Blackberry Storm 9530 Quick Review

Written on 11/06/2008 03:15:00 PM by poison_ivy

Okay, so I wasn’t able to make a preview of the Blackberry Storm when it was first announced since honestly, I’m not really a RIM fan. But when someone I know was able to get their hands on the Vodafone Blackberry Storm, the much talked about TRUE iPhone killer, I naturally had to see what this is all about.

Since the time I had with the Blackberry Storm 9530 were literally only minutes, I had to find out about the most talked about feature: The ClickThrough Technology. While the iPhone is known for its fluid, multi touch interface, Blackberry went and made their own innovation with their clickthrough technology. Basically, what Blackberry is trying to do with the Blackberry Storm 9530 is bring the feel of the physical keypad on a touch screen phone.

I was intrigued when I first heard this feature on the Blackberry Storm. As a touch screen phone user for years I’ve gotten used to typing on a screen. Even before the iPhone was first introduced and typing with your thumbs on a touch screen phone was considered sacrilegious, I was still doing it using winmo’s phonepad. So I have to see what this Clickthrough feature feels like. Well, I managed to type in my favorite typing test words on the Blackberry Storm 9530, “the quick brown fox…” and well, it was amazing. It does feel like you’re pressing a physical keypad but it’s actually the whole screen that moves. It took a while though since I was used to not press hard on my touch screen phones. You actually have to press hard in order to feel the screen move. Plus, I really like that blue glowing thing that the keypad does to indicate that you've actually pressed a button.

Well, aside from the clickthrough feature, I have to see the interface too. As I was not used to the Blackberry interface, it’s still an easy enough device to learn. Though the response is fluid, you won’t get much of the finger swiping action like on the iPhone which was actually a bad thing. I mean, Blackberry should have made use of the capacitive screen much more. There’s some occasional lags that I’ve encountered but still more fluid than—yes, sad to admit it, the Omnia.

The screen resolution of the Blackberry Storm 9530 is AMAZING. It made me want the Samsung T*Omnia just to get into that high resolution action. The downside is that it’s just a bit big and bulky for me. Some may argue with me on this one but the Blackberry Storm 9530 lacks the sleekness of my Samsung Omnia. I hope in the future, Blackberry would make their second generation Blackberry Storm 9530 more appealing.

I was not too fond of the web browser. Maybe it’s because of the limited time that I had with it or maybe because it’s just not as smooth as the Opera 9.5 or the Safari browser.

Anyways, I hate to admit it but we RIM might actually have a REAL iPhone killer on their hands. Now if only they could add more cool features like more applications to accommodate finger sweeping/flicking action or that cool pinch and zoom that the iPhone has.