The Bold, by comparison, has a much warmer, well-rounded output. Still, that's a pretty minor complaint, and if you're looking for sheer network-clutching goodness, this is a pretty damn good choice. In addition to Verizon's CDMA, EV-DO, Rev. A madness, the Storm sports a GSM radio (a number of them), so you can grab HSPA in the rest of the world, and truck on some sweet, sweet EDGE here in the States.

Speaking of that EV-DO, the download speeds and network stability of the Storm seem pretty tight. Although the phone omits WiFi, as long as you stay inside decent Verizon coverage areas, you won't feel that sting too badly.

Camera / GPS / Battery life

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. There were numerous times when trying to photograph something that we lost the shot because of the length of time it took the camera to kick in. In broad daylight, things fared a slight bit better, but when using the flash, it was pretty hard to get good results. This seems like something that could take a simple software tweak to fix -- we know the camera looks nice, we just need it to take photos faster. A lot faster.

One of the nice things about the Storm is that it's not just capable of doing still photos, but can shoot video as well. Results are mediocre, allowing capture up to 320 x 240, with quite a bit of heavy artifacting. Still, knowing that you can pull this out to grab something reminds us -- yet again -- that this is a necessary basic for modern cellphones.

Using the device for navigation garnered excellent results in terms of signal reception and tracking, but having to slug through the abysmal Verizon Navigator software isn't exactly joyous (dudes, that intro animation is the worst thing we've ever seen). It would be nice to see some third party options on the device for PND duties, though at least Verizon tries to throw a lot of content into the mix (movie times, traffic, local search), no matter how heavy handed it feels (real, real heavy handed).

Since we had a very, very limited time to test the phone, we can't really give you solid figures on battery life. In casual use, however, the Storm seems to be going strong even after a heavy workload: browsing, media player, and phone calls. We've had the phone on and chugging all day, and it's only seeing about about a 30 percent drop in life so far. If this keeps up, you can color us officially impressed with the juice you can pull out of this thing.

Wrap-up

It's clear from the device itself and the massive promotional push that both RIM and Verizon are giving the Storm that they view this as a proper threat to the iPhone's dominance in the smartphone market. Over the last few weeks we've been bombarded with commercials, leaks, press releases, and special events all celebrating the arrival of the Storm, both here and abroad. So it seems fairly obvious that yes, the companies believe they have a real contender on their hands -- and in many ways they do. The selling points are easy: the phone is gorgeous to look at and hold, it's designed and backed by RIM (now almost a household name thanks to their prevalence in the business and entertainment markets), 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. For casual users, the learning curve and complexity of this phone will feel like an instant turn off, and for power users, the lack of a decent typing option and considerable lagginess in software will give them pause. RIM tried to strike some middle ground between form and function, and unfortunately came up short on both.

Going into this review, we really wanted to love this phone. On paper it sounds like the perfect antidote to our gripes about the iPhone, and in some ways it lives up to those promises -- but more often than not while using the Storm, we felt let down or frustrated. Ultimately, this could be a great platform with a little more time in the oven, but right now, it feels undercooked -- and that's not enough for us.

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BlackBerry Bold 9650

 BUILD & DESIGN

The Bold 9650 is nearly identical to the Tour -- the only discernible design update is the addition of the optical trackpad.

This modelis heavier and bulkier than the Bold 9700 though still manageable in a pocket or purse.

Screen

RIM has been doing a great job in the display department as of late. The 2.4-inch 480x360 screen is crisp, bright, and manages browsing sessions well.

Like all BlackBerrys, the display will adjust to ambient light.

Keyboard

The Bold 9650 sports the better of the two keyboards RIM currently produces.It is accurate, responsive and quick.

Its rubbery keys are row-separated by a depressed chrome bezel.

Trackpad

When RIM first introduced the trackpad, I was blown away. There was almost no learning curve and I found the experience to be intuitive and accurate.

This isn't true with the Bold 9650 trackpad. I found it to be jumpy and hard to manage. Despite tweaking settings and adjusting pressure the experience simply wasn't as flawless as I've seen in the past. It's not a deal breaker but will take some getting used to your trackpad's unique attitude.

