The BlackBerry Storm has been talked and blogged about for a bit now, but the volume of chatter just ticked up a few decibels with yesterday’s official announcement of this initial foray into the touch screen realm by BlackBerry.
Engadget gave a great in-depth review of the device but here are a few highlights:
- To quote Engadget, “the most comprehensive global roaming capabilities of virtually any wireless device you’ll find anywhere, featuring EV-DO Rev. A, quadband EDGE, and 2100MHz HSPA for Europe.
- 3.26-inch 480 x 360 glass display that is actually a huge button.
- The ability to edit Word and Excel Documents and to copy and paste.
- Bluetooth 2.0
- 1GB of onboard storage with a slot for a micro SD
Many in the industry are singing the Storm’s praises. Gizmodo thinks the clicking touchscreen (ClickThrough as RIM calls it) shows real innovative insight. Wired’s Gadget Lab thinks the screen is amazing too, calling it “the Storm’s prime-time killer feature and the reason why it gives the iPhone a run for its money.” And again, throughout Engadget’s Paul Miller’s piece, words like “charmer” and “pretty” are sprinkled everywhere.
But like anything there are detractors. Don Reisinger at CNET says the storm will never eclipse the iPhone. He correctly notes that the Storm has really only captured the attention of gadget heads and technologists and falls far short of the cultural movement felt upon the release of the iPhone. And NextWeb says, “It looks more like a direct reply actually (to the iPhone). A reply that quotes most of the original message too and doesn’t add much.”
Either way there is one thing that is certain. Touch screens are extremely intuitive. Play with an iPhone for an afternoon and then return to your non-touch screen phone and see how many times you actually reach for the screen. Touch screens reflect a deeper human truth; that we are tactile and understand the world largely through our eyes and our hands. Watch a toddler for an hour if you have any doubt. Indeed, touch screens are here to stay and we look forward to integrating with this exciting new movement in mobile at Next2Friends!
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