BlackBerry Storm

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The BlackBerry Storm has a footprint that’s almost the same that as the iPhone (4.43 x 2.45 inches vs. 4.5 x 2.35 inches). It is a fraction of an inch thicker at 0.55 inches versus a bit under half an inch for the iPhone and at 5.5 ounces weighs a bit more. And since Apple decreed that elegant smartphones must be black and silver, RIM followed suit with an attractive body design that’s matte black in the front and brushed metal black in the back. A silvery trim accent separates the front and back.

In terms of specifications, ever since the release of the iPhone, the design goal for everyone else has been to offer a bit more whenever possible. So while the iPhone’s highly touted and razor-sharp 3.5-inch display offers 480 x 320 pixel resolution, RIM trumped that by giving the Storm a 480 x 360 pixel screen. So the resolution is a bit higher and the display a bit sharper yet, especially since the Storm’s display is slightly smaller (3.25 inches diagonally). That’s 184 pixel per inch resolution, beating the iPhone’s 163 dpi (but not the HTC Touch Diamond’s 260 dpi). An ambient light sensor automatically adjusts backlighting. And while touch had fallen from grace with phones prior to Apple’s entry, everyone is now offering touch as well.

The Storm is RIM’s first-ever touch screen device. With RIM being a major player, and one with a long history of innovation, they had to offer something special, and so, according to RIM, the Storm includes “revolutionary touch-screen technology that dramatically enhances the touch interface and enables easy and precise typing. The world’s first “clickable” touch-screen responds much like a physical keyboard and also supports single-touch, multi-touch and gestures for intuitive and efficient application navigation.” Now what does “clickable” mean? Well, in an effort to provide actual tactile feedback, RIM designed the display so that it actually depresses a bit with a “click” when you tap a key or button. The idea is to confirm that a keyboard tap has, in fact, registered. RIM says there is also support for multi-touches, taps, slides and other touch-screen gestures for easy highlighting, scrolling, panning and zooming.

With the resolution of digital camera imagers ever increasing, it is no surprise that the Storm tops the iPhone in this area as well. You get 3.2 megapixel versus 2.0 megapixel resolution, auto flash and video recording. Resolution, especially in camera phones, isn’t everything, so we’ll reserve judgement until we’ve had a chance to see actual pictures taken with the Storm.

As for the rest of the tech specs, the Storm comes with 128MB of RAM and a gigabyte of built-in memory. That’s only a small fraction of the iPhone’s 8 and 16GB, but the Storm has a microSD card slot (for up to 16GB cards) underneath the battery whereas the iPhone is a closed system. Like most new smartphones, the Storm has built-in GPS. A powerful 528MHz processor moves things along smartly and the Storm comes with the latest 4.7 version of the BlackBerry OS. There’s also — surprise — an accelerometer so that, like the iPhone, the Storm knows what position it is held in and can easily and automatically switch screen orientation. A removable and rechargeable 1,400mAH battery gets about six hours of talk time and a couple of weeks worth of standby.

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