RIM's BlackBerry Storm -- how would you change it?
By Darren Murph 
posted Feb 13th 2009 9:11PM
posted Feb 13th 2009 9:11PM
posted Feb 13th 2009 9:11PM
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I'd remove the click. I like that they used a capacitive screen, which they REALLY need to do on all touchscreen phones (and they don't). The click ruins it. It's OK in menus and all that, but when it comes to typing it gets very annoying very fast. I'd also give the interface smoother animations. This gave the iPhone's OS the appearance of being very well made (and in my opinion, it was), and would certainly help the Storm out while appealing to people who are wowed by appearance.
Get rid of that stupid "click" screen, or at least give the ability to type without having to "click" it!
This is easy. Gut it. Replace the insides with the Bold's. Get rid of "surepress" and ADD A TRACKBALL.
It already is basically a CDMA Bold, it just doesn't have WiFi. That and the fact that it has the weird ass touchscreen instead of a keyboard and trackball.
I'd take the old side scrolling thing over any type of navigating system the blackberry has.
I wish they would have given it WiFi and a Qwerty-board or a capacitive touchscreen. Basically, I wish they would have gone either the Bold route or the iPhone route.
I hope that Verizon gets a version of the 9330 soon. I'd even be happy with an 8930, I just don't want to have to deal with the Storm. My dad has one, he loves it, but I think it is mediocre.
It HAS a capacitive touchscreen already.
Better build quality, add wifi, make sure click (or whatever its called) an option in the settings menu. I think those few changes would make a world of difference. The software is better so I wont knock it.
They should have included a trackball. RIM let the iPhone get to their head and went away from what they do best.
I'd probably change the "How would you change it" From Engadget to engadget mobile since you know its a mobile device, but I've raised this arguement plenty of times. As I'm sure chris can attest to. I'm not sure about AT&T Sprint, Tmo, or whoever but VZW definately locks down all versions of engadget except mobile :P
evil employer!
you took one of the corporate world's most revered business communicators and managed to remove everything that was so good about it all in the hope of chasing down the leftovers of a consumer oriented device.
good job, RIM. you've managed to create a tangible version of the G.W. Bush presidency.
for those too dense, im of course referring to the lack of keyboard and use of that "sureclick" abomination. Blackberrys are revered for their keyboards, second only to their push email.
a Blackberry without a keyboard is just another iPhone wannabe. and as great as RIM's devices are, that's just sad to see them choose to follow instead of lead.
RIM would be stupid not to create an iPhone like device. The people that want and need a true qwerty keyboard have plenty of options in the blackberry world. Why not also capitalize on all the people that would like a touch screen phone but at the same time want a blackberry? Its smart to have different options. Different people have different needs. The more options the more money you make
Honestly to answer the question before I get started, I'm a long time Mac user and a long time BlackBerry exclusively user for my hand held. One thing we can all agree on both, is BlackBerry and Apple are great at producing both hardware and software solutions to their respected target markets. The iPhone is great, but people have to wonder, is it another tool to convince Windows users at the end of the day to switch? It's the worst OS X I've ever used, and with such limitations and horrible "lite" versions of the similar applications we are all accustomed to already on the mac. EX: Mail should have a unified inbox, Apple could have broken barriers by allowing text editing of fonts, colors, style, Safari is the best there is on mobile browsing (no complaints there), but the data consumption and network hogging makes me wonder if Apple ever truly considered the cellular network and technology.
Anyways onto my BlackBerry modifications.
- Copy and Paste: While it can be done, I wonder if they could make a "cursor mode" version for that, where you could see two ends of the cursor, and be more precise when selecting text. Like in the web-browser, how the cursor will sit off centers and above your selection point to act more mouse like.
- Multi-Touch: Apple claims to own this. But like Push technology being ripped off from RIM, they need to in return implement a better gesturing user interface for managing photos, attachments, web.
- User Interface: This isn't a big deal for me. I like it, it's familiar. I'd like to see better themes with more nicer icons later. I wish they would have a better guideline for developers to make proper resolution icons so everything looks great.
- Text Styling: If Apple won't do it, RIM please be the first to do so. You already allow us to choose fonts for system settings, apply this into your mail.