Etcetera

Sadly, the Bold 9650 sports the worst design feature of the Tour: a micro-USB charging port located on the right side of the keyboard. This makes it nearly impossible to type on the phone while you're charging it, a flaw which is not present on the Bold 9700.

The 9650 sports a rocker key in its top edgeto lock and mute the phone. Strangely, the rocker lock initiates a different lock than the keyboard lock -- users can't unlock the device with the keyboard after locking it with the rocker key. It would have been nice to see rocker key customization options, like the convenience keys on the side of the phone.

PERFORMANCE

The BlackBerry Bold 9650 is a solid performer in almost every category. As a messaging-centric device its web browsing capabilities are weak, but for most uses the 9650 is a smooth operator.

I did experience some glitches requiring the device to be powered on and off. Resets were relatively quick and occurred without any data loss.

Wireless Data

The Bold 9650 boasts 802.11b/g, GPS, Bluetooth with profiles for streaming music, and support for UMTS/HSPA, CDMA/EV-DO and GSM based networks. In layman's terms, this means that this smartphone is one of the few offered by Sprint and Verizon that can be used outside of the United States.

The addition of Wi-Fi is a welcome improvement over the Tour, and is probably the biggest reason to choose this model over its predecessor.

The streaming audio profiles work wonderfully; I was able to stream high-quality Pandora radio over my car's audio system after initial pairing.

Call Quality

Call quality is spot-on with this version of theBold. From low to high volume the speaker supports a range of sound from deep to high. The speakerphone is sufficiently loud as well.

Messaging

The strongest point of the BlackBerry is its messaging.Connections to Gmail accounts sync messages and contacts seamlessly. A message sent from a computer will show up as a sent message on the device, which creates an incredibly useful completely current email record at all times.

SMS conversations are bubbled to seem like instant messenger chats, and instant messaging clients (AIM, GTalk, Y-Messenger, ICQ, MSN)all integrate well into the BlackBerry message indication system.

A neat feature I recently discovered in the newest version of the BlackBerry OS is the ability to port SMS contacts into the BlackBerry Messenger interface. This feature combined with the ability to placeBlackBerry Messenger contact icons on the home screen mean that users can place messaging icons for any of their contacts on the home screen for even quicker access. A job well done, RIM!

Entertainment

The entertainment options on the Bold 9650 come from the BlackBerry OS and from prepackaged Sprint apps. Offerings include the standard slew of games, (Brickbreaker, Word Mole, Texas Hold Em, Sudoku, Klondike) , Sprint apps for NASCAR mobile, Football, SprintTV, an upcoming Sprint Music Store, Pocket Express aggregator, and others. Social networking apps are also included.

The web browser is the same standard one on most BlackBerry OS 5.0 devices come with, with minor cosmetic changes.As I mentioned earlier, thisapp is one of the weakest features on the phone, and isn't even in the same league as thebrowsers offered bytheiPhone or Android OS devices.

Productivity

The productivity apps, like the entertainment apps, are standard issue. The most useful apps are the Documents To Go suite by DataViz, which let you work with Microsoft Office files on your smartphone.

Other useful tools include multiple calendar support, contact grouping and Sprint navigation.

The biggest productivity asset of this device however is the BlackBerry OS 5.0 interface, which is an improvement over previous versions.

Camera

The 3.2 megapixel camera on the Bold 9650features auto-focus, video recording and flash.

Using the camera has been made easier with this model. Previous auto-focus BlackBerrys required users to first focus and then completely press the key to capture an image. With the Bold the process has been simplified to a simple point and click - the device will focus itself.

Battery Life

With casual phone, messaging, and browsing use I observed just less than 18 hours of usable time from fully charge to battery-induced radio off. So you can probably expect to charge this device every night.

CONCLUSION

It's true that RIM hit the mark with the BlackBerry Bold 9650. Unfortunately, that mark wasn't very high. As a messaging-centric device, the Bold is great. However, being a great messaging device isn't enough anymore to capture the consumer end of the market. As competition from Android and other platforms becomes stronger, RIM needs to innovate and add something truly unique to the experience in order to stay relevant.

The 9650 is an improvement over previous generations, but it's only a marginal improvement over the Tour and no improvement over the Bold 9700.

