First touch screen model of BlackBerry was eagerly awaited for years. Storm was announced as revolutionary device that will fuse business functionality, perfect screen and QWERTY touch screen keyboard. Also Storm was announced as “iPhone killer” that is slightly pricier but worth every penny. Was all this hype around Storm worth it, or not?

 When it comes to exterior design, Storm looks very nice. Problem is that all smart phones look good and very much alike one to each other. For instance, Storm is very similar to iPhone but also is very similar to Nokia N97 and some Sony Ericsson models: big screen, few keys at the bottom, similar menu design etc. Most dominant feature on new Storm is its screen with impressive dimensions: 3.25inch and 480x360 screen resolution – biggest screen on an RIM device. Compared to Bold that has 2.6inch screen and 480x320 resolution we can say that picture looks sharper on Bold but color reproduction on Storm is much better (black on Storm is black, not dark grey as on Bold).

Storm’s great display and perfect picture also has few drawbacks. First of all there is gap between screen edges and the rest of the phone that is perfect for dust accumulation. This gap is, obviously, necessary because of SurePress technology implemented into Storm that resulted in a screen that operates as one big button. SurePress technology won few very important awards all over the world but is seams that this technology will be abandoned in the future because of few unpleasant side effects. One is already mentioned gap and the other is unusually long adaptation to new system of typing on virtual keyboard. Novelty that SurePress introduces is a screen that gives a user feedback when he pressed it. This can be compared to feedback given by a key on a notebook keyboard. In situations where additional precision is needed, like browsing a page with lot of links, user must mark a position and then apply a pressure to the screen to confirm the action. Marking is provided by sliding a finger over the screen because the screen itself isn’t pressure sensitive: it detects body heat. This can be tested with PDA stylus that cannot be used for marking on Storm. Basically experience with typing on Storm isn’t too different compared to other PDAs. You actually touch display and press it to confirm action compared to simple touching the display on most other devices.

Because of all this some adjustment period to new system is expected – in our case few days. Some users have reported some problems in getting used to this new technology with some of them getting pretty frustrated. On the other hand, scrolling is very intuitive and easy to perform. Thanks to nicely polished screen surface, even after few days of intensive abuse, scrolling was a pleasant experience. Thanks to included accelerometer picture will be rotated accordingly to device position automatically. If Storm is held in upright position keyboard will be narrowed to device wideness and each key will have 2 characters (similar to usual cell phone keyboards), and if held in horizontal position keyboard will be displayed in landscape mode that will make a good use of full screen height while each key will have just one character.

BlackBerry Storm is one very firm device that doesn’t produce “squeaky” noises while handled. Whole device is made out of quality materials just like the rest of RIM products. Only problem can be the fact that SIM card and microSD memory card can be replaced/removed only if device is opened. Along the edges of Storm are located Voice recording command button, 3.5mm audio connector, button for camera control and volume control. At the top of the device are present On/Off button and Mute button that also can be used as Pause button in medial player.