BlackBerry Storm2 preview

The BlackBerry Storm was RIM's most successful device, selling one handset every 13 seconds over the Christmas period, but now the Canadian manufacturer has slipped out the second version and there are huge improvements.

Screen
Probably the most irritating point about the original Storm was the moving SureType screen. Whenever you typed, it would shuffle around to make typing a laborious process. Now that has been fixed on the Storm 2's 3.25-inch capacitive touchscreen and we are very impressed by its responsiveness. It's a shame that the handset sticks to a relatively low-resolution 360x480 pixel display, but it's crisp and right nonetheless.

The Storm2 features multitouch, so you can use the shift button and type a letter or symbol at the same time when typing, just as you would on a computer keyboard.

Feedback is clear, as every tap responds with a click, rather than haptic feedback as many touchscreen devices favour these days.

Scrolling has also been improved; it's now an almost-iPhone like experience, with a single finger doing the job smoothly, whether you're in the menu, email, or any other applications for that matter.

Like the previous Storm, there's an accelerometer onboard that automatically adjusts the screen orientation depending whether you're in landscape or portrait mode. If you turn from portrait to landscape, the main menu will appear in an icon format.

Applications
As you'd expect, the latest version of App World comes preloaded on the Storm 2, putting hundreds of apps at your fingertips. Navigation through the interface is simple, although we hope there'll be a full collection of apps to choose from at launch.

As the Storm 2 is available exclusively on Vodafone, we can expect Vodafone's own app store, plus the network's Music Store on the device. Other apps we can expect to see include Facebook, MySpace and IM clients such as Windows Live Messenger, Yahoo Messenger and Google Messenger. Our test device didn't include the full suite of preinstalled apps, but we were assured by the product manager that some would come loaded.

Hardware build
The major difference between the Storm and the Storm 2 is that RIM has done away with the hardware keys below the screen. These have been integrated into the touchscreen and can be operated in the same way as the touchscreen, clicking each one to answer a call, end a call, bring up a menu return to the previous screen. Press down the BlackBerry icon to bring up a menu of open apps and switch between them.

The 3.5mm earphone jack sits flush with the the main body of the Storm 2, so you can use any earphones, unlike on the prevous Storm which had a recessed jack - very irritating if you wanted to use some earphones that didn't fit into the recess.

There's a camera button on the top edge which triggers the camera and allows you to take a snap quickly. It's a much more effective way of taking a landscape shot rather than using the onscreen trigger key.

Memory
Memory has been doubled on the Storm 2 - there's now 256MB worth of flash memory and 2GB internal memory for apps, pictures, videos and anything else you want to add. Under the back plate, there's a microSD card slot that supports cards up to 32GB. We wish all manufacturers would add a microSD card into the side for easy swapping of memory cards, but at least there is one, unlike on the iPhone.

We had no problems zooming along when we tested the device - multitasking flowed and we didn't have to wait for any apps to load or operate effectively - even the camera was speedy to take snaps and save them to the memory.

Multimedia
As you'd expect, the Storm 2 includes a music player and it's pretty impressive. A new feature has ben added that allows you to press and hold a particular track and the device will filter all music so that all tracks from that particular artist will appear.

Cover art comes as standard, and the volume is pretty loud, although slightly distorted using the speaker turned up to full volume.

In terms of a camera, 3.2-megapixels is still a little behind the times, but it does create top photos compared to others taken on a BlackBerry. There's nothing like touch focus, but there are a whole host of options for you to choose from when you've taken the photo, plus a more powerful flash. You can easily share your favourite snaps across email, text, Bluetooth, Facebook, IM and any other app you've installed onto your device using the share option in the menu.

The crisper, more vibrant screen displays videos wonderfully, and that bolstered memory ensures they display smoothly, although the low-resolution is still a little irritating when it comes to pixelation - this is something only the most pernickety will notice, but when you compare it to the iPhone, it becomes more obvious.

<< Previous 2 Next>>