- SurePress: It's amazing, it's a new method to an old-school process. People, we have dumphones that simulate a touch with a vibrate, that's stupid. SurePress feels great, and I love it, I'd like to see just a slightly better build quality to the phone so light doesn't bleed through and makes the front end look like one solid piece. I'm sure there are materials like a light black membrane they could have had sandwiched so no light escapes the screen edges or near the bottom row of keys, and it may double act as protection from dust building up in the creases.
- Browser: okay, wtf RIM. Beautiful screen. Beautiful phone. Just scrap the browser and start from scratch, this thing screams shitty browser from 4 years ago, stop adding more features and make it render things better. Look at Opera, they have used the same proxy server method for rendering pages and throwing them to the phone, as you would use for Push in BIS.
- I don't care much for wifi, but on board memory is a must. Put more memory in the phone to handle a bigger OS, don't bloat, but don't try to make it so efficient that it feels like we're using a barebones Linux machine.
- Fix the damn sensitivity to the screen rotations.
- Make the user interface more touch friendly and inviting, some things when filling in contacts or what not, feel like the old blackberry's but you have more real-estate on the screen now. Use it.
- Scrolling: When I swipe fast, I want it to go fast.
Thats all for now. Not unreasonable to think they couldn't do this with in the year.
At the end of the day though, I hear what everyone's saying about Berry being known for the keyboard. But that's what is so unique about the storm. Not the lack of it, but the SurePress. It's very good, I also like Suretype a lot better now. I still have a much easier time typing faster on my Storm than I ever could with the iPhone.
One last thing that reminded me of, but not related. Memory leaks, I should have to clear an event log, turn on memory cleaning, or anything else to make my phone work normally. Figure this out and make it just work.
Put the trackball in between the blackberry/menu key and the escape/back key like all the other Blackberries. You shouldn't be required to use it for navigation but it would be nice have it so that you could use it to position the cursor in the middle of some text or for selecting text to copy/paste. Using your finger for these operations is very inaccurate and therefore very difficult.
Make it stop crashing/rebooting 4-8 times a day.
The call log screen is horrible to read. The curve call log is the model that should be used here.
Well I don't personally own one but my buddy does. If I had to request a change I would do away with the Click mechanism. Secondly I would add RAM atleast to be on par with the G1 and add WI-FI... I'm not sure why a high end device like this didn't come with it. But thats just me.. By no means is the lack of WiFi a deal breaker but an added bonus I would gladly accept. If this phone would have fit this description I would probably own one... But not on verizon I'm not to fond of them in my area. Lastly when scrolling through web pages or contact lists the storm doesn't support some form of acceleration/momentum like the G1 or iphone which makes it continue to scroll depending on the speed of your swipe and eventually come to a hault as opposed to having to swipe you finger several times before getting to what you were looking for...All in all I thought it was a great attempt and sexy device... just fell short in certain aspects.
PS(and no, I don't have an i-phone and am not an apple fanboy)
Make it available on GSM networks so that ppl on ATT and TMO dont have to pay for it so much. I would hate paying 500 for it. I mean lets see. Its nothing that would make it better but would definitely boost up the sale.
I honestly love the sure press screen. As a long time user of touch screen phones i love the feel of the clicking. Haptic feedback just doesnt cut it. I have had two verizon phones with wi-fi and between the four years that i owned them i used the wifi only twice, and even then it was only to test if it was working, so its not even an issue on the storm for me. Screen transitions could be faster, i guess overall i just want more processor and more ram but as it goes i love the device. If verizon ever gets a version of the touch HD then i will probably switch but until then i will be holding on to this one.
First, I'd add a dirty, broken hockey mask to the picture in this article.
I have had mine for a little over a month now, and I'm mostly pleased with it. I can definitely see where people criticize it and it definitely has room for improvement. That said I definitely wouldn't want to see the click-screen taken out of the phone. I know that I'm in the minority with that but, for typing at least, I have really gotten adjusted and don't miss having actual keys.
I think, like everyone else, I would like a trackball o this phone. Also one thing that I have yet to see mentioned is a locking click-screen. I know that there was an iRiver player that had a clicking mechanism below the screen, and when you flipped on the hold switch, the entire screen itself locked. That would be awesome, as it gets a little annoying to have the damn thing clicking all the time when it's in my pocket.
A proximity sensor would also be nice, so that the phone would turn its screen off when I'm making calls. Other than that I have only minor complaints with the phone.
All it needs is an Blackberry store like itunes I get so sick of converting and transferring ringtones, music, movies ....... If they had a set up like itunes I'd be happy