Yo, whassup?
Veteran’s Day
Thank you. Period.
Blackberry Storm
Last week, our local Verizon rep sponsored a Blackberry Storm preview party at Waterloo Icehouse (mmm, great triple-decker quesadillas!). What more could I ask for? Free drinks, free food, and a chance to get my hands on the latest gadget that just might be my next one.
First off, it’s similar to the iPhone – no hardware qwerty keyboard, fully touch sensitive screen, and it has a sensor in it that can tell when you flip it portrait or landscape. Also, like the iPhone, you swipe your finger left, right, up or down to navigate.
The big difference on the screen, however, is that the entire screen is like a mouse button. You use your finger to select and navigate things, but you PRESS IN on the screen to click. This is a HUGE improvement in my opinion. My biggest problem with the iPhone is the lack of a qwerty keyboard that I can feel. With the Storm, you actually are clicking the letters, icons, or buttons on the screen as the screen floats above some magic void.
Typing on the Storm actually feels more like real typing.
The video display was incredible – I watched a trailers for Max Payne and Speed Racer and the colors, detail and brightness were very impressive.
The phone doesn’t have Wifi, but does have bluetooth – and out of the box, the phone can tether to your PC over USB or bluetooth without any proprietary hassle. Verizon’s CDMA network seemed fast enough browsing around to sites, but I’m no expert on the differences between AT&T’s 3G, EDGE, CDMA or Old McDonald’s EIEIO. I just thought it was decent. I did hear him (the RIM guy, not Old McDonald) say it was a quad-band phone so it must work everywhere including Mars.
The speakers were loud, too! When you hold the Storm portrait-style and cup your right hand on the side, the sound goes directly to your head and you don’t miss a thing.
Let’s see… what else.
It has GPS, 16GB ram out of the box, and it has a removable battery (take THAT, iPhone!) as well as a micro SD slot to add more space. It has a 3 megapixel camera and takes good photos and video, although I didn’t test it myself.
Oh, and copy and paste works.
heh heh, had to put that in there for you iPhone addicts. On the Storm, you can select, copy, paste text from just about anywhere in any app. Oh that reminds me too – another big difference between the iPhone and the Blackberry is that multiple apps run on the BB at the same time. With iPhone, only one app can run at a time.
I will say however, that as cool as everything is, it doesn’t feel as cool as an iPhone. If you’re looking for a neat do-it-all gadget for personal use, the iPhone is still probably for you. But if you need enterprise features with an iPhone feel, the Storm is probably it.
Verizon supposedly has a “App Store” kind of like Apple’s where people can download more programs, but I haven’t seen it myself. They (RIM/Blackberry) also made their Software Development Kit (SDK) open and released to all, so people can write their own apps. The phone runs Blackberry OS 4.7, which is new and probably will only run on this series of phones.
Another big upgrade for former blackberry users is that the Storm and it’s 4.7 OS, you have HTML email. You can read and send HTML email, and that’s a pretty big thing for die-hard BB users.
There were some other things here and there, but if I were to sum it all down – this is the iPhone for the corporate user. One reason IT departments don’t like the iPhone is that it’s not controllable from a central point. The Storm however, is first and foremost a Blackberry, and that means a BES server can completely control it.
Now I just need to come up with something really cool and addictive that I can put out on the Internet that makes people pay me money so I can afford it. Got any ideas?
Ok, got any LEGAL ones?
Best of LOLcats
As always, I skimmed through the review (meaning “didn’t read” the review because I never understand them and, well, I buy my phone based on the colors it comes in sooooo….).
Yay for LOLcatz and Veterans!
Sheila (Charm School Reject)´s last blog post..I Left My Heart in San Francisco
It’s difficult to imagine that having the screen click (which sounds similar to the behavior of Apple’s new track pads) is enough to overcome your disdain for the lack of a real keyboard. Apologetic much?
In any event, it’s nice to see that the iPhone has really stepped up the level of competition for smart phones. Things really seemed to have stagnated before the iPhone came out.
Ren´s last blog post..Thank You
Katie and I saw our first commercial for that Blackberry last night and she was drooling. She thought it was the coolest thing she’s seen since the iPhone. Even cooler than the E71 I’m reviewing now. So what’s the price on this BB? Better than the $450 for my Nokia?
kapgar´s last blog post..All the pieces, pieces, pieces of me…
I like the Storm! That’s almost enough to make me switch to Verizon. I just wish I hadn’t re-signed with US Cellular, I’m locked in with them for close to 2 years..
Lack of WiFi is a bit of a downfall, but in areas that have EVDO it won’t matter much, regular 1XRTT CDMA on the other hand is rather slow, barely faster than dial-up speeds. I hate Apple, especially since they figure most users are too dumb to replace a bad battery so they seal it inside the unit. Idiotic. True I don’t generally replace a battery, rather the entire phone, but I did just replace a 2 month old battery that was defective on my work phone, it was nice to just swap the battery and be out of the store in 3 minutes rather than have to crack open the phone to do it.
It’s been years since I’ve used a Blackberry (actually, it was a RIM model that was a pager that I used in 1998, that could email anyone and get alerts and text pages). I may have to check this one out, but as with Kapgar, I’ve got an E71 that I’m checking out now (just got it today).
The Storm sure is getting some attention… I’ll give it that. I’m still stuck to my Treo 755p… I really shouldn’t use the word “stuck” since it does work very well for me and my needs. but as a gadget whore, I tend to be curious about any new phones.
As for the LOL cats pics, the DID NOT, DID TOO pic looks like our bed on the weekends.
martymankins´s last blog post..Scooter Sunday #30
I want the phone!!!!
And the Abort caption was hilarious!
Sybil Law´s last blog post..Mmmm… Spam
thanks for the cats and recognizing our veterans. we don’t do that enough!
I am blackberry all the way! I love my blackberry and now I’m totally excited about the Storm… um, does it come in pink?
Janelle´s last blog post..THE Most Exciting Post EVER!
I don’t have a cell phone but I have a very old treo that I use to kill imaginary aliens. I tried to do my planning on it but the paper calender planner just works better for me. The calculator and the telephone numbers are handy in there though.
I think my hubby would prefer the i-phone but by the time we can afford it there will be something way better.
Thanks for the LOL cats. I was having withdrawls and thinking I might actually have to go look for them myself. This is way more efficient.
marilyn´s last blog post..Random Science-ish Post
I must be a Luddite. I don’t even do cell phones. I do have two landlines at home, but there’s a reason for that.
witchypoo´s last blog post..Mining the Search Strings
I soooooo want that phone….
Evil Genius´s last blog post..Wordless Wednesday
I can haz fone? Pleazzzzzz.
Dragon Baby´s last blog post..Eggs In Prosciutto Cups
I haven’t had time to come by and respond to the comments yet, but I did want to give a quick update the Verizon announced a date and a price – November 21st, for $199 (with $50 mail-in rebate and 2yr agreement).
HOLY COW that’s a lot less than I thought it was going to be. It almost makes me think about switching. Almost.