Over the years, I've used a large assortment of different handphones, from Motorola (which was quite famous waaaay back then), Nokia (the company that literally put a handphone in every household), Sony Ericsson, and of course, BlackBerry.
There are plenty of real, professional reviews of this phone on the Net. What I'm writing here is my personal experience and opinions.
The Screen
Now, the typical BlackBerry signature appearance is the rather squarish outlook, with the tiny QWERTY keyboard occupying the lower half of the phone. A design that was also featured by Nokia in their E-series phones. The Storm 2 breaks away from the mold by offering a unique 360 x 480 pixels, 3.25 inch capacitive touch screen, which functions as a large button itself (more on this later).
The front portion of the phone is completely void of any buttons, so operating the phone relies exclusively on the touch screen interface. Being a capacitive touch screen, it doesn't work with a stylus, so you have to use your finger. I have a general peeve regarding capacitive touch screen devices in general, be it a GPS, mobile phone (such as an iPhone) or a tablet (like an iPad) - they all quickly tend to get smudged with more fingerprints than an entire season of CSI!
The touch screen of the Storm 2 is unique, in the sense that to select something, you have to put your finger over the right portion of the screen and actually "press" the screen down to "click" on something. In the case of the onscreen keyboard, the key that the phone thinks your finger is over will light up, reducing the chance of pressing the wrong key.
This works well on a tablet with large screen, but on a handphone, especially when in full QWERTY keyboard mode, it's quite hard to see which key is being highlighted (especially if you have a large hand / fingers like me! There's the Suretype keyboard, which effectively combines two keys into a single button but frequently, words I use are not part of the built-in dictionary (either they are technical terms like "optotriac" or words in Bahasa Malaysia). Typing in landscape mode with full QWERTY keyboard is slow but manageable for short messages (like SMS).
As to your fingers, the entire screen is one smooth surface, there is no way to type reliably on the phone without looking at it, therefore you cannot type while... walking, for instance (of course, SMS-ing while driving is illegal, so I'm not going to use that as an example).
Due to the need to click-press the screen each key, typing is quite slow. I originally intended to write this entire post using my Storm 2, but after the 2nd paragraph, I'm falling back to my laptop. Creativity and flow are severely hampered by the speed of typing on the Storm 2 - by the time the first sentence is completed, some of the ideas and momentum are already lost.
This holds true for other devices as well, even though, typing on a large screen tablet like the 9.7" IPad or the 10.1" Galaxy Tab would be less cumbersome than typing on the handphone with a screen slightly larger than 3 inches across the diagonal.
The OS
I'm currently on Blackberry OS version 5.0.0.497 (so many decimals, my Maths teacher would surely cringe at this). This is the latest version of the OS at this time, using the official Blackberry Desktop Manager software. As far at Net feedback is concerned, it looks like this is as far as the Storm 2 will go. Though Blackberry OS 6 has been out for some time now, it appears that there are no plans to make this OS update available for the Storm 2. In fact, if what I read is true, it's not even possible due to hardware limitations (limited on-board memory).
Well, so much for being able to upgrade via software. The inability to keep up with current developments is a severe let down. Looks like the design team lacks some long term vision here - what were they thinking?
Of course, there are "hybrid OS" versions out there, that I have not attempted to tinker with yet. There's the risk of turning my Storm 2 into an expensive paper weight (or "brick" being the commonly used term). The again, what is life without adventure...? :)
Web Browser
The Storm 2 has it's own web browser that is has some compatibility problem with the current web standards. How bad? Well, with a score of only 26/100 on the Acid3 test (
http://acid3.acidtests.org/), the Storm 2's browser is only good for the most basic of websites with simple HTML coding.
Connectivity
Not entirely the Storm 2's fault, but plain unfortunate, due to the telecom operator's practice. My Nokia E75 sets up different access points to the Internet. I have my home WIFI set up as an access point, and the phone is configured to use that particular access point to connect to the internet. My Storm 2, on the other hand, doesn't seem to have specific control over it internet connections. There's only one general setting for "Data services" which you can only set to either ON or OFF. When it's OFF, even though I'm connected to my WIFI router, the phone CANNOT connect to the internet. I have to turn the "Data services" setting to ON. Here's where it gets complicated. When set to ON, the phone can either make use of the WIFI connection or opt to use the carrier's (expensive) data services (2G/3G). Now, by default, I never applied for activation of the carrier's data services. However, for whatever reason that you are free to speculate, the telecom carriers here have made it very easy for anyone to activate and use the 2G/3G services on their phones. Just by attempting to connect to the internet, the carrier will send over the appropriate configurations over the air and in an instant, your phone can now connect to the internet. Using their expensive data plan. You will have to write to them NOT to do this, otherwise it all happens automatically. Thus, using the WIFI connection on my Storm 2 to access the internet requires me to first disable the mobile network, activate WIFI and switch "Data services" to ON, before the web browser can work. Once done, I have to turn "Data services" to OFF, deactivate WIFI and finally reactivate the mobile network before I can make calls / SMS once again. A lapse in compliance to this procedure resulted in a hefty phone bill one month of RM200, when my phone "took the initiative" to use the carrier's data services over my WIFI when the WIFI connection was lost. Sigh, getting caught by a simple mistake, almost feels like falling for the 4 step checkmate when playing Chess....
I shall not mention which telecom carrier gave me this bad experience, anyway I believe all of them are the same. If you must know, let's just say the telecom carrier shares the same name with the developer of "Simcity". :)
By the way, I'm not using an special Blackberry plans with my Storm 2, so effectively, it's a standard handphone with WIFI access. Due to the nature of my life (or lack thereof), I'm either at work (where there's no time to use my Storm 2 for non-work-related things) or at home (where I already have a WIFI router), neither of which justifies the additional monthly overhead for a separate Blackberry mobile data plan.
Closing Remarks
Well, so much for my first Blackberry. I'm a technical person, so I like to tinker with my stuff. Keeping the software and firmware updated on my gadgets is something I look forward to doing, and not shunned like the plague. Embedded systems like GPS and handphones are basically fixed from hardware perspective, unlike desktop PC's. Therefore the software that they run on, and that run in them, are essentially their "life blood" that keeps them functional in this world of ever-frequent releases of new products. Sometimes, I wonder if it is an intentional move by the equipment manufacturer to cease software support after a brief period to "encourage" it's end users to change their equipment (to make more money, even though the old stuff still works fine).
Who knows what to expect from Blackberry, whose logo somehow bears a passing resemblance to a silhouette of 7 tombstones (turn it 90 degrees counter-clockwise)....
From this experience, I'm reluctant to continue to stick to the Blackberry brand after my Storm 2 finally goes to that big recycle bin in the sky. Don't know what my next phone will be. Nokia is the de facto standard in consumer mobile phones, so it's always a safe bet, though I might evaluate on something new from Korean manufacturers or even one named after a doctor-repelling fruit next...! :)
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