It's hard to look at the Bold 9650 and the competition and make an unreserved recommendation for the Bold. If you're a business user it's a different story, but for consumers, I'd say check out the competition before jumping aboard the BlackBerry bandwagon.

Pros:

• Feature-laden CDMA equivalent to Bold 9700
• Strong Gmail integration
• Can roam outside of the U.S.

Cons:

• Tired styling
• Jumpy trackpad
• Awkward charging port placement

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BlackBerry Storm 9500

Design

Somewhere between the aesthetics of the BlackBerry Bold and the iPhone 3G you'll find the chic BlackBerry Storm. The large, colourful screen lends itself to comparison with Apple's wunderkind, but the details of the design are undeniably BlackBerry.

The Storm is sexy: a combination of glossy piano-black and stainless steel line the display, with a faux brushed metal matte-black plastic battery cover. External keys on the edges are also in steel and include a volume rocker and a dedicated camera shutter button. The Storm features a 3.5mm headphone jack on the top-right side of the phone, as all self-respecting multimedia mobiles should.

To complement the touchscreen input, the Storm also sports a familiar quartet of mechanical keys below the screen, the same calling keys and BlackBerry context-sensitive menu button we've seen on all recent release BlackBerry handsets.

Touchscreen

A BlackBerry with a touchscreen may seem like a Porsche with wings - as though the two don't quite go together - but trust us; this is a cool step forward for the BlackBerry family. It seems that BlackBerry manufacturer Research in Motion (RIM) anticipated a reticence to touchscreens from its loyal fans so it developed a depress-able screen and software it calls SurePress.

The touchscreen uses the same capacitive touchscreen technology as the iPhone and it registers contact with the surface as accurately. Unlike the iPhone, contact with the screen will only highlight a selection, not execute one. Opening a program requires you to touch the screen then press gently - this is SurePress in action. While this may seem like extra effort, it actually acts as a second chance. Rather than regularly opening and closing programs by mistake, or mistyping letters in an email, you have that split second to realise you've hit the wrong key before pressing on the screen.

Features

On paper the Storm is a classic BlackBerry. It puts in something new, the touchscreen, but takes something away: in this case that's Wi-Fi. When you consider that the Storm was developed in partnership with phone carriers Vodafone and Verizon in the US, it makes sense that the Storm wouldn't feature hardware capable of circumventing the carriers ability to make money off data services. Still, for consumers this is a bit of a blow.

For chewing through said data, the Storm features HSDPA network support and browses the web through the same BlackBerry browser we find in the Bold, optimised for touchscreen input, of course. The Storm also includes Bluetooth for pairing to hands-free headsets.

In regards to pre-installed software, BlackBerry aficionados won't be missing any standard inclusions like the excellent messaging client, document readers, a variety of instant messaging apps and the browser. As an exclusive to Vodafone, our review unit also included links to download Vodafone service apps like MusicStation and the always improving Vodafone Compass navigation software.

Prior to the launch of the Storm RIM began spruiking the BlackBerry Application Centre, a centralised web space to download a range of apps and tools for newer BlackBerrys. Our review unit features the shortcut, though the App Centre is only populated with about a dozen apps at this time - hardly the 10,000 reportedly available on the Apple App Store.

Performance

Despite some minor lagging we've found the Storm to be quite powerful and sufficiently responsive. Some tasks, like opening large video files, can take a moment or more to process, but basic menu navigation and the all-important messaging app run pretty smoothly.

If you can put up with the short pause as the video loads then watching video on the Storm is great. Unlike the iPhone, the Storm has excellent video codec recognition, supporting MPEG4, H.264, WMV and the obligatory 3GP mobile phone video format. Formats the phone doesn't recognise are converted during transfer via the BlackBerry Desktop Manager. The 3.25-inch touchscreen is sharp and colourful and the audio is decent. The same, of course, can be said for music playback, though we do recommend forking out for an upgrade to the headphones that come bundled with the phone.

Battery life is a major concern for smartphones with large, high res displays and a range of connectivity options. The Storm is not immune from sucking through the juice and we found it was possible to run the battery down after about 10 hours of heavy use, however, it manages standby battery life much better than most. With casual use we saw battery cycles of several days, even with push email active. If you make frequent calls or would listen to hours of music a day you'll want to keep the charging pack with you.

