The BlackBerry Storm looks smart, but its innovative SurePress touch-screen causes us a few concerns. We're also surprised and disappointed by the absence of Wi-Fi.
Research In Motion's new BlackBerry Storm has created quite a stir, largely due to its innovative touch-screen interface. This is clearly a bid to capture the imagination of consumers, but has RIM done enough to keep its corporate customers on-board?
The Storm is available exclusively from Vodafone in Europe, Australia and New Zealand. As we understand it, this version of the device will never be available from another operator. Vodafone in Australia said the device will be available from 1 December, and will be available on the company's Internet Data Cap plans starting from $69 per month on a 24-month contract.
Design
The Storm is quite a hefty smartphone. It measures 62.2mm wide by 112.5mm tall by 13.95mm thick and weighs 155g. Despite RIM's new-found consumer leanings, the design remains relatively subdued, which should pacify potential business users. The fascia is a shiny black plastic while the battery cover is made from metal and finished in slate-grey with a slight patterning. The remainder of the back and the sides are black with a slightly rubbery feel to assist with grip.
A silver sidebar runs down the long edges and frames the fascia. It shifts to the back at the top and bottom, but is continuous all around the device. The top and bottom edges are also curved and shaped rather than squared off.
The front of the device is almost entirely screen, but there's a quartet of buttons in a row beneath the display. The inner two are the BlackBerry Menu and Escape keys, with Call and End keys flanking them. There's no 'Pearl'-style mini-trackball — presumably because RIM is confident that every operation can be carried out using the new touch screen.
There are two buttons on the top edge. One is an all-important screen lock and the other is a mute key. Both look like touch-sensitive buttons, but are in fact physical buttons.
Moving to the sides, there's a volume rocker on the right and 'convenience keys' on both left and right. You can allocate the latter to any application you choose — the default settings are the camera for the right key and voice dialling for the left key.
These convenience keys are not, in fact, very conveniently located — or perhaps it's just that they're too sensitive. In any event, we found it too easy to accidentally start up the camera software when picking the Storm up off a desk. If this gets too irritating, you can set the keys to do nothing.
The left edge also houses the microUSB power/PC connector socket, while the right edge has a 3.5mm headset jack.
The screen, which measures 3.25in. across the diagonal and has a resolution of 480 by 360 pixels, is the star of the show. It's clear, sharp and bright, and presents content such as web pages, emails, calendar and images extremely well.
The Storm's unique feature is the way that the whole screen depresses about a millimetre when you press an icon, a menu option or other on-screen element. RIM calls the system SurePress. If you simply touch the screen, your selection is often highlighted with a blue (on black) background, and only 'actioned' when you press fully.
The upside is that you get real tactile feedback from a screen press. However, there's a short delay between a screen tap and the desired action, which can limit your speed. This is no problem when you're simply choosing applications or menu options, but if you're trying to enter serious amounts of text it could prove irritating.
We found that when making selections from menus we had a tendency to hit the selection below the one we really wanted. We got used to it after a while, but in the early days it was frustrating.
On another ergonomic point, the vertical 'sweep to scroll' feature does not vary according to the speed of your sweep, but follows your finger movement precisely. This makes working through long texts or web pages rather irritating.
We also have a concern about the engineering of the screen, as it doesn't fit flush to the edges of the casing — there's a small but noticeable gap all the way around. One consequence is that in dimly lit conditions the backlight bleeds through, which does nothing for the Storm's aesthetics.
More worryingly, you can move the screen left and right, up and down by pushing a fingernail into the gap. We can't help wondering how robust this screen will prove, and whether dust, water and other foreign bodies may find their way through the gap. Peering inside, we couldn't discern any protection for the Storm's inner workings.
The BlackBerry Storm ships with an AC adapter, a USB PC cable, a stereo headset, a printed getting-started guide and a software CD. You also get a cleaning cloth for the screen and a carry case. Unlike most other BlackBerry cases, this is a simple slip cover. It completely covers the screen, but leaves about 18mm of the device proud at the top. Presumably this is to provide access to the status light and headset jack, which is on the upper right edge.
4%
2%
it is a awesome piece, my girlfriend use a smartphone, anything i sent to her, from any things, i got a chance to look, it received beautifully. other features i yet to play.
The good: very sweal piece, like a small pc, just powerful, it is indeed a smartphone.
The bad: slightly large heavy. relative to even normal simple piece.