For those lost in the Storm frenzy
Posted by Andy Donaldson in BlackBerry Storm
For those who have been sitting on the fence about purchasing Verizon's BlackBerry Storm, I have a word of advice for you. Hold out a little longer.
My Storm arrived last Monday and after a day, I posted my thoughts on if it was worth the time or not. Well, after a week I'm still not sure whether or not I should send it back Tuesday when I return to the office or hold out for another week. The biggest beef I've had with it since my last post was battery life. Boy does it stink! After Twittering my feelings about that, someone replied with the idea to shut off the GPS except for the E911 service. After doing that, the battery behaved much better. With the GPS active, I burned off about 50% of the battery in about 4 hours. So even though you are not in BlackBerry Maps playing around with finding your location, turn the dang GPS off! Also, I've still had a love/hate relationship with the touchscreen. Sometimes it does what I want it to and other times it just will not behave properly. After looking on PlanetLotus.org today, I saw a post from Vowe.net that linked to an article on BlackBerryforums.com. Essentially, it contains some suggestions that you can use to improve the functionality of the keyboard. I've found those settings to work pretty well and the keyboard seems much more accurate in the couple of hours I've messed around with it while watching movies. Lastly, Verizon has leaked an OS level update for the device that appears to take some of the lag out of how it operates. If you are looking for it, check it out here.
So, is the device cool? Yes, it is cool.
Is it better then the iPod Touch? No, the Touch still is cooler. (As I don't have an iPhone, I can't compare it to that.)
Is it good for a corporate user? Hell-to-the no! At least not yet. Verizon and BlackBerry decided to take a page out of Palm's playbook and rush a device out the door before it was truly ready for prime time. The Curve on Verizon is still my favorite.
Am I going to keep it for another week? Stay tuned!
