You may say I live under a rock, but this is my first time hearing about the Blackberry Storm. I first got wind when I was browsing the net, looking for the best E71 rivals. Low and behold I came across this article about the new Blackberry touchscreen hero.Here's what Warren from dialaphone had to say about it,
The Storm has only furthered the more creative approach taken by Blackberry by delving into the currently very competitive touchscreen market in which manufacturers are all vying for the crown of iPhone killer.
iPhone killer? What about E71 killer? I think not. Not everyone wants touchscreen. Most E71 users have the E71 because they love having real buttons. I personally think a combination of real buttons and a touchscreen would be great, but neither the Storm nor the E71 gives us this functionality.
Lets see some of the specs of the new Blackberry Storm...
3.25" Touchscreen (480 x 360)
Accelorometer
Visual Qwerty keyboard
3.2 Megapixel Camera
Integrated GPS with A-GPS functionality
1GB Onboard memory with MicroSD support
624 MHz Processor
3G
EDGE
Built in Handsfree
Bluetooth
3.5mm Stereo Headphone Jack
Mini-Usb connectivity
Wow! The specs are not too bad.
Another interesting feature is the ease of Social Networking on the Storm. According to this article at Phones 4 U, Facebook and Myspace access will be a breeze...
If you’re a Facebook or MySpace addict and love to update them during the day but don’t always have access to a computer, then the Storm will make your life much simpler! Direct access to your accounts means it’s easy to change your status or add a blog post all from your mobile phone, wherever you are.
You can do all that on the E71 right? Well I'm not sure about myspace, but I know a few 3rd party S60 applications such as Fring and Shozu allow you to update/manage various aspects of your Facebook. But do E71 owners really care about these type of social networking sites? I'm sure some do, but not the majority.
As of right now, to my understanding, this phone will only be available in the USA from Verizon Wireless. I'm not sure about the rest of the world. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.
I'm not sure about the pricing either. With the price of the unlocked E71 dropping fast, would it be worth it to spend almost as much for the Storm AND have to be locked into a 2 year contract with Verizon? Right now you can get the E71 for under $400
, if you look hard enough.What are your thoughts on this? Would you give up real buttons for touchscreen? Would you give up the 3rd party apps and power of S60 and pickup a Blackberry?
