Was last night your hands-on at the Linc? Any report - please???
TIA!!
No, its tomorrow night.
I have received email confirmation that my DEMO Storm is on the way from Verizon... Not sure if its a "Keeper" like the Pearl/8130 and Curve/8330 or if its a 30 day loaner... I wont know till it gets here. I'm not going to bug my rep anymore than I already have... She's been a saint thoughout this!!
Video was great. Highlighted alot of things without acting crazy. Just professional and straightforward on most of the basics he at least got to mess with right away.
As for the other comment about the swearing off virtual keyboards...By all means you can. I've been using the Dare since June and while I do make mistakes on occasion with the touch screen when typing, its tolerable for me. The plus's of all touch is worth the minor downside of mistakes here and there so I'm not complaining. Helps also with browsing sites to not have to scroll as much.
Anyone moving from a physical keyboad to a virtual onscreen keyboard, I strongly reccommend, you examine the Storm more carefully, after my first Pocket PC in 2002 with a virtual keyboard, I'd never go back to a virtual keyboard. If you're looking for an alternative to the Iphone, then the Storm is your baby!
You should try out the new technology then. I find the iPhone keyboard to be acceptable. Perfect? No, but then neither are most of the physical keyboard phones I've tried (XV-6600, SCH-i730, Treo 700W, Moto Q, Moto Q9M, XV-6800, BB Pearl). The ability to type by feel (blind) will be missed by some, but responsiveness and accuracy are comparable.
I just came back from playing around with the storm demo for a few minutes at the verizon store.
Disclaimer: The phone was using OS version .65 and it seems like the final release will be .80. I've also never owned a BB or iphone before and I was only able to play with this for about 10-15 mins. This is also my personal opinion so take it with a grain of salt
From the small amount of time I had, I was pretty impressed with it. The click touch screen was pretty nice and I was able to get use to it instantly. Granted, I've never used a touchscreen phone or blackberry before so I didn't have to unlearn any habits. The horizontal typing wasn't too bad but I kept on making mistakes so I liked the vertical typing more since the buttons are bigger. However, the mistakes are because I'm not used to typing on a touchscreen, not because of any problems with the design of the device. Also, I was trying to type w/o looking at the keys before my thumbs learned where the keys were. Rotating the screen from horizontal to vertical was responsive and I never felt any frustration from waiting for it.
I also tried browsing the internet. I went to wikipedia.com and it showed me the full html page instead of a mobile verzon. Once the page loads, moving around and scrolling seemed pretty easy and responsive. Zooming in was easy and effortless (double touch the screen) and zooming out wasn't bad (zoom out button, don't know if there's a short cut). One thing that I would of liked more is a way to zoom in and out on a gradual basis instead of in hard pre-determined increments. However, it is entirely possible that this is one of those features that exist that I don't know about. The page downloading seemed kind of slow as it showed a white screen before showing the whole page but that is a network issue, not phone issue. I'm also used to using high speed broadband so perhaps this is how fast mobile browsing is suppose to be.
There were a few bugs with the phone that were not overlookable at all. First, after I switched out of the brower and tried to compose a text message, the system slowed down to a halt. This is like when your computer is really slow and the menus don't redraw. After waiting a few mins for things to load (like message compose screen and BB menus), things finally went back to being snappy. Later on, I went to try the camera function and the waiting indicator came up and just spun around. After a few mins of waiting, the camera view finder and only the camera view finder (no GUI of any other kind) came up. This was overlayed on top of the normal BB home menu buttons, an obvious bug. After a few seconds, the device screen went black and had to be hard reset. I gave the demo device back at this point.
I spoke with the CSR and he wasn't too nice. He was on a personal call the whole time I was there so he was probably annoyed he had to talk to a customer. I asked him about Friday and prices and he said there will be a lot of people waiting for this device on Fri, there will be no corporate discounts and that price will be $249.99 after $50 MIR. I don't really trust him on the prices (since he's wrong) so I'm not sure if and what the corp discount will be. However, it does look like I will prob have to wait till sat before getting it as this is the only verizon store open before normal business hours in downtown Chicago.
All in all, I will be getting this device when it comes out. The click interface wasn't a problem at all and in fact, I really like it. it will just take a while to get used to the differences between selecting and clicking, esp when browing the web. I don't think the web browsing will be as polished as the iphone but it's def not unusable. There were some significent bugs and if the new software fixes it, then this will be a pretty good device.
I was at my local Verizon last night. They have downloaded the launch version of the OS and it made the accelerometer much more responsive and it has sped up the application changes. The browser is still slow but that is network, not phone.
Over all I am very happy with it. I typed 5-6 text messages and 2 full emails from it and I had less mistakes than I usually do on my Curve. The phone is a little heavier but feels less cheap than all of the plasic on my Curve.
