Review: BlackBerry Storm

The BlackBerry Storm is the first handset from Research In Motion (RIM) to feature a touch-based user interface akin to that of Apple's popular iPhone. This may draw more attention from consumers, but business users are likely to stick with more traditional BlackBerry designs.

Available now from Vodafone, the BlackBerry Storm lacks a keyboard and instead has a larger 3.25in screen designed for fingertip control of functions, with just the standard phone call/end keys and a BlackBerry menu and escape key on the front bezel. It also has improved music and video capabilities, such as the ability to play movies and synchronise with the user's iTunes library.

While the Storm also has the usual corporate features, such as the ability to enroll with a BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES) for push email and administrator control, it seems to be aimed more at consumers.

The Storm has 3G network support, Bluetooth 2.0 and GPS hardware for location-based applications, but it lacks Wi-Fi, which many rival devices such as the iPhone have. There is, however, a decent 3.2 megapixel camera.

The Storm's touch-screen and gesture recognition are bound to invite comparison with Apple's iPhone, and the two input systems are quite similar. With both devices, users can scroll up and down menus and email lists by swiping the screen, and tap the screen to zoom in within applications such as the browser. The main menu has icons just the right size to be easily tapped with a fingertip, and both devices automatically change screen orientation if you twist them around.

Where the Storm differs is in its clickable screen, which lets the user press down – like clicking a mouse button - to select an option. This feature means it is possible to scroll through your emails and menus without accidentally opening one or unintentionally triggering some function, which we have found a continual bugbear with other touch-enabled phones.

The clickable screen should also make an on-screen soft keyboard more usable, but we did not find this to be the case. The click feedback does help, but we found we could only tap out text at a fraction of the speed possible with a real keyboard, even the thumb keyboards of other smartphones. The problem is that it is tricky to hit the right key, and although the Storm lights up the key it thinks you are trying to press, this forces you to look carefully at the keyboard before you push down.

Using the soft keyboard gets easier with practice, but we still doubt that professionals who rely on a Blackberry for everyday email access will be satisfied with this. We showed the Storm to several colleagues who already use other BlackBerry devices, and most expressed their dislike of this input method.

Actually, the Storm has two separate on-screen keyboards. If you hold the device in portrait orientation, it shows a SureType keypad similar to that of the BlackBerry Pearl, where each key has two letters and the phone uses a predictive algorithm to work out what you are trying to type. Twist the device round to landscape mode, and the Storm uses the longer side of the screen to display a full Qwerty layout instead.