Thoughts on Blackberry Storm?

[AzazaelFenrir]

My wife and I are able to get two blackberry storms w/activation for a total of $50 a phone. I wanted to get some opinions from people who had them what they think of them. I googled some reviews but almost all of them were from release. I would like to think they have fixed some of the little issues at this point.

Before people scream iPhone, leaving Verizon isn't really an option. The discounts we get through my wife's job as well as most of our families being on Verizon just makes it silly to switch.

[Ashky]

Steaming pile of crap. I wouldn't trade a normal Curve for the Storm. It's extremely slow between programs and takes a good 1-2 seconds for the accelerometer to kick in. Hitting the buttons is a pain in the ass while typing too. I absolutely hated it.

[Arnwulf]

I second Ashky's post. My sister had it and she ended up getting rid of is after a couple of days. I tried to use it, the whole "clicking" thing is annoying and super slow, it's sluggish, and it's so easy to hang up on people when you're talking to them.

[Spekkio]

i have a storm and i'm actually very satisfied with it. it comes down to what you want to DO with the phone. my situation was that i constantly found myself away from my computer, sitting with nothing to do for extremely extended periods of time. i am tied to verizon for a long list of reasons so i had to choose from amongst their selection of phones and my primary goal was to find a phone that would do a good job browsing the web, hence i was looking for a phone with a big screen.

let's be frank. the clickable screen is a gimmick at best and a pain in the ass at worst. it's probably not much better or worse than an iphone (idk as i have never used one, but i'm guessing based off my experience with this phone) but a problem inherent to touchscreens. you have to be always aware where your fingers are, otherwise you're gonna vomit garbage onto the screen. it's something i'm slowly getting used to, but i should think if i were used to a full thumboard on a curve, it would be a far more painful process. that said, due to the poor keyboard on it, if your primary goal is to send and receive emails, write documents, etc. find another phone. typing on the phone for an extended period of time is a trial in frustration.

on the other hand, if you primarily want a mobile entertainment platform that can do web browsing, dash off quick messages, and have a large viewing screen for content, then the bb storm is not a bad choice imo. boasting the biggest screen on the market (by like 3 scanlines over the iphone, woop de do i know, but verizon touts it as a major victory) a relatively intuitive interface, decent battery life, and a pricepoint on par with a razor, it does have a lot going for it. sporting a full headphone port, a decent chunk of built in storage (it comes with an 8 gig micro sd card pre-installed) a reasonable (if pathetically slow though it's supposed to be fixed in some of the new leaked firmwares) camera, and the bb's extensive suite of email and messaging capabilities, it does bear consideration.

btw, if you do get the storm, tell them to shove their vz navigator where the sun don't shine. google maps is now fully integrated w/ the storm's GPS capabilities and doesn't cost 10 bucks a month.

[Suited Aces]

I have and love the BB storm. All I use it for is basic emais, texting and some websurfing... so I'm not really pushing the technology that much (I have no need for gimmick apps that seem to impress iphone users so much), but for everything I use it for it works extremely well.

For those that say it was sluggish and slow were probably still using the official verizon firmware .75. There have been numerous leaks of beta firmware (up to .109 atm) that keep improving the Storms performance.

And I love the click screen. It's nice to have a physical confirmation that I'm hitting the "keys". I like having the feeling that I'm actually typing.

[Kurt Cobain]

buy an iphone 3G on ebay
???
profit

[virusiidx]

For those that say it was sluggish and slow were probably still using the official verizon firmware .75. There have been numerous leaks of beta firmware (up to .109 atm) that keep improving the Storms performance.

Just like said above, the current "verizon certified" OS is .75. There's been a bunch of leaked OSes (.109 atm) that have been released over the past few months that resolve the speed issues, glitches, freezes, etc... that .75 has. So far as of now, I'm on .109 and I'm really liking the phone. If I was still on .75, I would have probably taken it back by now, that's how much of a difference it makes. I can only stick with verizon as well since other companies don't have that great of reception in my area. But if verizon had iphone, I would still probably go for the iphone lol. They both have their pros and cons.

Basically, if you're not comfortable upgrading to beta/leaked OSes, I would wait a few months until there's an official firmware upgrade past .75. You can really tell this phone was released too early just to make the holiday season.

