RIM BlackBerry Storm review

A tactile titan

The BlackBerry Storm is RIM’s first touchscreen and arguably one of the best looking phones we’ve seen, with the same gorgeous revamped interface we first drooled over with the Bold.

- Check out our gallery for a closer look at the Storm.
- See our hands-on video with the BlackBerry Storm.

Pick it up and the Storm feels solid and durable, the front is dominated by the fantastic 3.25- inch, 480x360 high-res screen. The brightness, colour depth and detail makes it terrific for watching YouTube clips, although the orientation of 3:4 rather than widescreen 16:9 isn’t quite as satisfying for movie trailers.

The Storm is the first phone to implement RIM’s Sure-Touch interface. The entire touchscreen functions as a large button that responds to your touch like a proper keyboard. Unlike lesser touchscreens, there's no danger of pressing the wrong key. A brief touch turns the required key electric blue; you then tap it again to activate the command.

The UI is unmistakably RIM, but it’s not as smooth as the iPhone’s to use. Under the main screen are call, call cancel, back and menu keys and call us greedy, but we wouldn't have minded a trackball for browsing. During our testing the screen froze occasionally and we were jabbing to no avail, and the built-in accelerometer doesn't always work.

The touchscreen may bring the Storm bang up to date, but heavy typers will miss a ‘proper’ keyboard. In landscape mode the QWERTY has individual keys, which are a cinch to use, in portrait mode however, each 'key' has two letters (like the Pearl). And if you’ve got large digits like us, the small key size means hitting the correct key can be tricky. It's a shame, because with simple set-up and seamless mail forwarding, email is outstanding. You can even cut and paste. A magnifying glass feature to enlarge letters (like the iPhone) would have solved this, enabling you to see exactly what you’re pressing.

Browsing is fairly smooth, move your finger around to scroll through pages, double tap to zoom in and select a link to activate it, but again, falls short of the intuitive multi-touch gestures of the iPhone.

The biggest flaw in the Storm is the lack of WiFi, which for a phone geared up for browsing, is ludicrous and a huge mistake. OK, there's HSDPA and 3G, but you're dependent on Vodaphone's network, which is generally quick and efficient, although we did struggle to get online a couple of times. The more pressing issue is cost. What happens when you go abroad? Are you hit with international browsing costs? On the £35 a month contract there's a 500Mb fair usage policy for internet and downloads, which isn't bad. But for someone sending a lot of emails with attachments, hammering Google Maps and downloading music, those megabytes can easily mount up. In contrast O2 don't have a cap on the iPhone, running an excessive use policy for heavy users, with no set figure.

Until RIM’s app store launches in March 2009 you'll have to wait to delve into app land, although you can install Facebook, Google Maps and YouTube from the BlackBerry Application Centre. Facebook feels very basic and stripped down, but Google Maps is fantastic, picking up our location indoors within seconds and you get six months of Vodaphone’s Find&Go navigation service.

The 3.2-megapixel camera isn’t bad, the large screen is excellent for composing shots; however it’s not as pin sharp as we'd have liked. If you take lots of shots you'll also need to invest in a MicroSD card, rather miserly Vodaphone don't supply one, and so you're stuck with the 1GB internal memory.

RIM has built in a 3.5mm jack so you can use your own buds. The music player is average at best. We had the same problem as with the browsing, the screen is slow to flip to landscape and froze more than once. The sound quality compares to the likes of the Bold and the Pearl but nothing in comparison with the Dolby packed LG Renoir.

Battery life isn’t fantastic, with moderate call, internet and photo use, you’ll be charging it every evening, in common with rivals the iPhone, N96 and T-Mobile G1.

With the Storm, RIM has created a genuinely innovative phone, which looks and feels gorgeous and is terrific for emailing. Comparisons to the iPhone are inevitable and for heavy web use falls short, we can’t forgive the lack of WiFi on a phone of this standard. The two-year Vodaphone contract won’t appeal to everyone, but this is still one of the most exciting phones we’ve seen this year.

Link: BlackBerry

Related links:

• Blackberry Storm pre-orders near 100k
• T3 Exclusive: RIM Blackberry Storm unboxed
• Video: RIM BlackBerry Storm

Posted by Hannah Bouckley on 2008-11-24