To be Bold or Storm: which Blackberry flagship should you captain?
Research in Motion (RIM) has been a beehive of activity as of late, releasing a veritable cornucopia of handsets to appeal to a wide range of consumers with different needs. Its two latest offerings, the Bold and the Storm, hold top spots on two competing networks and are vastly different: how do you choose?
Well, quite obviously, you’re choice of handsets will be largely be a selection of the carrier currently offering one of the two. The Bold is touted by AT&T, while the Storm is carried by Verizon. I’m going on record by saying the ideal network for just about any mobile handset, if price isn’t a factor, is Verizon.
But don’t think for a second that I’m going to recommend the Storm because it’s available on a strong network. To the contrary, I’m going to tell you stay about as far away from the Storm as you can, whether you’re a weathered Blackberry user or a newcomer to the RIM arena.
Having a friend who just purchased the Storm, I spent some time playing with it, just waiting to be wowed and awed by RIMs beautiful touchscreen offering. The wow never came. In fact, after a short time I found myself forcing the handset upon its owner, afraid that my experience with the Storm would taint my impression of RIM and other Blackberrys.
The entire concept of the Storm is based upon one premise: that, unlike the iPhone or other touchscreen handsets, instead of rewarding a user’s touch with haptic feedback, the Verizon provides an actual click. That click is executed by a screen that is an actual button you physically click, called Surepress.
It sounds fantastic, really. In execution, it’s poorly done. The screen is actually uncomfortably difficult to suppress. Sure, I’ve spent time using real tactile keyboards, and actually switched from an all-touchscreen Samsung Behold back to a Blackberry Curve due to the superiority of the Curve in the keyboard department. But the Storm’s Surepress is uncomfortable to use for anyone who wants to do more than maybe cue up a contact and hit call.
And you can forget texting or entering anything with the virtual qwerty keyboard. Something about the Storm’s shoddy speed and predictability of operating system coupled with the click screen make entering letters downright unpleasant. After trying to type a text that would normally take a few seconds on any real qwerty handset, I found myself getting a bit tight in the chest, like the stress of the affair was about to bring on a panic attack or something.
Aside from the keyboard, the OS suffers as well. Plagued by terrible lag, I consider the OS close to unbearable and unusable. The battery life isn’t anything to brag about, either.
The two upsides to the Verizon Blackberry Storm are its screen, which is quite vibrant, and full HTML browsing. But that’s where the upsides to the handset, as far as I can see, end.
On the other side of the table is the Bold. It’s surname should be the Beautiful. The handset is by far the best Blackberry to ever hit the market.
The screen outshines (in every sense) the Storm, and in my opinion, the iPhone and any other handset I’ve seen. The battery life is very impressive. The handset has a sturdy, hefty feel without being overly cumbersome.
The back of the handset has a faux leather finish, which adds a nice grip and texture. Aesthetically, the Bold lives up to its title.
The OS and GUI is, again, the best offered by RIM to date. Even the most powerful Blackberrys have been known at time to suffer from lag, but the Bold doesn’t suffer. In fact, it is delightfully responsive.
The keyboard, at least to me, is the most attractive offering of the handset. The keys are large and ergonomically designed to offer the most comfort to those of us that live and die by the feel of a qwerty. As I and many other Blackberry addicts are veritably glued to our keyboard, I can tell you this will sell you on the Bold even if you never powered it up.
All things considered, the Bold is the best Blackberry ever built. The Storm is a good idea badly executed.
One last thought: why on earth is AT&T still winning the best handsets? In my opinion, the best smartphone right now would be the Bold, where the title of best touchscreen still falls to the iPhone. Even Verizon, widely considered to be a much-superior network to AT&T, couldn’t get its paws on the Bold. What is wrong with the world?
Anyway, if you’re looking for a touchscreen handset, I’d still go with the iPhone (or perhaps the G1 if you like your touchscreen and real qwerty), and if you’re looking for a smartphone, I’d go with the Bold, both of which are on AT&T. I’m not recommending you side with the horrible carrier that is AT&T…but maybe we’ll all have to sell out eventually.
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December 30th, 2008
To potential Storm buyers:
I have no noteworthy feelings about smartphones. However, T. Mcintyre’s criticisms of the Storm are not based on facts.
Verizon and the Storm serve me well.
December 30th, 2008
Are you looking for scientific evidence to validate my opinion? We aren’t trying this in a court of law; it’s a personal review of two phones. And I said that Verizon is superior. What exactly is your purpose for defending the Storm?
December 31st, 2008
To offset your virtually melodramatic bias, as an aid to the potential Storm buyer.
If you choose to be reactive to contrary replies, perhaps you should not invite replies.
I rest my case, and will redirect my feedback.
jc
January 1st, 2009
I just returned the storm. Back to my Treo. Once I receive my next verizon bill and receive full credit for the returned phone, I am switching to AT&T so I can get the Bold. I love the Verizon network but hate their phone offerings.
January 21st, 2009
Well, that last comment was a waste of time pal… get a life… your review sucks and after typeing what I thought was a way to explain and justify your comments you bounce it out cause of some spam BS…. take a hike… your site is now blocked on my systems.
March 21st, 2010
Why on earth everyone focuses on the network it rans on, and not the phone itself, i mean, i live in peru, an i use a bold on a claro a peruvian carrier, it’s blazing fast and everything, and this may be the case with other countries