They still haven't told the manager the number of phones he will be getting so I will be there at 0700 for the 0800 opening.
Blackberry Storm with a touchscreen and no physical keyboard may work for some people, but my biggest complaint on my first Pocket PC Phone Edition 2002 was no physical keyboard. Perhaps the Storm's greater accuracy onscreen keyboard will suffice, but you're still going to lose a lot screen using the keyboard.
Having owned MANY devices, including iPAQ 2215 (wm2003 pda), iPaq 3115 (wm2003se pda), Moto Q, HTC Touch/VX6900, the various RIM products over the past 9 or 10 years at work, my many cell phones including the Dare, Voyager, enV... My GF has a iPod Touch that I use... I've had a wide range of experiences with keyboard and "touch screen" devices.
I can understand your hesitation due to lack of physical keyboard. Hey, I was in that same boat. When I first heard about an all touch screen BB, I said.. "WHAT ARE THEY THINKING!?!?!"
Having had hands on time with the Storm, I will say you can't compare the Storm to a PPC2002, or other windows mobile device, anymore than you can compare the iPhone's screen to a Windows Mobile device, or the Dare and Voyager against any of them.
While I think the storm is a great device.. I KNOW its not a device that EVERYONE is going to love. Hey, not everyone loves the iPhone, right?
I agree with your arguement about giving up screen due to having the virtual keyboard on-screen as well, but RIM's implimentation isn't bad, and doesn't sacrafice much screen real estate to have a keyboard.
But I do feel that it should be experienced in person before you discount it only due to touch screen instead of physical keyboard.
Originally Posted by Demot
Obviously, Verizon is alllocating all of their advertising dollars on the Blackberry Storm for Christmas sales, bringing NON BUSINESS users into the RIM world. IMHO RIM would have been better to develop a Blackberry Bold with a touchscreen and real keyboard, but then again, the Storm is an obvious cross market appeal for people who want an Iphone type device. But with a failing economy, why should we should we be more concerned about the multi-media features on a traditional business device, than we are about it's ability to we're too get work done quickly.
Every company is in business to make money...
RIM can sell only so many Business Only devices. At some point they need to sell as many devices as they can, and that means also to consumers, in order to stay a float, especially now in the failing economy.
Nikon makes incredible Professional/"Business" class SLR and Digital SLR cameras. If you apply your logic, then Nikon shouldn't be making "point-n-shoot" cameras... or "Prosumer" D-SLR cameras?
I think the Storm will appeal to both Business people (because it is still a blackberry, and has all the features of current models with some new features), but has a good feeling touch screen and increased multimedia capabilities that Consumers crave...
Maybe consumers don't need a blackberry.. But then again, they dont need windows mobile devices, etc. and they buy them too.
You can't deny that consumers are looking for better calendar and contact support in their phones. Blackberries, Palm, Windows Mobile and other smart phones fill this void and help personal productivity. And if newer models also support better multimedia so they only need to carry around one device, isn't that an advantage?
Adding consumer features to a blackberry helps RIM in two ways...
1. it gets consumers interested in RIM's products so that they can increase sales and hopefully profits...
2. give businesses a secure device, a blackberry, that can also "entertain them" on long flights, trips, etc.. so they don't have to carry multiple devices...
Keep in mind, RIM hasn't removed any Business features compared to past blackberries. THey have just added more features that also appeal to consumers.
So you got a pocket pc almost 7 years ago and now write off touch screens? I dunno about you but the storm is completely different that anything that came out 7 years ago. I'd say its hard to compare it to many things that have come out in the last year or two (other than our other little apple device). And the rant on the economy? It's definitely the governments fault ha... but thats off topic. Anyways, I think it will be a lot nicer than you think. AND just because they advertise the multimedia doesn't mean it doesn't do all the productive things. We already know what all blackberries have done in the past for productivity. I'm glad to hear my one device will do everything for me come Friday... Fun and work...
I love touch screens, I used my touch screen virtual keyboard on my MDA (2006 version) nearly as much as I used my slide out keyboard on the device, but having both physical and virtual was a definite bonus (I hate my non-touchscreen Moto Q9c)! As for my rant on the economy, I adamantly disagree that it's the govenrments fault, and place most of the blame on the American people not being productive enough in the right direction. They were probably too busy playing with virtual keyboards
I love touch screens, I used my touch screen virtual keyboard on my MDA (2006 version) nearly as much as I used my slide out keyboard on the device, but having both physical and virtual was a definite bonus (I hate my non-touchscreen Moto Q9c)! As for my rant on the economy, I adamantly disagree that it's the govenrments fault, and place most of the blame on the American people not being productive enough in the right direction. They were probably too busy playing with virtual keyboards
I respect your opinions and used to feel the same way about touch screen devices, and still do, just not this one or the iphone. I think the technology is much better in these devices than certain dumbphone's and pda's that implement this feature.
