Storm brewing......

Brace yourselves, guys! RIM has introduced the much awaited, and arguably the best looking Blackberry so far - the Storm, its 9500 series phone, also known by its code-name, Blackberry Thunder. Among quite a few truly innovative features, its on-screen tactile feedback stands out, being a radical departure from traditional touchscreen operation, and is bound to surprise anyone who lays his hands on this handset. Very impressive indeed, considering that this is the first ever touchscreen facility introduced by RIM. During this very first instance, RIM has changed the touchscreen paradigm by widening the hitherto thin line between navigation and confirmation. Meaning, while in present touch screen phones, you use flicks to navigate a page, and a gentle tap to activate a button/key, on the Storm, the tap is used to "select". To activate a button/key, you need to click the spot !! Yes, you need to press down on the screen, like you would, a button! This concept, originally named "ClickThrough" by RIM, has recently been renamed SurePress, probably in line with their SureType keyboard.

Ok, now with the excitement having reached a crescendo, lets get down to the basics. The Storm measures 112.5 x 62.2 x 14 mm and weighs 155 g. It has 128MB of RAM, and holds 1 GB of storage memory, expandable to 8Gb via a microSD card. The quad band phone can run on GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900 frequencies and is also optimized for 3G networks on HSDPA 2100. However, a rather disappointing aspect is the lack of WiFi !

Design-wise, a Left Side Convenience Key is situated on the left side of the Storm, and also a MicroUB charging port. On the right, you have the Right Side Convenience Key, along with Volume keys, as well as a 3.5mm headset jack. Additionally, the top of the phone, has 2 hidden buttons - a dedicated lock key on the left as well as the mute key on the right which can be held down 2 seconds to enter standby mode. The front of the Storm is obviously, dominated by the huge display that covers almost the whole of its front, above which is the standard ear speaker. Lined below the display are the standard Call receive/end keys, the BB menu key, and an escape key. A 3.2 MP camera is situated at the back of the phone, covered by a lens cover.
An internal accelerometer enables the phone to be used in both portrait and landscape modes. The ability to tilt right or left in order to engage the landscape mode, makes it easy for both right and left handed people to use it with ease. RIM has provided 2 typing options on the keyboard. Landscape opens up a full qwerty keyboard, while you may use the SureType keyboard in portrait position. Either way, typing is a treat. The individual letters are sizeable icons on the display, and the lighting on them when you press the keys are fantastic. However, BB users would take a while to adjust to the new keyboard setup, but once through, fingers would easily play over the phone. Again, a reduction in typing speed is inevitable, due to its SurePress feature, where each letter is a "click", meaning you wait for the screen to rebound before going on to the next letter. Even then, I believe it shouldn't pose much of a problem.

If anyone plans to check out the phone, let me know what you think.............