The first Blackberry came onto the scene in 1999, heralding the dawn of increasingly convergent devices. The Blackberry (before Blackberry Cellular Phones was originaly intended as a complicated pager. But its local messaging system was so popular that its rabid cult following forced an authority like Webster’s New World School Compendium to honor “crackberry” for being the “New Word of the Year”. RIM’s latest, The BlackBerry Storm, is a shot at un-kinging the mighty iPhone, which appears to hold a strong grip on being the #1 selling mobile device. The Storm’s partner on this is Verizon, as it is being offered as part of Verizon Cell Phones, who is still reeling from its mistake of turning down Steve Jobs’ iPhone (Verizon as a carrier). If Verizon is attempting to make amends for missing the iPhone, it’s at least heading in the correct direction. The Storm has a wide screen, touchscreen interfaction that offers many of the same capabilities as the iPhone, yet with some additional extras on the touchscreen display. The outcome of these improvements ismixed. Unlike with a real keyboard, onscreen virtual keys are not able to keep up with fast typing. Classic Blackberry “thumbing” addicts may not be in a position to rattle off messages with equal speed or accuracy.
The clickthrough interface needs a good deal of practice if you wish to be used to pushing the touch-sensitive screen down until there is a click, in vivid contrast with the smooth interactivity provided by the iPhone.
Similarly, since your finger is on it, the blue highlight that displays confirmation of the active status of a given button is active is hard to see.
So if it’ll go down in history as a design mishap or an all out mistake, is still to be seen. Last and maybe least of all, this Blackberry also doesn’t have the predictive spelling aid functions that the iPhone does. If you are a bad speller, the Blackberry isn’t going to be much of a safety net for you. The browser renders HTML quickly and thoroughly, with context-sensitive page-drag abilities by which you can navigate a given website. The sole gripe here is that form fields are a little troublesome to fill out. Though the browser has won high grades, the lack of Wi-Fi on telephones is rather mysterious. Though Verizon’s EV-DO coverage is wonderful, there are tons of circumstances where Wi-Fi would have been quite useful. As for the heavy, commercial design, Blackberry will be given a thumbs-up.
The payoff for leaving the tactile key board and trademark trackball behind is a faster, flatter, 3.25 in. awesome glass face. Four familiar Blackberry keys are at the base of the telephone Telephone , Menu, Back, and End / Power. The telephone also comes included with a mini USB key as well as 3.5mm headphone mobile phone jack. One probable drawback to the design is the matter of whether metal construction is superior to plastic. The phone is joined with the even more wonderful Verizon (for cellular service coverage) that should keep the Storm well positioned in the race to be cell phone king.
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