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Hands-On Look At the BlackBerry Storm 2
Barence writes "PC Pro has had time to play with the new BlackBerry Storm 2, and came away impressed. The new touch system garners the most praise, doing away with the mechanical click screen of the original Storm — the new screen gives a kind of localised haptic feedback which 'feels just like clicking a button.' The phone, announced today, also includes Wi-Fi, BlackBerry OS 5, and increased storage, so it's looking an enticing prospect. After the disappointment of the Palm Pre, could this be the smartphone to beat?"
After the disappointment of the Palm Pre, could this be the smartphone to beat?"
Um, yeah, let's not mention the elephant in the room, shall we?
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
If there was more direct data in/out to the device, versus "securely" routing everything through RIM. That model seems like it makes sense in a 1999 way, but now it just makes it awkward to use them outside of a BES environment.
The iPhone may be a closed platform, but at least data I/O isn't forced through Apple's servers.
I was under the impression that the problem most users have with touchscreens isn't feedback after clicking, but before. I can touch-type on my blackberry, which lets me go a lot faster than on smooth touchscreens because I can tell my finger is on the right button by feel.
To quote MonkeyBoy, err, Steve Ballmer...
This is why the iPhone has become so entrenched, it has the developers. Its not just a matter of building hardware that matches Apple, you now have to build an ecology to match Apple.
Which is very hard: . Look at the MP3 player market. People have made plenty of players better than the iPod-of-the-time, but Apple has the ecology annd is now hard to displace.
Test your net with Netalyzr
Yeah, I don't get that. I absolutely love my Pre. And to answer your question, Exchange syncing works great.
Capitalism does not lead to corruption, lack of character does.
... I know exactly what you're talking about! After buying my Pre, I found that:
- I didn't immediately lose weight
- I still had to wear glasses
- the damage to my hearing (after 20 years of listening to good music) wasn't repaired
- my credit limit wasn't raised, and my day-to-day living expenses weren't reduced
Sure, overall it's a great phone, as far as portable phones that store important information, take pictures, play music and access the internet go, but those four points stick in my craw. Fail!
Eviscerati.Org: All Hail the Eviscerati
Does it support IMAP/POP/SMTP natively or are you still stuck with the pile-of-crap BIS/BES services for email (or using Web interfaces or third party java apps)?
I won't even consider looking at this model for the rest of our small (16) corporate team unless we can use our own (postfix-based) mail servers. The fact that we have to hand over our email account usernames and passwords AND pay just so the Vodafone BIS server can pick up mail and kindly pass it on to the Blackberries (and vice versa) is simply crap, a security risk and a PITA if a user changes their password via our mail server's Web interface.
That is why I have an HTC Rhodium (Touch Pro 2)!
AT&ROFLMAO
> After the disappointment of the Palm Pre, could this be the smartphone to beat?
Does everyone already forget that the Pre was going to be the one to beat after the disappointment of the Storm? Clearly the Pre 2 will be the one to beat after the disappointment of the
There's nothing wrong with the Pre, and the "disappointment" has little to do with the phone. The disappointment is that it didn't stop the iPhone from clobbering them in the market in spite of the hue and cry from the haters and fanbois alike. If you define your disappointment by the lack of relative sales, then my guess is that this is going to be a disappointment too.
It's not about the phone, it's about what you can get onto the phone quickly and easily. Anyone that's Midomi'd a song while walking past a bar patio and then instantly downloaded it from iTunes knows what I mean. Consumers get this, and it seems only the self-declared "experts" who are missing this forest.
Maury
You can bash VZW's CDMA network all you want, but as long as they keep giving me 4 bars of EVDO goodness out here in the desert in rural southwestern New Mexico, they'll get nothing but love from me :)
Serious question - I'm a dumbphone user finally wanting to move to a smartphone, and in the next couple of months. I have to (read: want to) stay on Verizon, and don't want a Windows Mobile phone. I've decided on either the Storm2 or the upcoming Android phones, but am not sure which to go with.
Essentially what I want is a phone that I can email/message/facebook/twitter/do tasks/organize my life with. I want to be able to browse the web, but I don't see myself spending lots of time doing that; usually I see it just looking up something quick. I also don't see myself as a big apps/games user, but then again having never had that experience I don't know - maybe I would if the opportunity were there.
From what I can tell, my impressions are:
BB pros:
better build quality
good (best?) messaging/email ability (I don't really know, but figured that was their background so it must be very good?)
relatively proven track record for phones like this
BB cons:
lack of webkit browser (aren't they supposed to be working on this? when? would the S2 get it eventually?)
generally "closed" system
I have the perception there's less consumer app development for BB than with other platforms
Android pros:
webkit browser
open system
app development seems to have more potential, especially with consumer apps
Android cons:
how is the messaging? Does it work well?
still young...although that doesn't bother me that much
from what I have seen of the VZW leaks, the form factors don't seem as nice as the BB.
Having experience with neither, I don't really know if I have a preference between hard or soft keyboards.
Thoughts or advice?