the seven days of blackberry storm
After all the mixed reviews this product has received I decided to use the phone for seven whole days before passing judgment and making a decision weather to stick with it or jump ships to the Bold or Worldphone.
Day 1 (12/23/2008):
After sitting in storage for a good three weeks, I was finally notified by my office that I had a package waiting for me and that it was in-fact the phone I ordered more than four weeks prior.
The phone feels nice in your hand. It’s definitely not light, but not too heavy. It feels substantial, which is good when you’ve spent $500 on a phone.
Setting up the phone was easy. The first thing I did, even before activating the phone and setting it up with my corporate email server, was to download the latest firmware and apply it to the device. This is supposed to correct a lot of the issues around the device knowing which orientation it was in, as well as general speed enhancements. That process took around a half an hour.
I honestly love the way email looks on this device. It looks exactly the same as it does on your computer screen, full color and font. It also shows you attachments in-line with the document. The device comes with Word, Excel and PowerPoint To Go, which will allow you to make minor edits to documents on the device itself.
I turned off the automatic spell check feature after it started replacing certain words like ‘haha’ with ‘aha’ and ‘yay’ with ‘gay’. Those would have been sure to get me in trouble. The system automatically underlines word it thinks you have misspelled and if you can position your fingers over the word correctly, you can select from a list of possibly correct ones.
My biggest gripe at this point is trying to nail down the typing. I am currently really slow at hitting the “buttons” and spelling out words. I’m also finding myself hitting the wrong letters, or the letter next to the one I meant to hit. I’m sure this will come with time, patience and practice. On the advice of a coworker I placed a folded up business card between the battery and the black of the case. This forces the screen and the contact pad behind it closer together which cuts down on problems trying to click near the edge of the screen.
Someone I was talking to earlier this week put it best, it’s really just a multimedia device which was made into a phone as an afterthought.
Day 2 (12/24/2008):
Today I discovered that I can use my fingers to cycle through pictures, which look sweet on the storms very, very nice screen.
Unfortunately the actual camera feature on the phone leaves a lot to be desired. It takes approximately three to four seconds after you hit the button for a picture to actually be taken. This is because you actually have to press the screen to take the picture, which moves the phone. The phone then tries to stabilize itself and focus on the object in question. Once that is complete the camera takes the picture and then waits another two or three seconds before displaying it on screen.
The pictures look great (phone a phone), and you can use the built-in facebook or flikr applications to upload them to albums. If you are familiar with similar features from older Blackberry’s you’ll be pleased to find out that when scrolling through your pictures you seen an actual thumbnail and not just the file name, which is incredibly helpful when trying to remember what IMG0823798.jpg was.
Definitely better with the typing today. I’m starting to get the hang of placing my fingers in the correct locations to minimize or eliminate typos.
Day 3 (12/25/2008):
Today I discovered a new application called Vlingo. Basically the application listens to what you say, uploads the sound file to a Vlingo server, analyzes and compares your orders to data already on the server aggrecated from other users and then sends a response back to your phone based upon what it thinks you said. For the most part the application is great, “Text message Nancy, Hi!” results in a new text message being prefilled and typed, ready for you to send. “Call Andrew mobile” results in a phone call being placed to my brother’s cell phone. Unfortunately, “Text message Andrew, bring me the blueberry pancakes” resulted in a text to my brother saying “I’ll call.” … Needs some work.
Randomly my phone started to freeze last night, forcing me to pull out the battery and restart. After waiting over six minutes for the damn thing to restart, everything seems okay. I have a sneaking suspicion that Vlingo may be the problem…
Another issue seems to be related to charging the phone. Basically, if I plug the phone into my laptop or car to charge, it takes about 4 or five hours to regain the entire charge. My old Blackberry used to charge extremly quickly when plugged into the laptop. Once I return home I’ll test the outlet charger to see if there is any difference.
Day 4 (12/26/2008)
Today I finally remembered to activate my voice mail service. The process hasn’t changed at all, basically you just sign in, create a password and record your voice. However upon doing all of that the device started to play a message along the lines of; “Hi this is Micahel, I’m interested in looking at one of your properties at 301 North Main Street. Please give me a call back at 201-XXX-XXXX.” The message then stopped and the voice mail service said, you have one new message, and proceeded to play an actual message for me. However, there was no way to access the other message that just played. The other oddity, was that I’ve had this number for about 8 years and I had no missed calls. Leading me to believe that I heard someone elses voicemail for a brief moment. Interesting…
I decided to carry my device in the leather holster that came with it for the day as I was spending some time helping my family move. For some strange reason the device never locked while it was in that holster and randomly the movie trailer that comes with the device started to play and WOULD NOT STOP. I tried everything save pulling the battery out, and it continued to play.
It also refused to answer the phone quickly enough if I took it out of the holster when it was rining and pressed the touch-screen answer button. I did a test on another call, and when pressing the physical answer button I did not seem to have a problem. It seems as though the software/processor can’t respond fast enough to the on-screen button when it is trying to figure out that someone is calling you and alert you to that fact as well. Kind of lame, and incredibly annoying. I must remember to press the physical button in the future.
Throughout the day if I forgot to lock the device before placing it into the holster, random buttoms would be pressed and silly things would happen. Like placing random phone calls or loading webpages. It was kind of annoying. I even tried holding a magnet around the device, but could not get it to lock like previous Blackberrys. I must have gotten a defective sensor or perhaps there is a glitch with the software, either way this is very annoying. I’ll be in the Verizon Wireless store later today and will pester some sales associate about this.
Day 5 (12/27/2008):
After helping the family move yesterday I ended up in a situation where there were was no Internet connection at the new house. After a day and a half of not being connected, I decided to use my lovely little Blackberry Storm’s tethering capability to access the various pipes and tubes which comprise the Internets. I just have to say that Verizon’s 3G network is significantly better than the EDGE network I used with at&t. Webpage download speeds were just as good as when I am at home using my cable modem. I did not perform a speed test or attempt to download any large files, however for regular browsing and email, the Storm and Verizon’s network handled well.
Note: Verizon Wireless does not sell a replacement USB cable to connect your Storm to your computer. You need to find them on the Internets.
Day 6 (12/28/2008):
Discovered a new little flaw today. I spent the night out in New York City, and kept my fully charged Storm in my pocket for most of the evening. On the train ride up I spent about an hour reading my RSS feeds and chatting via Blackberry Messenger. That used up about half of my battery life. Unfortunately at about 12am, after being in my pocket for a solid four or five hours, the phone battery completely died. My guess is that becuase the phone was in my pocket all night, as I moved the screen kept depressing, which resulted in the backlight staying on the entire time.
I am going to have to figure out an idea way to store this thing.
Day 7 (12/29/2008):
Final Verdict:
It’s version 1.0 of a product. While I like it and will be keeping the device, my recommendation is to wait until a few software revisions appear and perhaps until version 2.0 of the hardware hits the market.