BlackBerry Storm Review Roundup

All-in-all, the BlackBerry Storm has been getting rave reviews. While the Storm has long been touted as RIM’s answer to the Apple iPhone, many critics believe the Storm far surpasses the iPhone with its business and consumer capabilities. The Storm feature that has received the most attention is ClickThrough, which consists of a suspension system that lies beneath the display, so that when you go to select an application or enter text, you actually push the screen down like you would any other tactile button.

BlackBerry is keeping its key users by improving upon the seamless Microsoft integration that has kept businesspeople addicted since its conception, but with the Storm, it seems RIM is reaching out to the consumer demographic with a number of multimedia capabilities. The media player can handle various music and video formats, including MP3, AAC, WMA, WMV, MPEG4, and H.264. The included Media Sync software also helps synchronize your iTunes files with your BlackBerry. The Storm is equipped with a 3.2-megapixel camera with video recording, auto focus and flash. In addition, it comes preloaded with instant-messaging clients (Yahoo, Windows Live, AOL and ICQ) and a number of social-networking apps, including Facebook, MySpace and Flickr. You'll also be able to download more programs over the air through the new BlackBerry Apps Center or the Berry Store.

Critics also are reporting BlackBerry has improved upon the browser found in its latest release, the BlackBerry Bold. There are a couple different ways to navigate around a page, though the most unique makes use of the whole screen as a trackpad. Now once you have the cursor pop up, you can put your finger anywhere on the screen to move it around, just like on a notebook.

Drawbacks? According to Engadget, RIM has made great strides in the past year or so, but its homebrewed Java-based app still doesn't quite match the Nokia/Apple/Google-favored WebKit in terms of rendering speed and accuracy. We also didn't see the sort of smooth, effortless scrolling the iPhone provides, that no other touch phone has managed to replicate so far. Another thing to take into consideration is per Verizon standards, browsing over EV-DO, not Wi-Fi, since it doesn't have the latter. Lack of Wi-Fi is one of the biggest knocks on the new phone, no matter how good Verizon's network might be. The fact that it packs both EV-DO and HSPA into a single phone is a truly impressive feat worth marveling over, but why couldn't they cram in Wi-Fi, too?

Check out these sites for full reviews:

• Engadget
  
• Gizmodo
  
• Information Week
  
• CNET