If you wanna look more into it, check out the crackberry.com forums. LOTS of info there.

[Spekkio]

i've loosely been following the leaks but haven't gotten off my ass to install one yet (still trying to get comfortable with this thing finding poorly documented features like the mass media support) but outside of some minor fixes (and introducing the memory card inserted glitch and killing bluetooth headset for media) i'm not sure what's been fixed/added.

[virusiidx]

(and introducing the memory card inserted glitch and killing bluetooth headset for media) i'm not sure what's been fixed/added.

Both of those are fixed on .109. I've been running it for a few days now and still haven't had any glitches/freezes or needed to do a battery pull yet. I was on .90 before this one and was doing like 3 battery pulls a day.

[AzazaelFenrir]

Basically, if you're not comfortable upgrading to beta/leaked OSes, I would wait a few months until there's an official firmware upgrade past .75. You can really tell this phone was released too early just to make the holiday season.

If you wanna look more into it, check out the crackberry.com forums. LOTS of info there.

Awesome just what I was looking for ty. Ty as well Spekkio. Wife and I went ahead and ordered them.

[fren.]

My brother bought two and he wound up returning them each, three times. He couldn't take videos because after each video would finish recording, he'd get an error message. The internet was beyond horrid and his phone froze a shitload.

How do you go about finding what firmware you're on and eventually downloading the most recent one?

Edit: Can't view crackberry at work.

[Spekkio]

if you got it thru verizon anytime in recent memory, you're on .75. that's the latest OS release that they've given their "stamp o' approval" to. verizon will officially push out over the air an OS update at SOME point, but it's unknown when so many people are upgrading on their own. that's the only way you'd be beyond .75. now if you had an OLD model before they pushed out .75, i'm not at all surprised it was busy shitting a brick on your face. it really was unstable from what i heard (and boy was it slow from what i saw) but .75 is at least USABLE at this point.

[virusiidx]

How do you go about finding what firmware you're on and eventually downloading the most recent one?

Options > Status. Third line down should be something like v4.7.0.109 (Platform 4.0.0.136)

The .109 is the current release. If you just bought it from verizon, then it should be at .75. They don't support anything higher than that until they have an "official" release.

I know you're unable to access at work, but here's the leaked .109 thread and how to install thread for reference.

Leaked .109
Official 9530 .109 Leak thread - BlackBerry Forums at CrackBerry.com

How to Update
How To: Update to a Leaked/Beta OS - BlackBerry Forums at CrackBerry.com


gl

[pohibaba]

Does updating the OS void the warranty or anything?

[virusiidx]

Verizon doesn't support the OSes that aren't released by Verizon themselves. But you can always downgrade back to .75.

[fren.]

Options > Status. Third line down should be something like v4.7.0.109 (Platform 4.0.0.136)

The .109 is the current release. If you just bought it from verizon, then it should be at .75. They don't support anything higher than that until they have an "official" release.

I know you're unable to access at work, but here's the leaked .109 thread and how to install thread for reference.

Leaked .109
Official 9530 .109 Leak thread - BlackBerry Forums at CrackBerry.com

How to Update
How To: Update to a Leaked/Beta OS - BlackBerry Forums at CrackBerry.com


gl

Thanks!

[Spekkio]

what are your "must have" apps for the storm beyond google sync, google maps, quickpull, and call lock?

[virusiidx]

what are your "must have" apps for the storm beyond google sync, google maps, quickpull, and call lock?

Eh, besides the ones you just listed, none of the other ota apps really appeal to me besides the ones that were pre-installed (facebook, youtube, etc..). Not as nearly as much as iphone apps do. However, the themes are pretty cool, I'm liking this appleberry theme I've had installed for a while now.

http://img54.imageshack.us/img54/2407/touchstripeq1.jpg

http://img25.imageshack.us/img25/8231/appscreenhq8.jpg

AppleBerry - You're gonna want to check this out. - BlackBerry Forums at CrackBerry.com

[thestalkmore]

Could say a lot and nitpick here and there, but the long and short of it is I like my phone a lot.

[Hogie]

Stay away, i would rather have the black and white BB brike phone then this piece of crap. I myself have a 8607e and i wouldnt trade for the storm even if you paid for the phone and bought my old one off me.

I have set 3 up for people at my work and i hate them with a passion