Blackberry Storm is out 11/20!

[Zamtuk]

http://estore.vzwshop.com/storm/

This is going to be my next phone starting next Friday. I have been waiting for a year to get a new phone, but I wanted something really kickass. Which for Verizon users, means you have to wait a year after AT&T gets it. So when the Curve came out and I went to get it, my buddy who works at Verizon told me to hold out for this, and all the stuff I've read on it, I'm glad I did. The touchscreen is made from some sort of patented gel that feels like a button when you press on it. And it comes with an 8GB chip plus the 1GB already loaded on the phone, and it sychs up with iTunes. With the price of 199.99 this will be the buy of the season.

[lmnt9]

I wanted this until I found out that it doesn't have WiFi.

[Zamtuk]

Why would you need WiFi when you have to buy a data plan for it anyways? The point of buying a Blackberry is email and internet usage, and since at Verizon you have to purchase a $30 unlimited data plan, WiFi would have been utterly useless.

[Winnow]

It has cut and paste. That's something the iPhone can't do because Apple sucks and love to do stupid things like keep one button mice around for about a decade too long.

[*~*stragi*~*]

i wish i had it but fuck 30 dollars for a data plan yo. if i could just have unlimted txt and unlimited data and maybe 100 minutes for a reasonable price i'd jump on it. i used 27 minutes of my 400 last month so i'm paying for nothing.

[Spang]

450 minutes of talk and unlimited everything else is just $69.99 a month with Sprint.

[Zamtuk]

Too bad Sprint is tanking.

[Siji]

Fuck Sprint. Fuck them right up the ass. Twice! Worst provider ever.

[Kluden]

If sprint had this phone, and SERO was still possible with it...that would be a gold mine...even with their service, the price would make it bearable.

[lmnt9]

Why would you need WiFi when you have to buy a data plan for it anyways? The point of buying a Blackberry is email and internet usage, and since at Verizon you have to purchase a $30 unlimited data plan, WiFi would have been utterly useless.

Um I dunno... so you can access email and internet at 11/54Mbps?? I'm not sure how anyone could possible say that is utterly useless.

[Aslanna]

450 minutes of talk and unlimited everything else is just $69.99 a month with Sprint.

$70 a month! You people and your fancy technology...

[Spang]

I don't even have a cell phone.

[Aardor]

Why would you need WiFi when you have to buy a data plan for it anyways? The point of buying a Blackberry is email and internet usage, and since at Verizon you have to purchase a $30 unlimited data plan, WiFi would have been utterly useless.

Wifi is almost always a great deal faster than any of the wireless networks (be it from verizon, ATT, sprint, etc). It saves time and frustration when accessing a webpage, or downloading a big file attachment.

Also, generally on wifi enabled phones (and definitely with the Blackberry Curve and all Blackberries from T-mobile), you can use WiFi to make an receive calls. This is very nice for some people, such as me. I get at most 1 bar of service at my desk at work, but we have a t1 hooked up to a wireless network. Since I got the Curve, I have been using the wifi to make/receive calls every day. I would also say that the connection sounds better over Wifi vs cell network, and it is more consistent.

Another use for wifi is to transfer files to and from your Blackberry, which is faster than the cell network, but slower than the USB cable.

[Zamtuk]

By the way, this phone sucks really big balls. I have since returned it and picked up a much more superior Blackberry Curve. The accelerometer is faulty at best (the best solution when turning it into landscape mode is shaking the piss out of it). And since you have to click on the screen to select a button, it makes typing and what not very slow. Other than that, it is a pretty sweet phone, but those are two big issues with me.

[Fash]

A category 5 hurricane of fail. Unless you have super fat fingers, use one of those phones for the elderly with the huge buttons, or desire to interact with a phone at the speed of a snail... this phone is not for you. It's a one-trick pony with the click screen, and the tv commercials made it look incredible.

I am so amazed every time I stop at the Verizon booth in the mall to play with this phone just how terrible it is. It's not intuitive, the click screen blows and has 0 accuracy (especially in the web browser,) and it's slow as balls.

[valryte]

Yeah the Storm is horrible. I waited for it to come out before getting a new phone. I ended up getting an iPhone. I'm so glad I did. I'm loving it.

