It’s been over a month since I began using my Blackberry Storm and filed my initial review article. I’ve had time to use the device casually and professionally. I’ve also had time to monitor the response to my initial review, particularly in terms of how people found my review through search engines.

I learned that many users couldn’t copy their contact list onto the Blackberry Storm. Like me, they discovered that Verizon’s Backup Assistant program does not work on the Storm. And then, like me, they searched online for an automated solution. What they found: another complaining Blackberry Storm user that couldn’t copy his contacts. Oh, and no real solutions to the problem, either. There’s not even a way to export your contact list from Verizon’s Backup Assistant website. Absolutely nothing easy, period.

One possible solution I did find was to bring my Storm to the nearest Verizon store where, either for free or at a cost, the helpful Verizon staff would be able to copy my contacts off my old phone. I suggest doing that if you don’t want to re-enter your contacts list manually. Otherwise, look upon this as an opportunity. It’s a valuable chance to reassess your contacts list. Do you still need Bernard Madoff in there?

Since receiving my new Blackberry Storm, I’ve pulled together a list of fifteen observations, in no particular order:

Keyboarding ease. I’ve improved my typing skills using the on-screen keyboard (in particular, the landscape qwerty version). I’ve somewhat improved both my speed and accuracy. But I’m glad I’m not typing this article on it.

Dialing out. After an initial bit of confusion (basically, I felt at-a-loss without number keys on the phone), I’ve really taken a liking to the Storm’s on-screen interface for outbound dialing. The number keys are nice and large and work particularly well with the screen’s click feature. And from this screen, I have simple one-touch access to both my recent calls list and my (freshly tidied) contacts list.

Oh-so-small, the wee icons are. I sometimes wish for a stylus, because some of the buttons, icons, game pieces, text boxes, etc. are very small touch targets for my big fat fingers. I’m frequently thankful for the “Go Back” button on the Storm.

The fumble buttons. Have I mentioned that I have big fat fingers? Well, I’m clumsy enough with the phone that I often accidentally press the buttons along the device’s sides. Those buttons activate the camera, the voice dialing interface, and the volume and track advance features. I wish Research In Motion (RIM) would have repositioned these buttons or made them operate like the screen lock and mute buttons.

RIM's Blackberry Storm

Volume and track advance buttons. It took me a while to realize that volume and track advance were integrated into the same buttons and that the difference between the commands was quite subtle. Press lightly and the volume adjusts. “Click” the button to advance audio tracks.

Screen locking and muting. Somewhat hidden along the top edge of the Storm is a pair of buttons embedded within its skin. On the left is the screen lock button and on the right is the mute button. The selection of these two features placed in those locations is brilliant. I always lock the screen before putting the phone in my shirt pocket. I also like to mute/pause the music player when I unplug the headphones. And, the buttons do not easily get pressed accidentally.

Ringtone configuration. I spent some time and created my own custom ringtone scheme. I opted for various low-volume and pleasing single alert tones, as well as vibration-only for certain functions. The Blackberry offers quite a bit of ringtone customization, and I paid particular attention to creating a quiet and unintrusive scheme that wouldn’t disturb other folks nearby when it “rings.” I think everybody should do the same.

Music playlist troubles. In theory, the Storm’s touch screen interface should make it easy to add items to a custom playlist, so I assembled a Christmas assortment. For each and every song or folder I added, the Storm asked me if I was sure I wanted to add the song to the playlist. This confirmation step is tiresome and unnecessary. Also, the Storm did not reliably play the playlist. Both in shuffle mode and standard play order, the Storm would “veer” off the playlist and start choosing tracks from my greater music collectiom after playing only a few songs from my playlist.

Answering incoming calls. When a call comes in, the Storm displays the caller information clearly. On-screen buttons give me one-touch access to answer the call, mute the ringer, or ignore the call. I like the ease-of-use of this interface.

Watch it spin. That firmware update I mentioned in my earlier post really put the spin into the Storm. The interface rotates swiftly from portrait to landscape mode as I turn the phone (no more shaking required). Sometimes, though, it spins the screen at the slightest unintentional rotation of the Storm. This is a minor complaint: I’d rather it spin too easily than resist spinning at all.

Plugging in the charger. Is the MicroUSB port tough enough to withstand nightly plugins for the next couple years? We shall see. It seems like a lot of wear and tear.

The joys of visual voicemail. This is the best thing since the invention of sliced bread, and I think Verizon knows this. Annoyingly, they charge a couple dollars extra for this service each month. However, the service integrates so slickly into the phone that I’m seriously impressed. If I miss a call, the Storm displays a small window that tells me who called. If I click the link in the window for Details, I see a summary of the call information and there’s a Play button. All I need to do is press the Play button to hear my voicemail, no need to call into voicemail first. There’s also a whole visual “inbox” interface to this, as well.

The annoying wrong “1 new message” indicator. My Storm’s gmail inbox insists that I have a new message. I don’t, but it clings to its certainty. I’ve tried everything I could think of (including verbal threats) shy of deleting and reinstalling it to make the indicator go away. My next resort is to delete and reinstall, but how annoying. I’ll add a comment to this review when I get around to resolving this issue.

[ Edit: Yay! I finally solved this one! Lots of folks have been complaining about this issue. I finally discovered where the new message was hidden. It turns out that I did have a "new" message. I went into the standard Messages application and hit the menu (Blackberry logo) button and chose the View Saved Messages option. In this "hidden" group of saved messages I had one message that was, indeed, new. I read it and the new message indicator finally went away. Sigh... ]

Pairing the Jawbone II with the Storm. Here’s another item of great interest to the teeming masses. I love the super-simple look of the Jawbone, but it does make the pairing experience a bit daunting. I will admit to having some trouble the first time I tried to pair the Jawbone to my Storm (was I pushing on the right part of the device?). I followed the directions at least twice before succeeding. Now, to pair the devices, I get them into proximity of each other, pop on the Jawbone, and press its outer surface for a few moments and the devices magically connect. The Storm’s LED blinks blue when the devices are successfully paired.

