Blackberry Storm Initial Report

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»Blackberry Storm Initial Report

I've had the Storm for about a day and I've been using it on and off. I mainly got the phone for data usage and since charging it to full yesterday at 2:30PM, it is about half full in battery life. I'll come back in a longer article about more specifics.

The Storm needs a firmware update, at least. Hopefully it comes quickly. The UI is sluggish (at best). The accelerometer doesn't work well and takes a very long time to switch to portrait or landscape mode. The SurePress clicking is nice, but it can be disabled and it should be an option. It wouldn't be that hard. Many apps I've downloaded use a normal touch instead of having to click.

The clicking function is awkward since there is a huge button in the center, but not the edges, of the screen. When you try to click the edge of the screen, it is much more difficult than clicking the center. The screen itself wiggles when you hold your thumb on it and move it around. That seems like a design flaw.

The backlight bleeds out of the unit which reeks of poor packaging.

There are other problems and many issues I have would probably be glossed over with a firmware update. I bet something is coming soon, it is pretty bad. The demo units in Verizon stores are sluggish and such. My unit crashed a few times as well.

All in all, I wouldn't recommend the Storm just yet. I don't know why Verizon released the phone in this state. It is pretty terrible. I'm sure an extra two weeks would have ironed out these issues that are blatantly there.

Please add your comments below.

I had similar issues with my Chocolate 3. Give it a couple of weeks and all of the software problems will probably be settled.

I'm not a fan of the touch interface on most phones unless it comes with a tactile keyboard. The G1 (HTC Dream) looks extremely nice in integrating a touch interface with a tactile slide out keyboard. I'm a fan of all HTC devices, really, though. I currently have the T-Mobile Wing and couldn't be happier with it. I've been itching to upgrade to the G1, though. Windows Mobile is nice, but the Android operating system shows a lot of promise. I'm looking forward to saving up some money and buying it, preferably after all of the bugs have been worked out.