BlackBerry Storm 9530
Phone Scoop Review
Nov 20, 2008 by Eric M. Zeman
RIM's first touch-screen BlackBerry finally hits the market. Find out if RIM's Storm lives up to the hype. read review ›
User Reviews
Average Ratings
nice blackberry
what a difference .75 makes cant wait for more updates.Takes a little getting used to but after that it`s a piece of cake.yea its a little buggy but rim is working on it.
so far i like this
ok so there are a lot of people bashing this phone and saying oh this is not the Iphone and oh its buggy and all this stuff. i have been tracking this phone for quite some time. I think RIM was successful in what they set out to do, they produced a cutting edge product that makes business/internet/email a breeze oh yea and its a smartphone that is actually a works great as phone. ok so yea it lags a bit and definatly has room for improvement i think the first update that RIM puts out will correct that. from what i understand...for those that think this should not be...that the reason that there is a shortage as well as the bugs is because the final version of the software had a security issue, so they had to go back and reupload the old version onto the phones. I am hopeful that in a week or two this phone will be awesome. the screen is so bright and crisp, the speaker for music and all else is awesome. first blackberry, but i have had other smart phones and this is by far the best one. stay on the up and up and definately go get one!
great phone
just upgraded to 4.7.0.83 which is leaked and its even better!!! great job. PS I hated the phone when I first got it with .65 and .75 was improved now is great!
The bad news 1st...
Pros: call quality, media options, messaging options, the display is gorgeous.
Cons: No screen calibration option, Camera's auto focus takes way too long, camera sometimes crashes phone, software seems to lag.
version 4.7.0.65
I like to get the bad news 1st. I find myself always looking at the worst reviews 1st to get a general idea of what the problems are. That said there are a couple of issues that I have with this phone, and they all have to do with its software.
For starters let's tackle the biggest problem. The camera for some unknown reason will activate automatically and then freeze the phone. I actually had to remove the battery to reboot. This problem has occurred twice. The next issue is the camera's autofocus. The autofocus on the camera takes entirely too long to focus on a picture. I find myself missing the shot due to the time it takes to focus. And last but not least, the software overall seems to lag. These are software issues that hopefully be addressed in the next os update.
Now onto what I like about this phone. The call quality is immaculate. The speaker phone is loud. The virtual keyboards take some adjusting to but, overall very serviceable. The media options on this phone are great. Movies play in Mpeg-4 format. The media player is slick and so much better than the vcast music player. Which by the way is garbage. The fact that the vcast interface is no where to be found on this device deserves at least 2 stars. Coming from a LG Voyager I a m overall delighted with the phone. I had a curve but it just did not seem to do it for me. The learning curve to this phone is smaller than i thought.
For those on the fence about this phone let me leave you with some advice.
1. Be honest with yourself touchscreens are not for everybody.
2. The iphone is iconic. It revolutionized the American cellular market. If you want an iphone go to AT&T. This phone is not an iphone clone.
Its Rocking Now
This phone got off to a rocky start and if you picked it up early and reviewed it then as low I can definitely understand. After the most recent software update almost all the issues were addressed. Go Get It
Pros
BB Email As Always Cannot Be Touched
Sure Press (Click) is Dead ON Accurate (now)
Battery Life
Media Players and Screen are Stunning
8 GB of Memory
Browser is Great
Great Camera
Smooth Scrolling Very Smooth
Cons
Camera still needs a little tweaking as it locks up the phone a little
"Almost" all Lag is fixed but still a little
A Little Heavy -- I dont Mind
Fantastic device, but not for everyone!!!
Thats right, not for everyone.
This is a powerful phone, but Blackberrys from day 1 made business oriented phones.
Think of this as a phone that you don't have to put away when you go home from work. Cameras, video cameras, music players...it's all here
Don't get this phone if:
-you typing 1000 emails or texts a day-would be better off with a physical keyboard.
-you have little patience for learning a complex piece of equipment (lag issues can be fixed by changing a few settings guys)
-You just want the next "wow" or "cool" phone and won't use 1/2 the stuff.
-You are comparing this phone to the LG Dare and don't know which one to get? Come on people, you should be comparing smartphones to smartphones and regular phones w/touchscreens to regular phones w/touch screens.
Pros:
-Solid good quality phone construction. No creaks or flimsiness. Materials are top notch
-Perfect size
-endless amount of settings to tweek to get the phone the way you want it.
-gets email before my desktop does
-bluetooth works well with this phone
-Wow! what a screen! Very clear, high pixel density
-no more tiny button keyboards
-Large phone dial pad screen
-BB desktop software made it easy to transfer contacts from my Palm Treo
-You can travel overseas with a VZW phone and use it?
Cons:
-Complex OS. Those that have had BB's will already be familiar with it though
-Accelerometer needs work (not sure if this a software of hardware issue)
-Lengthly learning curve. You will be spending hours and hours getting used to it. You will be discovering new things weeks after getting it. prior BB users will pick this phone up easier than non.
-No support at this time for Mac syncing. Pocketmac & others are still working on support
Last word:
My Storm out of the box was fine and not annoyingly buggy.
If you have to have any phone the 1st day of it's release, expect issues. If you can't handle issues, wait and stop whining. Don't compare to the iphone either. they have different missions.
RIM always delivers
This phone is awesome
PROS:
Hardware is gorgeous
Solid heavy feel
Great camera/video
Beautiful near HD quality display
Web Browser is full HTML and renders pages very well
the email is full HTML and BlackBerry fast
its a blackberry
plays music and videos no problem
very customizable
9gb of memory right out of the box, not bad
EVDO rev A speeds are blazing fast on the network
Call quality is amazing
Cons:
none really, the software is at times a touch slow but RIM has said they are coming out with a new software version in a week or two that speeds it up dramatically, and its not that slow anyways.
****I hope the I-phone includes there yellow ducky rain boots 4 this storm!!!****
Pros=
-very vivid screen resolution
-the sure type is a plus
-the camera on this thing is crazy
-battery life is great
-internet is very fast
-nice and loud
-very easy to find applications
-and just everything u could ask for in a phone!
Cons=
-NADA...the phones PERFECT!!! :-)
P.S. if you don't have this phone you need to get one A.S.A.P.
~My Verizon store opened an hour early selling 20 Storms...sold out in 10 min.~
PRETTY GOOD PHONE..
Being an avid fan and user of the blackberry products (Ive had the pearl, the 8830 world previously), I pretty much enjoy using the new Storm. Its touch screen is pretty decent. the 3rd party apps are great. i never lose calls. i do have a few issues with it though. it will freeze quite often, youtube app is on and off and the clarity is okay sometimes. the worst part is the camera. who thought to put such a terrible camera on a great phone? come on blackberry. lol. all in all though it is pretty good for blackberrys first touch screen. i look forward to seeing what the future holds for bberry.
Great phone
Pros:
Smooth operation, user friendly, potential of UI is barely being utilized, takes great pictures, e-mail is flawless, looks great, GPS extremely accurate, good signal (Verizon in Tennessee) and sound quality, media quality unsurpassed
Cons: Verizon needs to update the software. There hasn't been an official update since December.
However there have been several leaked OS's since .75. I am currently running 4.7.0.122. Comparing this to 4.7.0.075 is like comparing night and day.
