Flashback: Blackberry Storm Review

Reviewer: Dan Bate

Blackberry Storm: Price: £185
www.surecw.com

The Storm in itself is exactly what it says on the tin, a powerful mixture of thunderous technology and innovation and its interface is connectivity speeds are lightning fast. Its screen being the first of any smart phone to be “click-able”, meaning that although the screen itself is heat responsive, to make a selection that you have highlighted you must physically press the screen in. This makes making mistakes whilst typing near impossible, whilst still enabling you to type at whatever speed you are comfortable at, in portrait BlackBerry sure type keyboard, or horizontal QWERTY keyboard.

With the screen in mind it is best to mention one of its most striking features, the quality of the screen. From downloading near HD quality movie trailers comparable to your fancy televisions to viewing your pictures and videos it is genuinely surprising how what is thought of as a “business phone”, can surpass its competition in the entertainment department.

As well as the most responsive and easy-to-use email receivers that I have ever seen on a phone, the internet works at a fantastic speed converting the vast majority of websites into an easy to read and navigate webpage. Flick between pan and cursor mode to get around easier and with a simple double tap of the screen zoom in to pick out those hard to reach links.
The greatest advantage to having a BlackBerry is the fact you can talk to anybody else who has a BlackBerry for free!
Using a very similar interface to that of MSN Messenger, you can chat with your BlackBerry chums anywhere in the world, send files, contacts and pictures completely free. With your friends closer to home, you can get all of their Blackberry details saved in your phone instantly with the BlackBerry barcode system, scan their barcode and chat!
Major flaws I have found include the battery life, which isn’t really surprising for the amount of energy it uses doing all of your tasks, but it should have been anticipated and dealt with appropriately to have more than a five hour talk time life. There were some major problems when it was first released with bugs in the OS and it crashing repeatedly. Research in motion have stuck to their word and released several updates which have not only worked out the kinks but also increased the responsiveness of the screen.
Several problems have also been reported with the phones dying completely with no warning or remedy; these cases are few and far between but shouldn’t put people off buying a truly great phone that, unlike most, outlive the contract that you buy it on.


Originaly posted in June 2010 on TG-Radar