Blackberry Storm Review

Credit: sfgate.com

Since the release of the iPhone, the cell phone industry has flooded the market with touchscreen phones. Most of those phones are simply deplorable. However, the Storm by Blackberry has flooded technology blogs and forums as it is the Canadian company's first, and fairly late entry, into the touchscreen market. Does it live up to its hype? The answer is easy: Yes, and the phone will only get better as time goes by.
The design of the phone is quite simple and clean as it features less than six physical buttons and focuses on touch capability. However, the best part of the physical design is the appearance and weight of the phone. If I did not know of its fair price which is currently at $200 after rebates and discount, I could have easily assumed that the phone costs easily more than $400. In addition to its luxurious appearance, the phone feels a little bit heavy, this is actually a good thing as it gives the user a solid feeling. The screen is slightly smaller, when compared to the iPhone. However, that has not affected my experience when using the phone for essential daily tasks.
Aside from the excellent design, the feature set of the phone is quite promising and has room for much improvement, which will be good for future owners. Like all other Blackberries, the Storm has push e-mail and one of the best e-mail programs in the smart phone industry.
Even though it has a great feature set, its other features leave much to be desired. Since the phone and its system is extremely young, there are not many developers currently having finished third-party applications like those found on the iPhone or the T-Mobile G1. In addition to its lack of additional software, the initial release version of the phone system is quite buggy- there are many small quirks that will frustrate the user, but it will not negatively change the overall experience by a significant margin.
The Storm also features many new interface and software updates compared to the previous generation of Blackberries such as the Pearl and the Curve. The look of the software has a much more sophisticated look that puts the previous models to shame. The Storm also includes a new Internet browser that contains much improvement but is still many thousand meters behind that of the iPhone. The web browser and Internet-related services can utilize Verizon's 3G internet network, which offers vast coverage and strong speeds. The improvements to the interface and essential feature set are quite impressive and bring Blackberry devices much closer to becoming both a business and entertainment gadget.
Is this a good with so many options offered? If you are quite addicted to the digital age and need to be in constant communication with friends and family, this is definitely a device you should consider. However, if interested owners are willing to wait out for a few months as more software become available and wait until the annoying bugs get fixed, this phone should be on the top of their list.