Blackberry Storm Officially Announced for Verizon! October 8, 2008
Posted by Eli Blumenthal in : Cell Phones , trackback
The newly official Blackberry Storm for Verizon!
Turns out all you Verizon users will have more than just some new Motorola phones to chose from this holiday season. After many long (and really just annoying) days of rumors on when Verizon would finally unleash the first ever touchscreen Blackberry– the Blackberry Storm– Verizon and Research in Motion (or RIM for short, the makers of Blackberry’s) just made it official, with an expected release coming in November!
Features:
- Small, cool design- Should definitely impress a lot of people while also being able to fit in a jeans pocket.
- 3.25 inch High Resolution Touchscreen with Multi-Touch and a new “click” feedback!- This screen looks amazing, and is the first phone we’ve seen since the iPhone to have Multi-Touch (albeit at this point not at all as sleek, polished and common in the phone as the iPhone’s). The Storm also adds this new “click” feedback is a feature that makes it feel as if you are pressing a real, physical button and not a virtual one on the keyboard. Think of this as an update to the vibration feedback on other phones like the Samsung Instinct for Sprint.
New Blackberry Storm Menu
- Verizon 3G
- Full Web Browser- Lets you view the “real” internet on your phone like you would on a regular computer. We are not sure though if the browser here is as simple and easy-to-use as the iPhone’s; the first impressions from Engadget.com say that it is OK, but not great.
- Mp3 and Video Player- Music player looks nice, but we can’t seem to get a good feel from the initial pictures if the video playback is as smooth as on the iPhone.
- Micro-SD card slot- the phone has 1 GB of memory on the phone, with another 8 GB in the memory card slot- right out of the box!
- 3.5 mm headphone jack- This lets you plug in regular headphones to use with the device.
- Quad Band GSM and CDMA support- This is something really interesting. GSM is the technology AT&T and T-Mobile use, while CDMA is used by Verizon and Sprint. However, this this phone has both, so any really desperate AT&T and T-Mobile users who really want this phone (and who can blame you- it looks sick!), could technically use the phone with AT&T and T-Mobile in the US if you unlock the GSM part. You won’t get 3G except in Europe, but its still completely usable as a phone. (They added GSM to the phone because they want to market it as a “world phone” for traveling business users, and most of the world relies on GSM).
- App Store!- Blackberry is giving this phone its own App Store right on the device (another attempt to steal some thunder from the iPhone). Phones are without question becoming much more useful as more are starting to receive their own App Store and apps (iPhone, Instinct, the upcoming T-Mobile G1).
- GPS- For your direction guiding needs
- Use of Blackberry Media Sync- This lets you sync your Blackberry (all, not just the Storm) with iTunes for music, movies and photos. This doesn’t work with protected media you bought off of iTunes, but it is another slap at Apple.
- 3.2 Megapixel Camera with Flash and Autofoucs- For snapping pix and videos. Oh, and this phone allows you to text those pix and videos to other phones (unlike some other popular Apple phone…).
- 2 Touchscreen versions of Blackberry keyboards- The thing that makes the Blackberry so popular is its keyboard, and RIM has definitely brought that to the Storm. There are 2 keyboards on this phone — the SureType keyboard as seen on the Pearl series (right), and the regular QWERTY, computer-like keyboard (left) seen on phones like the Curve. If the new “click” feature works as advertised, then we don’t think the keyboard will be hard to use at all– and will most probably be as addicting as other Blackberry’s.
Blackberry Qwerty and SureType keyboards
However, one glaringly missing feature is WiFi, a feature people will miss- especially heavy internet users.
What this means to you:
- if you want another iPhone competitor on Verizon that is more feature packed then the Dare with what most probably will be a better keyboard to use, then you got it (though the Dare’s keyboard is supposedly very good).
- If you use a Blackberry and are extremely addicted to using it for texting, but you want a cooler phone.
- You want a plain and simple really cool phone, with a good brand to back it up.
Price is not yet known (though we’d guess at about $200), so we can’t say that as a reason to buy- or not buy- this phone.
If you are considering this phone though, don’t get blinded by its slick cool looks. Wait till reviews of it come out– they will probably come out soon now that the phone is announced, because Engadget’s initial thoughts show that the phone is not fully up to par (this may change before the realease sometime in November).
We’ll keep you posted on what major new things come out on this phone, but in the meantime- what you think of the Storm, does it look like it can beat the iPhone or will it fall flat on its face? Will you buy one, or is it a better choice to go with the LG Dare, Samsung Instinct or T-Mobile G1? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.
Pix and Information from Engadget.com and Boy Genius Report.com
Comments»
Will like to buy one.
what is the price
omg i love the black berry storm its the best omg oya
iPhone 3g Is The Best.
the i phone sucks ok the black berrystorm is wasy better ok now
stop selling the i phone to people