I'm sure all of you have been waiting patiently for the BlackBerry® StormII™ review that we've promised you. Over the past weeks, we've been interviewing the many proud owners of the StormII™ to understand more of what its like to live with on a day-to-day basis. This is what we've compiled.
1) Design
In line with the new design direction taken by RIM, the BlackBerry® StormII™ is a looker. With its sleek, uninterrupted design flow, the StormII™ is lightyears ahead of the original Storm™. One of the most obvious design features are the four buttons on the lower portion of the screen. On the Storm™, they were four individual buttons, which were very common with touchscreen smartphones. Now, those buttons have been integrated into the screen, so they also share the same clicking mechanism as the screen. More on that later. Gone are the little 'feet' on either side of the speaker (which used to be housed on the rear of the phone), leaving the rear of the phone looking smooth & uncluttered (the speaker has been moved to the bottom of the phone). Missing, however, is the model insignia, which we now find on the BoldII™ & the upcoming Stratus/Pearl™ 9100, though that's hardly an issue. Overall, its a stunner, as was its elder brother.
2) New Features
There isn't a lot for this segment, though there are 3 big differences in the StormII™ which we absolutely must highlight. Firstly, is the new & improved SureTouch mechanism for the screen. With the Storm™ , the SureTouch screen felt kind of 'soggy', a bit like the soft-touch keys that you find on the Curve™ 8520 & BoldII™ 9700. On the StormII™, we're happy to report that the screen now floats on four electronically-controlled pressure sensors that give it a much more tactile feel. But it still falls short of the feel of an actual keyboard. Close try, though.
Next on the lineup is Wi-Fi connectivity. No song & dance here, as we were expecting this on the Storm™ but didn't get it. This is now an option available on the StormII™.
Lastly, and most importantly, we now have 2GB onboard memory, in comparison with the original 1GB. This allows for a much faster processing speed, and it also makes room for high-memory applications. A great improvement here.
[ED: We're sorry we don't have an unboxing segment, as our unit didn't come with one]
3) Usability
On the StormII™, we get a breath of fresh air as we now say hello to OS5.0. With that in mind, the StormII™ is a boon to use, with plenty of new features to play with. On a day-to-day basis, we've heard complaints that the 'End' button can sometimes be difficult to press (we eventually experienced that ourselves). Very annoying. The only thing worse than that is when you try to hit the menu button off-centre of the button itself. The StormII™ does this very peculiar thing where the screen will click repeatedly for no apparent reason. Hm.
The media player is as good as the rest of the lineup, with crisp music through the speaker. Mind you, it does provide more bass-tones compared to the Curve™ 8520 or the BoldII™ 9700, which is good. However, the video player didn't recognise a movie we had stored on our 4GB card. We would have loved to watch that on its sharp, clear screen.
In daylight, the StormII™ does well by compensating with the backlighting, there isn't a moment when you can't see the screen (though the beautiful chrome bezel does try to blind you every once in a while). We wish the screen was of higher definition, like the BoldII™, because text & video just lacked that crisp & sharp look we've come to love of the BoldII™.
Texting and emailing is something we've been asked to cover on this test. As you may already know, you have the full keyboard on landscape mode, while you have the option of SureType, multi-tap, and a full QWERTY on portrait mode. In all settings, the StormII™ responded well, with a much improved feel to it. Now that the screen supports multi-touch, so you can hold down 'Shift' to get capitals and so on. It also helps when you type away furiously, as one had to be ever-so-slow with the Storm™.
[ED: Our unit was running on DiGi, so we couldn't test the HSDPA performance. Sorry.]
4) Overall
Our brief period with the StormII™ tied up some loose ends that were associated with the original Storm™. We do have to say that there is some stigma that comes with the Storm™ name, as most associate it with, quote: "Click-screen nonsense" and "Rubbish like a Storm-Drain". The original was rubbish, so we can't blame the reviews.
A note to all carriers, and perhaps to RIM themselves: You have to bump up marketing of this baby, because the name, I'm afraid, says too much.
We rate it: 4/5
[If there are any aspects that we missed out on this review, do tell us @ bbteens.my@gmail.com and we'll update as soon as possible]
Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone
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