Overall

As a dalliance into virgin territory for the BlackBerry family, the Storm is a success. As a smartphone, the Storm will suit the needs of many looking for a solid business tool with high quality media functionality. The touchscreen and RIM's SurePress tech won't be for everyone, and we'd be surprised if owners of the BlackBerry Bold even bat an eyelid at this release, but we love it. We've never been as confident smearing fingerprints over a touchscreen with our chubby, clumsy digits.

The BlackBerry Storm is exclusive to Vodafone and will be available on a BlackBerry service contract for AU$69 per month and includes unlimited data and an 8GB microSD card.

Spesification :

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Review: BlackBerry Pearl 3G 9100

The BlackBerry Pearl 3G 9100 was announced back at WES just a short month ago, and is about ready for primetime. It builds upon RIM’s older Pearl family with an upgraded HVGA display, optical trackpad to replace the now-defunct trackball, a new 3.2 megapixel camera with flash, and is the first BlackBerry to host Wi-Fi 802.11n. When combined with BlackBerry OS 5.0, the Pearl 3G is effectively a miniaturized Bold 9700.

Coming from the Bold 9000, I was already prepared to miss the luxurious screen size, but remembered my time with the original Pearl 8100 fondly, mostly in terms of how pocketable it was and how quick I was with the SureType keypad. Wi-Fi n was a big pull, and I was curious to see how much better it was than the Wi-Fi on the vast majority of handsets I had used in the past.

From the pictures alone, the 9100 looked like a solid, if perhaps too-familiar refresh on an established family of BlackBerrys. Carrying the first proper BlackBerry brand name, the Pearl 3G had a significant heritage to live up to. So… does it?

Pros

• Pocketable
• Tight design and construction
• Smooth, stable operating system

Cons

• Reduced screen size
• Little gain from Wi-Fi 802.11n
• Optical trackpad susceptible to sunlight interference

Hardware

First off, it has to be said that the BlackBerry Pearl 3G is extremely well built. The various parts are very snugly assembled, and the keypad is much tighter than I remember the old Pearl being. Build quality aside, the 9100 has mad style. We’ll get into that in a bit. First, the hard specs.

• Dimensions: 108 x 50 x 13.3 mm, 93 g
• Display: 2.6″, 360 x 400 LCD display
• Processor: 624 Mhz processor
• Memory: 256 MB
• Battery: 1150 mAh (5 hours talk, 18 days standby)
• Bands: 800 (850)/1900/2100 MHz UMTS (also in 900/1700/2100 MHz variety), 850/900/1800/1900 MHz EDGE
• Bluetooth: 2.1, includes Stereo Audio profile

So, back to looks. The chrome accent is nice and dark, and not so obnoxiously silver as other BlackBerrys. The rubberized siding and seamlessly-integrated convenience keys (much like the 8520 and 8530 Curve) add a tonne of grip and smoothness. The lines are both sharp and curvy, reminding me a lot of the X10 Xperia. The battery door adopts the same single-slate style as the 8500-series BlackBerry, which has always been my favourite since it minimizes the number of moving parts to fiddle with. Not all moving parts are bad, though – there’s a new one under the battery door that allows you to easily pop out the SIM card without having to dig and pry. It’s much better than the hinge that most other BlackBerrys are packing.

As nice as the size is, it’s not actually that much bigger than the first Pearl, as you can see compared here to the iPhone and BlackBerry 8120. It’s got a nice amount of weight to it without being too heavy – a very nice medium. As far as input goes, the optical trackpad, though ostensibly a step up from the older trackball, still fritzes out in direct sunlight. That’s almost as inconvenient as occasionally getting grit stuck beneath the trackball, really. RIM’s two-letter-per-key SureType keyboard has a learning curve to it, so be prepared. Like most predictive systems, you have to learn to trust the dictionary to figure out what it is you’re trying to say. There’s one major caveat with SureType: if you type something wrong, it will predict your word wrong, and probably mess up the word even worse than if you just screwed up a single letter on a QWERTY keypad. If you’re comfortable with prediction, you might also want to look into the 9105 variant, which has a standard numeric keypad that feature phone users might be more comfortable with. We aren’t sure if the 9105 is going to be exclusive to Europe right now, but we’re guessing so.

