Verizon Wireless Phones Get A Lift With The Blackberry Storm
The first Blackberry came out onto the market in 1999, heralding the dawn of the convergence device. The Blackberry (before Blackberry Cell Phones was originaly intended as a complicated pager. But its local messaging system was so effective that it quickly earned a cult following of such magnitude that Webster’s New World School Compendium recognized “crackberry” as 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 means to make up for missing out on the iPhone, at least it’s heading in the right direction. The Storm has a widescreen touchscreen graphical user interface that provides much of the same features as the iPhone, but with some enhancements for the touchscreen display. The results of these enhancements are mixed. Unlike with a real keyboard, onscreen virtual keys are not able to keep up with fast typing. Thumbing addicts, used to the old Blackberry style may not be in a position to rattle off messages with the same accuracy and speed.
The clickthrough interface requires a good amount of practice, if you want to become used to pushing the touch sensitive screen down till there’s a click, in sheer contrast to the flowing interactivity one gets from the iPhone.
Likewise, since your finger is on it, the blue highlight that displays to ratify that a given button is active is tough to see.
So is it going to go down in history as a design fluke or an all out error? Well that is yet to be seen. Last and maybe least, this Blackberry also does not have the predictive spelling aid functions of the iPhone. If you are a lazy speller, the Blackberry doesn’t offer you much of a safety net. The browser renders HTML quickly and thoroughly, with context-sensitive page-drag abilities by which you can navigate a given website. The only complaint here is that form fields are a little bothersome 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 powerful, commercial style, Blackberry catches a top rating.
The benefit to leaving the tactile keyboard and trademarked trackball behind is a faster, flatter, three.25 in. cool glass front. 4 familiar Blackberry keys lie at the base of the telephone, they are: Telephone , Menu, Back, and End / Power. The telephone also comes equipped with a mini USB key plus three.5mm headset jack. One possible drawback of the design concerns whether metal construction is superior to plastic. The phone is joined with the even so wonderful Verizon (for cellular service coverage) will keep the Storm well positioned in the race to cell phone king.