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Laurence Hartje just sent in a mini-review of the BlackBerry Storm on the Vodafone network, here it is in it’s entirety:
I’ve been lusting after a Storm, and since it launched in England before the US (and I’m over here at the moment) I thought I’d swing by a Vodaphone store to play with one.
Spent about 30 minutes with a production Blackberry Storm at a Vodaphone shop in Brighton today.
The unit I played with had been sitting on a charger for a bit, but had been beat on all day. You had to push significantly harder than I expected for the touch to register (for both navigation and confirmation). The screen also had a habit of losing input/contact with my finger, even though I was still pushing on the screen. I did not calibrate the device, so the settings/sensitivity may have been messed up. Hopefully these issues can be resolved in software (supposedly why Verizon pushed back the release in the US). OS seemed to lag every now and then for no good reason as well.
Screen was beautiful. The sales rep demoed streaming content – looked amazing. The phone had some issues keeping a 3G signal, but I was inside a shopping center.
I can see why Verizon pushed back the date — the OS needs a bit of polish in regards to speed (random lag issues, scrolling smoothness, orientation changes were not as smooth as an iPhone) and a few minor UI issues (the media player doesn’t respond to the accelerometer correctly – it has one landscape orientation, and one portrait orientation, so you can end up with media upside down).
I could not type as fast as I currently do on my 8700 series device, and I did have accuracy issues — but once again I was surprised at how much I had to press on the screen to get input to register — this could have been a miscalibrated device, or hopefully fixed through a software update. Also, I would expect speed and accuracy to increase as I used the device. For anyone moving from a Blackberry you will probably be slower on this device out-the-door… Blackberry’s “Surepress” technology is not an silver bullet for fixing input issues with touch screens.
It will be interesting to see what revision of the software the Verizon version ships with, since the rumor is it was pushed back for some software/OS tweaking.
I had a chance to play with the BlackBerry Storm recently at a tech conference and completely agree with his assessment of the physical “giant button” touch screen on the Storm (you actually have to press the whole screen to register a push).
I tried typing out a few text messages and navigating and noticed that a lot of my clicks went unnoticed by the device because I wasn’t pushing hard enough to “click” the screen.
Given that I can now flow on my iPhone pretty quickly, I’m not sure why BlackBerry went this route, it seems like an unnecessarily permanent barrier to entry for typing, where as an adjustable “touch” threshold on a standard touch screen seems like it would have been more flexible for both folks that like more of a solid click and folks that are used to the sensitivity on the iPhone.
Here’s a quick video showing someone typing on it, it’s not terrible, but notice that your “presses” have to be very intentional, a bit more effort than say existing touch screen phones:
Only time will tell, but IIRC, I think a few other manufacturers (HTC and maybe Nokia?) tried clicking touch screens like this and I don’t recall hearing anything good about those either.
I guess it’s back to waiting for a killer Android device now…
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January 14th, 2009 at 5:26 am
i out of frustration of the BlackBerry Touch Mobile phone have come to see whether other users have found the same problems as me….
The screen is horrendous – I have tried different ways to input my data onto either an e-mail or sms message.. As a woman I DO NOT HAVE LARGE fingers – have been using mobile phones since the early 1990’s and must say this has to be the worst phone I have used….
I had heard so much about the anticipated software options on the phone and went to purchase one before Christmas. I TO DATE am still trying to find my way around the menus……
Questions
How do you move the cursor left without deleting text??
How do you view previous calls??
Must say Vodafone had the cheek to ask me to pay a deposit of €150 which will be refunded into my credit card AFTER 3 month (no interest!!!) I do believe they have done this because there would be such a backlash of people returning these phones….
FRUSTRATED to say the least …. and ripped off
January 16th, 2009 at 6:11 pm
As a Storm user, here’s a few tips.
I changed my on screen keyboard to the following settings (under Setup/Options/”Screen/Keyboard”.
Touchscreen:
Tap Interval: 500
Hover Period: 400
Swipe Sensitivity: (High) 6
This made the keyboard better in my opinion (It accepts text input quicker than default, but I’m a pretty fast typist).
In regards to your questions:
How do you move the cursor without deleting text?
The easiest way to move the cursor is to touch the screen (but not hard enough to make it click). The cursor will then “hollow out” (it will go from a solid blue box to a white filled box with a blue border). At this point you can drag your finger around the screen to move the cursor. (Until I figured this out I was infuriated when I had to modify text, pressing and clicking on the screen to move the cursor sucked due to my fat fingers)
How do you view previous calls?
Press the green “begin call”/send button. This should take you to the phone pad by default. At the top of the screen (above the area that shows you the number you are dialing) are three icons, from left to right they are Phone Pad, Call Log, and Contacts. Click the Call Log button (in the middle) to see your previous calls.
You can change the default display of the “begin call”/send button — press the green button (to bring up the dial pad) and then press the blackberrry button (the button to the right of the “begin call”/send button). Select Options from the pop-up menu and then General Options. Change the “Initial View” option (the options are “Dial Pad”, “Call Log”, “Contacts”, or “Previous” (whatever you had up the last time you used the begin call button).
I had a hard time with the on screen keyboard until I learned to take advantage of the screen’s unique feature — that it clicks. If you treat touching the screen differently than clicking the screen, the phone behaves alot better. Also, use the ability to touch (to select) and then click (to confirm) makes the accuracy MUCH improved. You can use your finger to select the item, then click once you are sure you have selected the correct item.
I was a heavy 8700 series user, and while I can still type faster on a real keyboard (when I have to support a non-touchscreen blackberry for work, as I am a Blackberry Enterprise Server admin) — I am still fairly fast with the onscreen keyboard. The changed settings and making the touch vs. click distinction really help.
Also, if you’re running the version of the software that came on the device, check if Vodaphone has an update. Verizon has updated the software (and it makes the on screen keyboard much more responsive). There are betas releases out there (which have significant improvements to the responsiveness of the keyboard, camera, and less user interface lag) but I would stay away from them unless you are a technical user (since your carrier will probably refuse to support your phone if you are not running their version of the Blackberry OS). Also, most of the betas have some small issues (the current one I’m running refuses to turn off the blinking LED when messages are read/bluetooth is disabled).
I hope the answers help — if you have any further questions post a follow up!
Laurence
January 16th, 2009 at 6:12 pm
Oh, and I’d write down your default settings on the keyboard — just in case you don’t like the adjusted ones, you can easily go back.