Ultimate Gadgetry: The Blackberry Storm.

Sunday, December 28, 2008 - John Greene

A friend of mine loaned me his spare Blackberry Storm recently, knowing that I was eager to get my hands on what Research In Motion has appeared to designate its very own iPhone killer. While I like the iPhone’s interface and software a lot, my nerdy disdain for AT&T and their involvement in the illegal wiretapping scheme means that I won’t be getting one until their exclusivity deal ends, and the Storm looked like a nice hybrid of what I love about the my current Blackberry Curve merged with an Apple-style touchy-feely experience.

After about two hours with the thing, I handed it back to him and said “that’s enough, but thanks.” The Storm’s touchscreen feels, frankly, like a Chinese mp3 player’s interface, with slow, unresponsive buttons. I’m not exaggerating when I say it took a full two to three seconds for the Storm to acknowledge that I’d pressed one button or the other and even after twenty or so minutes of dicking around with the photo application, I still couldn’t figure out how to access the multiple pictures of the tabletop I’d accidentally taken. My gorilla-like thumbs can send emails and more with the physical keyboard on the Curve at a fairly fast clip, but the slow response time and general mushiness of the Storm meant that I sent messages that read like “Tihs is a tset mssage” or “Teh baclkberry is teh worst phoen i haev tried.”

More vexing than the slow response time was the strange choice to go with a full-screen, physical “click” that ensures that you’re always a bit confused. There were several moments where I honestly had no idea what I’d just clicked on or why, but I was suddenly at another screen. When combined with the clackity-clack typing sound that I could never figure out how to turn off (I’m sure it’s on there, but the sheer button overload meant I spent more time trying to find functions than I did, you know, doing things,) it’s a strange and unsatisfying experience.

If you’ve got some Christmas cash or poker winnings to burn and the Storm looks temping, I’m going to have to tell you to wait. RIM has proven repeatedly that they move forward and fix problems faster than almost any other company in their space. I’d not be surprised if the middle of this year saw a more perfect Storm.