Got my new BlackBerry Storm
November 22, 2008
Normally I’m not a first day, stand in line, early adopter. I usually wait a few weeks, maybe even a few months before I buy something. But for some reason I really wanted this new Blackberry Storm right away, so I went down to the Verizon store and bought one on Friday, the first day they were out. The store was fairly busy, and I gave my name to the guy at the door, who promptly logged me into the system and told me the wait was about 30 minutes. 45 minutes later I walked out the door with my new activated and ready to use phone. I took this photo as soon as I got to the car.
While I was waiting for my phone, I played around with the demo unit they had in the store. Like I’ve read all over the internet, these demo units were slow as molasses and not very intuitive. I was a little nervous about buying one, and I’ve heard others say they changed their minds after playing with the demo units. I just figured the units had taken a beating all day and were showing the damage. I took a chance. Turns out my phone was much more zippy than the two on display, but there is room for improvement.
I read on the internet that RIM and Verizon at the last minute decided to downgrade the firmware of the phones because of an error and the firmware we all received on these first release phones is not the most recent update. That kind of sucks, but it’s not all doom and gloom. I like to think of it, as I get to play around with the beta Storm for a few weeks or more before the real deal is released. I’ll just upgrade at a later date and feel like I have a new phone all over again. It’s not like this phone is unusable. Quite the contrary actually. I’ve been able to do everything I’d normally do on my Pearl.
I shot a video and took a few pictures with the new 3.2 megapixel camera. Very nice. The flash is extremely bright. Everyone complained it blinded them, but the flash didn’t seem to reach very far. If the distance between the camera and the subject was too great, the photo still was a bit dark despite the bright flash. It also took a while for the camera to lock on to the image, focus and then take the picture, much like the iPhone does. In bright natural light, the camera works great though.
This is not my first Blackberry (#4) so I’m already familiar with the way it works, but it’s still taking some time to get used to clicking and sliding my fingers on the screen. It’s hard to unlearn habits, like working the no longer present trackball, but the menu button and return buttons are still there. All the side buttons are the same with the exception of the USB port. They went with an even smaller connection so all your old USB cables will not work with the new Blackberry unless there’s some kind of adapter.
I give a more detailed review of my new Blackberry Storm in my VloMo08 Day 22 video. Check it out if you’re thinking of buying one of these.
It’s taking a bit to get used to the new clickable screen. Most of the time it works flawlessly but other times it takes a few extra seconds to registered your finger and the link you want to click on. It was also difficult to figure out how to maneuver around on the web pages, clicking, enlarging, and scrolling up/down/side to side. All in all, I love this phone and I’m not disappointed in the least that I bought the first version without the updated firmware. I know it’s coming and it will be a added bonus when it does.
Photo originally uploaded by dr.coop
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