Software

The BlackBerry 9100 comes with OS 5.0.0.629. 5.0 launched with the Storm2, incorporating a lot of visual upgrades like bubbly, finger-friendly drop-down menu items, as well as more practical stuff, like e-mail flags and remote file lookups. You can see the whole list of new features in 5.0 over here at RIM’s knowledgebase. In a broad sense, it has a lot of graphical improvements and is generally smooth and enjoyable, but of course, that largely depends on what you’re used to. BlackBerry is still a clear-cut, no-nonsense experience, geared to help you get tasks done quickly, not prettily. If you’re coming from Android, iPhone, or webOS, you’ll probably be pretty unimpressed with the the staid icon layout and seemingly-antiquated menu system, but take some time and learn its nuances and efficiencies. You get a BlackBerry to get shit done, son.

What kind of efficiencies are we talking, here? Well, let’s look at the messages app, where folks spend most of their time. Out of the box it just handles e-mail, but after fiddling with the options, you can get SMS messages in there too. Once you start downloading official RIM apps, like Google Talk, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook, your messages app quickly becomes a lot more than just e-mail – it becomes a hub for your every major means of communication. Most of those apps also plug into your address book, allowing you to see information gathered from a variety of sources, like caller ID pics from Facebook, and GTalk status messages. Even the media app lets you quickly and easily shoot pictures out to whatever social networks support it. If you don’t feel like digging through menus for what you want, you can often pull up a “short menu” by just clicking on the touchpad, and it generally offers the most common tasks, and even highlights the single most common first to allow quick double-clicks to take care of business. See, it’s the little things.

I’ve been using BlackBerry for awhile, so when someone calls the OS unintuitive, I have a really hard time agreeing. I can certainly see how a lot of options can be overwhelming, but once you find the options that you use regularly, it’s hard to imagine a faster, simpler way to get to them. Still, if you’re worried that the BlackBerry experience would be too complicated for you, I would be aghast if the new OS 6.0, and all of its streamlined UI and flashiness, wasn’t going to be available on the BlackBerry Pearl 9100. It’s also worth noting that the app selection (and prices) for BlackBerry is far from stellar. If you’re coming from the iPhone, App World will definitely leave you wondering what you signed a new two-year contract for. You likely won’t be swapping out for new apps every other week. If you’re lucky, you’ll find something worthwhile once every few months, and even then you may have to begin budgeting your app memory depending on how desperate you become for new apps.

Just remember that keyboard shortcuts make life a helluva lot easier, and there are some subtle, seamless things that RIM does to make your life easier when inputting text. For example, when typing an e-mail address, the first time you hit spacebar puts in an @ symbol and the second one is a period. Capitals and periods are generally automatically done, and there’s a whole bunch of keyboard shortcuts to make navigating apps easier – be sure to learn them early, and they’ll become second-nature in no time.

Multimedia

The web browser is just about as ho-hum as ever; it does the job, it chokes a little less on Javascript than it used to, and the trackpad feels a bit nicer for cursor use, but I still find the whole cursor thing to be awkward and clunky. I wish the browser would just snap to links and scroll down automatically, like the Google Mobile app handles it; maybe there will at least be an option for it in the revamped browser… I’m still waiting on Flash support so I can finally watch YouTube videos from the mobile site, which, for whatever reason, still doesn’t work for me. In the meantime, there are always third party alternatives like Bolt and Opera Mini.

The top-mounted media keys on the BlackBerry 9100, borrowed from the 8500 Curve series, will definitely be catching the eye of people looking for a phone that can play their music. Currently, microSD cards cap out at 16 GB, so hardcore music fans will probably still want a dedicated music player, but for me and casual listeners, 16 GB is enough. As for those media controls, I’ve found them a little inconvenient. When you’re pushing the phone into your pocket or a holster, you’re most likely to be pushing down from the top of the device, making accidental presses on any of the controls more than likely. On most other BlackBerrys, you only have the pause/play (mute) key to get in your way, leaving track skips to pressing and holding the volume keys on the side. I understand RIM needs to visibly label their phones as music-friendly, but I feel in this case, they may have sacrificed too much.