[Boogahz]

I heard a salesman mention last weekend that many of the "bugs" were fixed in some kind of patch for the software that was pushed out. I don't know that they were the same issues y'all saw though.

[Winnow]

Yeah the Storm is horrible. I waited for it to come out before getting a new phone. I ended up getting an iPhone. I'm so glad I did. I'm loving it.

iPhone is so much better than the rest of the competition. I love that thing. It's usability is off the charts and the flood of new free Apps available each day at the iTunes store that you can download on the fly wherever you keep coming.

The only thing that sucks on it is the keypad. Turning off autocorrect helps a lot though.

Rumors of an iPhone Nano are circulating. I wouldn't want a smaller screen but am curious as to what it will look like.

[Drolgin Steingrinder]

There's a pretty good review of a few recent smartphones here: http://www.stephenfry.com/blog/2008/12/ ... %E2%80%A6/

[Truant]

I Stephen Fry

[Winnow]

There's a pretty good review of a few recent smartphones here: http://www.stephenfry.com/blog/2008/12/ ... %E2%80%A6/

From that article, the writer has some good suggestions for the next iPhone or software update:

1. Cut and paste. I mean come on!!
2. iPhone version of Safari to be Flash capable.
3. Video recording: iPhone should be like a Flip
4. Upgrade of camera (xenon flash, higher res)
5. Front facing video camera for 3G video calls
6. MMS
7. User file management capabilities
8. Bluetooth that is worthy of the name. File transfers between different phones and platforms is a minimum requirement.
9. A memory card slot.
10. AM/FM radio. (Mobile TV too, why not?)
11. Better (and removable) battery.
12. Built in projector (this prolly won’t come till V4, but you never know)
13. Customisable glossary for Apple’s predictive text input system. BlackBerry has a superb autotext that allows BB units still to outperform iPhone when it comes to input.
14. Email to be widescreen capable.
15. Attachable proprietary or third party peripherals: keyboard, projector (if not built in see wish 12), printer etc. Maybe not necessary if iPhone implementation of Bluetooth gets the kick up the arse it needs.

1. Don't care much about cut and paste.
2. Flash would be nice but haven't' noticed being hindered by the lack of it yet.
3. No reason why iPhone can't be a basic camcorder. It needs to be added.
4. Camera resolution should definitely be improved. It's great for sending a quick pic to someone but quality is bad for anything else
5. Video calls would be cool. I wouldn't use but still cool.
6. I suppose MMS would be nice. I use Yahoo Chat mostly atm though and you can use any of the major IM apps.
7. File management would be nice but not big deal to me.
8. Stereo Bluetooth would rock but I guess it takes too much juice. I'd love to have it though. Hate wires.
9. Memory card slot would be nice.
10. I'm finally over my AM addiction. Would be nice but not critical. (can actually get ton of national AM and FM stations using AOL Radio for free on iPhone)
11. Better battery always a plus. I can make it through the day with pretty heavy use of the screen but it's borderline and low battery when I get home. Still pretty impressive for video and still get 30+ hours for audio.
12. Built in projector...can you say...Microvision! My path to riches. It will happen, just a matter of when.
13. Apples's predictive text sucks ass. Even if improved, I'd probably keep turned off.
14. Wide screen email makes sense.

[Spankes]

I have the iphone and love it as well. There are a few things that irritate me such as no landscape keyboard for texting and no picture messages and shit like that but I can get over it. It is my understanding that it is AT&T that is being bandwith nazis about text and video and whatnot and that is why the features are not implimented. I am pretty sure every network limitation and minor irration is fixable on a jailbroken iphone, but mine isn't jailbroken so I dunno if that is really true.

[valryte]

iPhone version of Safari to be Flash capable.

The iPhone will never have Flash or anything like Flash. It's all about the $$$.

[Bagar-]

There are a few things that irritate me such as no landscape keyboard for texting

This is my biggest - and one of my only - issues with the iPhone. How fucking hard would it be to let the fucker go into landscape mode while texting? The keyboard is a fucking million times better that way.

Otherwise, no complaints here.