The alarm clock. Since this is my first Blackberry, I don’t know if all the models do this, but I love it that the Storm displays a clock on its screen when plugged into the charger. If you click this screen, you can easily set an alarm. The type of clock display (analog or digital) and the alarm tone are configurable. I’m ordering a charging stand for the Storm. I’m hopeful that this will both cut down on the wear and tear on the MicroUSB plug, and allow me to see the clock while it’s charging. I might just ditch my old alarm clock and switch to my Blackberry, like everything else.

Craig Samson

I was one of those people that was virtually frothing at the mouth to get my hands on the much-hyped iPhone-killer, the Blackberry Storm. Touted as a device worthy of a Nobel Prize, the Storm features a 2″ x 2 5/8″ viewable area touchscreen (the largest screen for any Blackberry device to date). The novelty here is that the screen “clicks” when pressed. Kinda cool, but revolutionary, I don’t think so.

I’ve had my Storm for nearly two weeks now. It replaces a wonderful little Samsung phone and is my first Blackberry device. So far, I can sum it up by saying I like the phone. Let me walk you through my experience since receiving the phone.

I received the Storm through the mail because my Verizon store didn’t have any in stock. It arrived at least two weeks earlier than expected, so I was delighted right away. First class all the way, the packaging was suitably elegant for such a famed device.

The phone came with a small library of documentation, an AC charger, a micro-USB data cable (it doesn’t charge the phone, however, which is an annoyance), an international power adapter, an 8GB MicroSD card, and a pair of earbuds. I also received a few accessories that I ordered along with the phone: a car charger, a leather “wallet” to contain the phone, and the cool Jawbone Bluetooth hands-free gizmo.

Activating the phone was quick and painless, unlike the setup process. I spent an entire evening playing with my new toy tool. I expected to use Verizon Wireless’s Backup Assistant tool to migrate my contacts from my old Samsung to the new Blackberry, as I’d done with two or three previous phone upgrades. Then I discovered that the Backup Assistant doesn’t work on the Blackberry, nor was there any other way that I could find to let me import my contacts automatically, so I set about adding them one at a time manually. On the bright side, I suppose, it gave me a chance to purge my contact list of all businesses and folks I never actually call.

RIM's Blackberry Storm

It was at this point that I was reminded of a review of the Storm that I’d read earlier. The reviewer said that with the Storm’s on-screen keyboard you could type quickly or accurately, but not both. There are three different on-screen keyboards, actually. In horizontal mode there is a full qwerty keyboard (the one I used to enter my contacts), and in vertical mode there are two keyboard choices: Blackberry’s SureType keyboard (two letters per key) and a typical phone keypad-style keyboard (with three of four letters per key).

It’s helpful with these keyboards to initially gently press the desired key and watch it highlight on screen. Then, if the correct one is highlighted, click it. Sounds complicated, but with a little practice I got fairly good at it. But, I’d say the aforementioned reviewer was almost right, it’s difficult to achieve both speed and accuracy with the on-screen keyboard.

On that first night, I also got treated to the accelerometer experience. The Storm contains an accelerometer which senses the rotation of the device and causes the Storm to respond by rotating its screen image to match. Cool, but extremely sluggish; I found myself shaking the phone trying to get the screen image to rotate. Since then, Research In Motion (RIM) has released a firmware update that addresses this issue and makes the phone highly responsive to rotation.

The Storm has a slot where you may insert the included MicroSD card (the slot is hidden under the battery cover). The device supports up to a 16GB MicroSD card, so I purchased one of those and put my entire music collection on it. Now I have one device that is simultaneously cell phone, PDA, GPS, watch, camera, camcorder, voice recorder, portable TV, and electric shaver. Just kidding about that last one. However, this device is the closest I’ve had yet to a full computer. The camera is 3.2 megapixel, and features a potent flash. The camera can also record video. The Storm features Bluetooth, but not wifi (something the iPhone does have).

I easily set up my gmail account so that I can send and receive messages directly from the phone. I added a feature to my Verizon plan called Visual VoiceMail that nicely integrates with the phone. All voicemail messages now appear in an inbox on the phone. I can touch any of them and the Storm immediately plays the message. No fussing with pressing any numbers to listen, save, or delete voicemail, I can just use the onscreen player controls for all voicemail features. I also added Verizon’s VZ Navigator service to my account so that I can use the phone for audible turn-by-turn directions and other GPS conveniences.

I synced my Jawbone earpiece with the Storm, giving me wireless hands-free access. The Jawbone features “Noise Assassin” technology that filters out all the background noise, improving the quality of the sound recorded by the phone. Curiously, the Jawbone features a tiny white probe that touches your cheek and senses the vibrations of your speech to help it segregate your voice from background noise. In addition, it has no visible buttons, just two places on the earpiece where the instructions tell you to press to use the device.

To wrap up, I should say that I find the Storm a bit heavy and a bit bulky, but these are small quibbles. Overall, the phone has so far performed smoothly (at least since the firmware upgrade) and has met or exceeded my expectations. It’s not revolutionary, but is definitely evolutionary. And certainly worth a look if you’re a Blackberry fan or if you want an iPhone but refuse to switch to AT&T.

[ Edit: Read Craig’s follow-up to this article: Review: The Blackberry Storm, Take Two ]

Craig W. Samson