The 3.2 megapixel camera with flash performs reasonably well, as you can see – here’s another picture in daylight conditions. I’d still like to see some more options, such as manually setting the exposure and cropping, but as is, a lot of the automatic settings can handle your everyday shooting. I’m itching to try out the BlackBerry 9670 clamshell, if only for the 5 megapixel camera – of course, pixels only count for so much. Lenses, sensors, and software are just as important. One thing I’m glad to see continuing with the right-side convenience key (default for the camera) is a two-level press, so you can activate the autofocus without shooting. That’s still a relatively new feature, but the Storm2 has it as well.

Signal Strength and Battery Life

Call quality is pretty standard on the BlackBerry Pearl 3G. Of the half-dozen or so calls I made, none dropped, and everything was heard just fine. Battery life felt a little bit better than my Bold 9000, but that’s probably because it’s losing its charge after two years of heavy use. The 9100′s battery managed to get through a day of moderate use just fine, usually with a bit leftover for the next morning if you turned it off overnight. What I was really interested in, though, was Wi-Fi 802.11n.

This is the next class of Wi-Fi up from g, and the highest we have now. In theory, n should bump speeds up to 600 Mbit/s, a significant jump from 54 Mbit/s that b and g offered, on top of a boost in range. Unfortunately, in my tests with the 9000 and 9100 side-by-side, I found zero difference whatsoever. In some cases, the Bold even had better range. I can only imagine that battery and processor power act as significant bottlenecks, but the bottom line is that you really shouldn’t count on 802.11n affecting your buying decision. It’s good that RIM is keeping up with interoperability, it’s just too bad that it can’t really take advantage of the higher speeds.

Verdict

What really got to me by the end of my time with the BlackBerry Pearl 3G 9100 is that it really does provide the fullest BlackBerry experience possible with little to no compromises made for the sake of size. The reduced screen size, though a necessary evil, is counterbalanced by the convenience and portability of a slimmer handset. The SureType keyboard takes training, and will not feel like it’s worth it for the first few weeks, but in time you can type just as fast on it as with a standard QWERTY keyboard. I didn’t quite get back to my prime speeds again, and still stumbled on irregular words and typos, but I only had less than a week to play with it.

So, who should pick up the BlackBerry Pearl 3G 9100? People who have to juggle a lot of balls, but don’t want to immediately be recognized as an office monkey chained to their BlackBerry. The Pearl form factor always did an excellent job of camouflaging as a “normal” phone – the 9105 and its numeric keypad is a clear nod to that status. Personally, I don’t mind having a big fat phone, but for those that do, the BlackBerry Pearl 3G will treat you well. The screen is excellent, the software extremely practical, and the casing incredibly stylish, however, it’s not much more than a smaller version of the Bold 9700.

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How to Activate a Blackberry Enterprise

Blackberry Enterprise is a system that allows a Blackberry user to receive and send email from a server, such as one at your workplace, on the Blackberry phone. If you are setting up Blackberry Enterprise for your work email, the system administrator may complete much of the work on your behalf. The system administrator will add the Blackberry account to the server, making it possible for the Blackberry user to complete the activation remotely using the Blackberry phone.

Instructions

1. Ensure that you are able to receive and send email using a computer from the email account that you are activating. If the account is not functioning prior to Enterprise activation, it will not function afterward. Also check to ensure your Blackberry has service and that it is disconnected from the computer.
2. Obtain the email address and password to use for activation from your system administrator. The system administrator will set up the address on the Enterprise server so that you may activate it using your phone.
3. Open the Blackberry Enterprise activation menu by navigating to "Options" and choosing "Advanced Options." Select the Enterprise activation icon and open the program on your phone.
4. Enter the email address and password that your system administrator provided to you under the headings "email" and "password."
5. Use the "Menu" button on the phone to open the menu and select "Activate". The phone will activate the Enterprise and send an email to your account, which will return to the phone to complete the activation. The phone will synchronize with the email account and you will receive a pop up that tells you when activation is complete.
6. Click on the "OK" button that appears when the phone is activated.

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