Product Listing

The BlackBerry Storm 9500

By Sutlej Soin - 8 Apr 2009

Messaging

Give me back my QWERTY Keyboard, Please!

While BlackBerry pats itself on the back for developing a unique on-screen keyboard technology called SurePress touch-screen technology that supposedly lets you type away on the screen as comfortably as you would on a physical QWERTY keyboard, this cutting-edge technology was far from what we expected. It took ages trying to hammer out a long SMS as we repeatedly selected the wrong letters, and moving our thumbs across the keyboard felt uncomfortable and awkward. While this may be possible to overcome with more time spent with the phone, the main problem with the Storm is that it requires you to press, hold and release a key before moving to select a new one. In fact, we've shared this device with a number of colleagues and all felt that the input method was awkward.

If you recall, we mentioned on the previous page that the entire touch-screen acts as one physical button and in which case, you had to constantly press and release the screen with its associated virtual alphabet 'key'. This makes text input a slow and frustrating process as we constantly found ourselves not releasing the button (or screen if you will) before typing in a new letter. When trying to enter in a chunk of text, we were also left annoyed by the stuttering input process and slow letter recognition speeds. In short, we were left unimpressed by the on-screen keyboard technology, and will be so frank as to say that we much prefer the Apple iPhone keyboard. Or better yet, give us back the traditional BlackBerry keyboard.

Although the keys look spaced out, it's sure hard to type.

The SurePress touch-screen technology's saving grace is that it makes our lives easier when we want to navigate around the screen. Just like a computer mouse, your fingertip morphs into a cursor as you navigate from application to application. When you locate the option that you want, press down on the screen and the application will load. This feature is useful in two ways as it lets you hover above icons without selecting them (unlike many other touchscreen phones), and the physical sensation of 'clicking' when you type or select icons lets you know exactly which application you just powered up.

Even on an overall usage perspective, we have to say that we were rather let down because of the lagging operating system on the Storm. For example, actions which flow smoothly on an iPhone - such as flicking through address books or scrolling through your song lists - was awkward and jerky on the Storm. If speed isn't your primary concern when it comes to nimbleness of the operating system (which we found that older folks actually don't mind the slightly slower pace), the Storm might still seem decent. However for texting addicts and those accustomed to typing on a proper QWERTY keyboard, you will be disappointed as per our diagnosis above.

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