Blackberry Storm
November 21st, 2008 | by John Brandon
 |
Average user rating from 6 users |
piece of junk
by Dr. Jamie Pleasant on Jan 1st, 2009 at 10:01 AM:
This is a piece of junk. I bought first day and it takes 5 clicks to get to one thing being done. I turned it in this week and got another different phone. This product was half baked and very disappointing.
Heck of a phone
by Cole on Dec 5th, 2008 at 10:33 AM:
Wow! These people couldn't have made this phone sound any worse. It's funny how they only found one downside to the phone, yet make it sound like it would be the worst purchase you will ever make. I am here to honestly say this phone is one of the greatest phones out there. Yes, they are correct that it isn't as great as the iPhone, but it is definitely by far the closest thing to it. if you are going to let the ability of not being able to lift your finger up before pressing your other finger down ruin your decision then I feel sorry for you. It is just like typing on the computer, you don't press two keys at once. You press one then lift up and press the other. I apologize for anyone that accidently reads these reviews on the Blackberry Storm, because they completely trashed on it. This phone is an amazing, fast, great for everyday work phone. I highly recommend it to everybody. Please do not listen to these iPhone worshipers, this phone is just as good.
Not Impressed
by Tanya on Dec 5th, 2008 at 8:32 AM:
Well.... Had to get it because if I didn't I would wonder "what if". HATE IT and within a week am sending it BACK! Touch screen, ya right. You will NEVER be able to TXT fast like with other Blackberry's. Options STINK and the web browser is little to brag about.
Do yourself a favor and PASS on this one.
NOT GOOD!!!!
by Tom Coffee on Nov 25th, 2008 at 10:54 AM:
Really bad. Get an itouch if you want to play. If you need a phone to be a phone, calendar, text machine - this is not the phone for you! I hope I can get a full refund and not get the run around. I also will work to get out of my contract, because I wouldn't have entered into a contract if I knew they were selling this piece of junk. Don't try to convince me a turd with a bow on it (nice camera, gps, etc...) is still nothing more then a turd if it isn't (at it most basic level) a good phone.
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My Storm Review
by lyf4ce on Jan 1st, 2009 at 10:03 AM:
Talking on the phone
To be fair, I believe the Storm suffers the same issues as other non-flip phones of the same size. In order to hear someone, I can hold the phone in a normal position to my ear. But in order for someone to hear me clearly, I must shift the phone down so the microphone is closer to my mouth, and since the speaker is then far from my ear I cannot hear if someone is trying to say something in reply to me. This means that there can never be a true 2-way conversation. Now, I know there are those that will say: "People shouldn't be trying to talk while you're talking anyway - that's just rude." But the fact of the matter is that it happens to everyone and is often a normal progression of conversation. I've never had this problem with any flip-phone I've ever had. Of course, I'm sure using a Bluetooth device is also an alternative, but I don't always carry one with me and even so that's not a fix for the problem, it's an inconvenient workaround. Big difference.
The other major problem I have with actually being able to talk on the Storm is with the touch screen. During a conversation a menu screen is displayed with buttons for Speaker, Mute, Flash, and Add Participant. A couple of these buttons change based on whether you're already on speaker or if you have another person conferenced in already. While on a call, if the phone is pressed ever so slightly to my face just a bit too hard, I may end up activating any of these buttons accidentally. I can't tell you how embarrassed I've been when having personal conversations and my face ends up pressing the Speaker button for all to hear within several yards of me. Or when I accidentally press Mute and the person on the other end thinks I'm ignoring them when I'm actually responding, believing I'm participating in the conversation. And don't get me started on clicking the Flash button with my face accidentally.
The thing I perhaps like most about the Storm during a conversation is that it seems to cancel out my background noise pretty well. Other people can hear me pretty clearly while I'm talking even if I have fairly loud background noise, which I frequently do at work. But considering that I have to move the phone down to my mouth to talk into the mic so people can hear me, this wasn't much of a surprise.
Features
The Storm is a neat gadget. It can do all sorts of things, and it's really a pretty cool device. That being said, here is my take on some features that I have come to expect from even much less expensive devices that are lacking in the Storm.
Delete All - This feature should be available at every menu location where it is possible to have a lot of entries. The main locations for this are SMS, the Call Log, Messages, any of the Media subfeatures (Music, Videos, etc.), even Contacts. The ability to delete 150 or so SMS messages all at once, instead of one-at-a-time, is invaluable! Just ask me if I'm sure I want to do it to make sure I know what I'm doing...
Add SMS sender to Contacts - There is currently no option to add someone's number from a text or SMS message to your contacts, or update an existing contact. When people change their numbers and send a text with their new number it's nice to be able to just use the text message to add/update their number.
Call recording - There are many situations where recording your conversation with someone else is useful. I understand the legality issues of "wire-tapping", but there are many other phones out there that will at least record what the other person on the line is saying. I don't see any reason this nifty little gadget can't do the same.
Typing - What can I say? I just can't type as fast on that on-screen keyboard as I can with a button keyboard. And my accuracy is atrocious now.
Other Issues
While the touch-and-click rotating screen is perhaps a revolutionary and useful feature, I've found it has its serious bugs. Before the release of the newer OS, the accelerometer was extremely slow and clunky. That issue seems to be getting better, but I still have other problems.
As I mentioned above, the touch screen is too touchy during a conversation. But that's not the only thing. Sometimes the screen goes blank during a call - no menu options at all. You can still click the screen and push buttons that should be there, the buttons just don't display.
Or how about the fact that, for some reason, the screen rotates during a phone call and goes on speaker. When this happens there is no button option to take the call off speaker, and no option to do so even when you press the Menu button. It's gymnastics to try to get the screen back to Portrait mode, let alone take it off speaker.
Let's talk about GPS and Wi-Fi for a minute. I read the specs for the Storm before I purchased it so I never expected it to have Wi-Fi. Verizon's 3G network has been great for web browsing. I can understand, and have indeed experienced, instances where Wi-Fi would have been nice, but lack of it hasn't really effected my overall productivity yet. And we all know that Verizon loves to make you pay for VZNavigator. While use of Google Maps would be an excellent thing, again, I knew going into the purchase that Verizon isn't really wont to unlock the GPS functionality entirely. Another "nice-to-have", but isn't really necessary for functionality.
So....
The other reviews I've seen have extolled the Storm's technology and it really is a revolutionary gadget. In terms of moving technology forward, I believe Blackberry is taking large steps. And no new technology comes without the price of learning from a market testing trial-and-error period. We have to learn to expect that new advances will always come with some period of time before the technology can be perfected. But we must continue to make advances.
That being said, functionality should not be sacrificed for the sake of a few neat new things. If a device is not functional it is useless for its intended purpose. The Blackberry has traditionally always been more than just a phone. And for most of the features that it contains other than a phone it works pretty well. The camera, the music player, the LCD screen for video playback, the Docs-to-Go and email features all prove the device's versatility and work pretty well. But the phone functionality of the device is extremely lacking and has a long way to go before I can consider it appropriate for my needs.