BlackBerry Storm 9500 review

RIM used to be known as a maker of mobile email devices for the besuited professional. But the company has had its eye on consumers for some while, and the Vodafone exclusive 9500 Storm is its latest – and most daring - attempt to capture the hearts of both professional and consumer at the same time. Part of the strategy is an entirely new touch screen system which could rival the iPhone’s. Or maybe not.

It is the touchscreen which will be the key to the 9500 Storm’s success or failure. The 9500 Storm is, as is the modern trend, is almost all front screen. The screen measures 3.25-inches across diagonal corners and delivers a 480x360 pixel resolution. It is sharp, bright and clear. Underneath the display are Call and End keys and the familiar BlackBerry menu and escape keys. Above it, built into the top bevel of the casing are touch sensitive mute and lock keys.

The screen responds to finger touches and you can sweep and swipe around in various applications. But in most cases to actually select something you need to press. When you do this the entire screen is pressed in. The feel under our fingers was unusual but not unpleasant. It was very responsive once we got the hang of it. We certainly always knew when we had pressed something.

But it is slow in comparison to other systems. The speed isn’t any kind of an issue when you are making a single menu selection, but if you want to do a lot of stabs in quick succession, by which we basically mean if you want to type, it is a pain.

There is an accelerometer and when you twist the 9500 Storm into wide format in your hand you get a full Qwerty keyboard for writing emails, SMS and suchlike. In tall format you get a SureType-style keyboard. The trouble is, every keypress on either keyboard type you have to wait for the screen to go down and come up again. Speedsters are going to get increasingly impatient.

There's a gap between the screen edge and the casing. In fact we could jiggle the screen around a bit if we pushed a fingernail into the gap. We aren’t sure it will take the knocks, though presumably RIM has carried out quality testing on that point.

This is a 3G device which is just as it should be. But there is no Wi-Fi which is a crying shame. We just don’t get that. Did Vodafone veto the idea of including Wi-Fi? If they did they may well have turned a fair few people off the 9500 Storm completely.

GPS is built in and BlackBerry Maps, Google Maps and Vodafone’s Find&Go are all pre installed. And on the topic of software there is a lot for the funsters here; Facebook, Flickr and YouTube for example.

RIM has done a great job bringing its user interface up to date. The styling we first saw in the Bold is back and this means big application icons and a clear, funky design. On the main screen there are two rows of four icons, on the menu screen this grows to four rows of four, and you can sweep with a finger to see more icons. Tap one to open an application folder of apps.

The 3.2-megapixel camera shoots video as well as stills. You can assign one of the two side-mounted ‘convenience keys’ to launching it if you like, though to actually take photos you press an on screen icon. We found the camera was a little slow to shoot after we’d pressed. The GPS can also be used to geotag your photos. There is no front camera for video calling, although that's no drag.

Music fans will be pleasantly surprised with a 3.5mm headset jack which means they can use their own preferred headphones, but won’t be so happy about the fact that it is on the right edge rather than the top. This simply makes for awkward pocket ergonomics. The 1GB of built in memory and a microSD card slot for adding more are also welcome.

One neat tweak is the bedside mode. If you set up a wake-up alarm the 9500 Storm will switch everything off except its clock and alarm so there’s no chance of an SMS waking you at 3am

The BlackBerry 9500 Storm looks great both in terms of hardware design and user interface. It has plenty of software on board and it’ll collect corporate and POP email with the usual RIM ease.

The absence of Wi-Fi is a real disappointment, though, and we reckon that you should try the device out before buying just to make sure you can live with the depressing screen.