Blackberry Storm with a touchscreen and no physical keyboard may work for some people, but my biggest complaint on my first Pocket PC Phone Edition 2002 was no physical keyboard. Perhaps the Storm's greater accuracy onscreen keyboard will suffice, but you're still going to lose a lot screen using the keyboard.
Obviously, Verizon is alllocating all of their advertising dollars on the Blackberry Storm for Christmas sales, bringing NON BUSINESS users into the RIM world. IMHO RIM would have been better to develop a Blackberry Bold with a touchscreen and real keyboard, but then again, the Storm is an obvious cross market appeal for people who want an Iphone type device. But with a failing economy, why should we should we be more concerned about the multi-media features on a traditional business device, than we are about it's ability to we're too get work done quickly.
Sorry to be so harsh, but telephones, PDA's, and pocket PC's, were meant to increase productivity, not to distract from it, but distraction sells, and productivity gets stuck in the background! If we go through a great depression, it's not Wallstreet, Fannie or Freddie, or even the government who's to blame, it's the American consumer, because they take a great idea which could have made us 10X more productive and ruin it, by marketing it as a multimedia toy.
Instead Verizon, paints a perfectly good business device like the Samsung Saga BLUE, and with no advertising to speak of sneaks it on the stage, because only the geeks will compare the specs. Guess I may be going BLUE, since I don't see anypoint in constricting myself to RIM or spending $350 bucks on the HTC Touch Pro.
Anyone moving from a physical keyboad to a virtual onscreen keyboard, I strongly reccommend, you examine the Storm more carefully, after my first Pocket PC in 2002 with a virtual keyboard, I'd never go back to a virtual keyboard. If you're looking for an alternative to the Iphone, then the Storm is your baby!
Then again if I was a Verizon sales person or Verizon dealer, I'd sport a blackberry storm around my neck like a platinum meddallion and another on my belt clip, because with all that advertising money going into the Blackberry Storm, you can't have enough Blackberry Storm bling!
Isn't saying you won't try a virtual keyboard again because you hated it in 2002 like saying you won't use a computer again because you hated Windows 3.1?
And all this time I thought the economy was in trouble because people were taking loans out to buy things they can't afford, when all this time it is because we developed blue phones that can play MP3s as well as make phone calls!
I respect your opinions and used to feel the same way about touch screen devices, and still do, just not this one or the iphone. I think the technology is much better in these devices than certain dumbphone's and pda's that implement this feature.
The example I gave on the Pocket PC 2002 was specifcally because it had only a virtual keyboard, I just retired my 2006 MDA Touch-Screen with slide out keyboard, to switch over completely to Verizon. With that said, I love touch screens, I have a TEMPORARY-LOANER Q9c w/o touch screen, and I hate it, so it's not that I haven't had a touchscreen since 2002, I just retired a touchscreen 2006 MDA last week. I Love touchscreens, I wouldn't have it any other way!
On Dec. 1, I'll be at the verizon store, I'll be looking over 3 products: HTC Touch Pro, Samsung Saga, and the Blackberry Storm. I'm confident, I'll end up with the Samsung Saga, but I will certainly not simply dismiss the BS, it will get a fair shake from me, but i will put all three devices side by side, and make the best informed decision. BTW all 3 devices I just listed are touch screens, I wouldn't get a device w/o a touch screen
Well - I'm switching from a Q9c to the Storm. I figure I have issues typing even with a real kb (LOL) and that - with the Storm horozontal - I'll actually have a bigger kb than I do now.
I think an "advantage" I have is not having to unlearn anything from other touchscreens - as this will be my first.
Last edited by HDTVGuru; 11-18-2008 at 09:44 AM.
Reason: typo lol
Thanks! Just wish the first one had voice audio but that's not your fault
"We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force." Ayn Rand...
"The essence of fascism is to make laws forbidding everything and then enforce them selectively against your enemies."
The Official BlackBerry Storm 9530 Pre-Release Thread 3 (Off Topic Posts=1 Day Ban)
Originally Posted by HDTVGuru
I dunno about you but the storm is completely different that anything that came out 7 years ago. I'd say its hard to compare it to many things that have come out in the last year or two (other than our other little apple device). And the rant on the economy? It's definitely the governments fault ha... but thats off topic. Anyways, I think it will be a lot nicer than you think. AND just because they advertise the multimedia doesn't mean it doesn't do all the productive things. We already know what all blackberries have done in the past for productivity. I'm glad to hear my one device will do everything for me come Friday... Fun and work...
Bookmarks