Wireless Geekz

The first Blackberry were introduced to the market in 1999, heralding the dawn of convergence devices. The Blackberry (before Blackberry Phones was originaly intended as a complicated pager. But its local messaging system was so effective that it quickly earned a cult following of such magnitude that Webster’s New World School Compendium recognized “crackberry” as the “New Word of the Year”. The Storm, Rim’s latest BlackBerry, is an attempt to un-king the mighty iPhone, which does have a tight hold on being the #1 selling cellular telephone. The Storm’s partner on this is Verizon, as it is being offered as part of Verizon Wireless, who is still reeling from its mistake of turning down Steve Jobs’ iPhone (Verizon as a carrier). If Verizon is attempting to make amends for missing the iPhone, it’s at least heading in the correct direction. The Storm offers a widescreen touchscreen interface that has much of the same features as the iPhone but with some improvement for the touchscreen display. The results of these enhancements are mixed. Unlike with a proper keyboard, onscreen keys are not able to keep up with fast typing. Thumbing addicts, used to the old Blackberry style may not be in a position to rattle off messages with the same accuracy and speed.

The clickthrough interface requires a good amount of practice, if you want to become used to pushing the touch sensitive screen down till there’s a click, in sheer contrast to the flowing interactivity one gets from the iPhone.

Similarly, since your finger is on it, the blue highlight that displays confirmation of the active status of a given button is active is hard to see.

So is it going to go down in history as a design fluke or an all out error? Well that is yet to be seen. Last and maybe least, this Blackberry also does not have the predictive spelling aid functions of the iPhone. If you are a bad speller, the Blackberry isn’t going to be much of a safety net for you. The browser renders HTML quickly and thoroughly, utilizing context-sensitive page-dragging features that enable you to navigate any given webpage. The sole complaint here is that form fields are a little unpleasant to fill out. Though the browser has won high grades, the lack of Wi-Fi on telephones is rather mysterious. Though Verizon’s EV-DO coverage is wonderful, there are tons of circumstances where Wi-Fi would have been quite useful. As for the sturdy, commercial design, Blackberry is given the thumbs up.

The benefit to leaving the tactile keyboard and trademarked trackball behind is a faster, flatter, three.25 in. shiny glass face. Four familiar Blackberry keys lie at the base of the telephone, and they are: Telephone , Menu, Back, and End / Power. The telephone also comes included with a mini USB key as well as 3.5 millimeter head phone jack. One possible drawback of the design concerns whether metal construction is superior to plastic. The phone is matched with the even more wonderful Verizon (for cellular service coverage) that should keep the Storm well positioned in the race to become cell phone king.