Blackberry Storm - Day 1 - Out of the Box

OK so if you're like me, you like the looks of the iPhone. You love the concept. All your friends are getting them - face it, you have iPhone envy. But despite this, you can't deal with switching to AT&T or maybe your company is just a Blackberry shop and iPhones are verboten. So what's a fella to do? Recently a new iPhone competitor hit the market that might just be your solution. If you haven't seen a commercial yet for the new BlackBerry Storm by now, then clearly you are living under a rock or were hit by one. Personally I've never had anything other than your basic cellie. My most recent phone was a Motorola Razr. But with my growing interest in social media like twitter, texting, and an ever-increasing need for connectivity (and no small measure of the aforementioned iPhone envy), my beloved Razr just wasn't cutting it any more. When it became apparent something more was needed for my work as well I hunted around for something that would work on my network (Verizon), but everything I looked at was a sorry joke compared with the iPhone. Then along comes the Storm, and despite mixed early reviews I decided the time had come to take the plunge. So I stopped by my local Verizon Wireless store to check out the Storm. It looked pretty good, the sales guy was nice, and so I decided to order one. That's of course when I found out these things are flying off the shelves faster than hot Krispy Kreme Doughnuts at a Weight Watchers convention. But the rep promised it would be delivered to my door in a week, so I put in my order and today it arrived in the mail right on time (actually a couple of days early). Let's dive in and take a look.

So everything I ordered arrived in one box, which was pretty cool. In addition to the phone I picked up an extra wall charger, car charger, screen protectors, and being a little concerned about the form factor I also got a holster (I prefer to just pocket my phone). We'll see about that one.

So here's the box as it comes , and first opened . After unpacking everything, you get your standard collection of startup guides, charger, software, and of course the phone itself. Right off the bat I noticed that you also get 2-3 additional adaptors for the charger so that you can plug the phone into non-US wall sockets - a very nice touch since the phone is quad-band capable and thus will work worldwide.You also get a pair of wired headphones with mic so you can listen to tunes or talk handsfree. Another nice touch. Opening the back to put in the battery reveals the SIM card and the 8GB mini-SD card Verizon gives you with the phone. Yet another nice add, although it would have been even nicer to also get the mini-SD adapter so you could plug the mini-SD card into the SD slot on your computer or laptop.

So I quickly plugged in the phone to charge, and after that was complete ran back up to the Verizon store and had the helpful clerk Shea swap my number and all my contacts from my Razr to the Storm (a moment of silence please for the Razr - sniff). Shea also hooked up my Gmail account and explained a few basic things about my new phone, including how to install the firmware update that's already out (good to see RIM working hard on ironing out bugs so fast). So overall my in-store experience was really great. So as hard as it is for me to say this about a telcom company, Verizon (and specifically my local store employees) on the good-bad scale you scored a solid Good in my book.

So back at the office I also got my corporate email hooked up on Exchange, and did a some basic configuration of things, including getting my Bluetooth headset working which a quick test call to my wife confirmed. So far so good. I fired off a text to my buddy Dave to make sure that was working, and managed to send myself an email and ensure the browser working. All this was done without so much as a glance at the manual, so I'd assess the interface as reasonably intuitive. Experienced Blackberry users probably would know right away where to go for things as they're already used to the menu system and primary physical buttons.

One major win is the screen - it's gorgeous. It is quite big and bright, and has great resolution (1/2 the resolution of VGA in fact). Given that, I was also pleasantly surprised by the form factor. I was concerned it would be too big to comfortably pocket and I'd be stuck using the hated holster again. But as you can see from the picture at left it's only slightly wider and taller than my Razr, and actually a hair thinner. Pockets seem to work just fine for me, and thankfully the holster will be put aside.

More playing around got some applications installed - Facebook, GTalk, etc. and I started to get used to the keyboard. Of course it's a touchscreen keyboard, but if you've seen or used an iPhone it's a bit different - the screen itself is a big button. Initially I kept lightly tapping as you would an iPhone. Doing so does highlight what will happen once you press the screen, but you have to physically depress it to enter the letter or press the button. It sounds goofy I'm sure, but once you spend a little bit practice it becomes natural. In some respects it might be better for some people, because there is a very physical sense of feedback when you click the screen - you are not going to accidentally select something merely by waving your finger over it. Like the iPhone you can switch from portrait to landscape mode by simply turning the device. Unlike some reviews I've read I experienced no serious delays for it to switch, both before and after I installed the firmware update. You can also scroll menus and pages around merely by swiping your finger around the screen. The on-screen keyboard itself works in one of 3 modes - landscape for when you have the device turned lengthwise, Suretype for portrait mode (I'm still trying to really grasp this mode), and lastly Multi-tap in portrait mode, which is basically the classic method of text entry I've been using on the Razr and earlier phones. Of the three the landscape method works best for me since each letter has a dedicated button. It's certainly a major improvement from what I was used to on the Razr, although experience Blackberry users may find the lack of a physical keyboard a hindrance. Fortunately I don't have that problem, so anything is better than mashing the hell out of numbers to turn them into letters. The Suretype method is new to me, seems to be a carryover from earlier, slimmer Blackberry models like the Pearl. I'm still struggling with how to use it effectively however, and find I get tired of fighting it and flip the phone over to landscape mode to complete the task. Or maybe I'm all thumbs - I guess time will tell as I get more practice on it. The keyboard itself works pretty well, though it clearly takes a bit of getting used to to really hone in on where to place your finger to accurately hit each soft-button. I find that slightly high and right of dead center seems to work best for me when hitting letter keys in landscape mode.

My big concern was the web browser. Having seen how well implemented the iPhone's is and how poorly other phones were, this was one area I wanted to see in action. While probably not as effortless as the iPhones, the Storm's browser in my first experiences was quite adequate. You can quickly zoom into specific areas of the page with a light double-tap on the screen, and pressing links and buttons on pages works as expected. In short the browser experience was rather uneventful based on my initial and limited testing, which is a good thing. It worked as expected.

During my first few hours of use, two possible issues did crop up. The first was possibly rather short battery life. I'm pretty sure I had it fully charged when I left for the Verizon store around lunch. However after only a little afternoon playing around (I did have actual work to do after all), a firmware upgrade, and more playing around that evening the battery was nearly gone - after only about 8 hours! Even after 3+ years of heavy use my Razr will easily go 4 days without charging, so this is bit of a shock to me. I'll be watching this closely over the next few days to see if it was an anomaly or not. I did however turn back off Bluetooth as I know that's typically a very costly technology when it comes to battery life in any device (except apparently in my Razr). The second concern I had was trying to make a call later to a vendor while meeting him out at our data center. I could get the call to go through, and he could call me, yet I couldn't hear anything. This was quickly frustrating since it had worked earlier, and I suspected that somehow the phone had gotten out of whack with my Bluetooth headset, even though I turned the headset off and still had the problem. Going home later the phone was still in this mode where nothing was coming through the speaker, and it wasn't until later after I'd applied the firmware update (which of course caused a phone reboot) that the problem cleared itself up. Again I'll be watching this to see what happens going forward.

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So that about sums up my first day with the Storm. Overall on the good/bad scale, I'd rate my first day with the Blackberry Storm Good. As I expected it doesn't suck like many reviews have said, but then again I'm not an Apple zealot or a longtime Crackberry addict either. We'll see if it can maintain this over the coming weeks. I'll give it another week or so, and will post a followup story on my findings. If you have specific questions or want me to check out particular areas you are wondering about, please post your questions in the comments and I'll do my best to get to them.