Tis The Season To Try New BlackBerries

I've recently been playing with two new BlackBerries from Research in Motion (RIM) and have concluded that, when it comes to changing BlackBerry's winning formula, less is more.

The BlackBerry Bold, whose user interface is a lot like many other BlackBerries, is a great addition to the line. But the new BlackBerry Storm, which sort of mimics the iPhone's touch screen, is awkward to use.

The Bold is available from AT&T for $299 while the Storm can be purchased from Verizon Wireless for $199, both with a two year contract.

Unlike all previous BlackBerries, the Storm doesn't have a QWERTY keyboard. Instead, it has a touch-screen with icons for launching applications and letters and numbers for typing or dialing the phone. But there's an interesting twist. When you touch an onscreen icon, letter or number, it simply highlights it. To make anything happen, you have to firmly press down on the screen.

When I first heard about this technology, I assumed that RIM had found some clever way to embed lots of little switches to enable users to type on the screen, but the screen is actually one big switch. All you're really doing when you press it is confirming that you really wanted to click on the highlighted key.

It does have one advantage over the iPhone's touch screen in that you're less likely to accidentally issue the wrong command simply because you touched an icon.

That physical feedback is fine when it comes to launching programs, but when trying to type an email, I found it tedious and tiring. I'm not a big iPhone touch-screen fan, but I do find it easier to use than the Storm.

To its credit, the Storm copies the iPhone's ability to automatically know if you're holding it in portrait (vertical) or landscape (horizontal) mode but it's very slow to respond when you turn it 90 degrees.

That's not the only sluggish part of this phone. There is a brief but noticeable delay when you launch applications, though it is fast when you type phone numbers and messages.

What's more, if you to type an email while holding the Storm in landscape mode you get an onscreen QWERTY keyboard, but if you hold it in portrait mode you get this wacky "SureType" keyboard with two letters on each key. If you're typing words, the software is reasonably good at figuring out your intentions, but if you're typing a Web or email address its guesses are often wrong.

One thing missing in the Storm is WiFi. It does use Verizon's relatively high-speed 3G phone network, but that's not as fast as a good WiFi network. The iPhone and the BlackBerry Bold both support WiFi.

The Storm comes with a relatively generous 8 gigabytes of memory which should be adequate if you use it for music and a few short video clips, but it does work with larger optional memory cards. Unlike the iPhone, it has a removable battery, which is a good thing, and it has a better than average Web browser. It lacks the iPhone's ability to resize images by pinching with two fingers but it does let you use one finger to move around the screen or tap twice to zoom in.

One thing I like about the Storm is Verizon's excellent cellular network. Even though most Verizon phones don't work overseas, the Storm will because it has a GSM SIM card that can be used in most other countries, albeit at a very high roaming rate.

What I don't like is its user interface. Aside from the touch screen, I just find it confusing to use.

I have mostly good things to say about the Bold. If you liked earlier BlackBerries, you'll probably love the Bold. It has all the familiar BlackBerry features, including a decent-size keyboard and a trackball.

It also has a terrific (480 x 320) screen, the WiFi connectivity and, like the Storm, a still and video camera, a media player and GPS. Other nice touches include a very sharp screen and - like the Storm - a standard (3.5 mm) headphone jack so you can use any headphone. But, for a portable device, the Bold also has a surprisingly good built-in speaker.

With only 1 gigabyte, the Bold doesn't have nearly as much memory as the Storm but it does allow you to install an optional microSD card for up to 16 gigabytes of memory, comparable to the $299 iPhone.

The phone doesn't have an award winning design but it does have fake leather back which actually looks and feels kind of nice. The Bold and its keyboard are a bit bigger than the BlackBerry Curve, but it still fits nicely in a pocket.

Because it uses the AT&T GSM network it can be used overseas.

Most of all, the Bold is a tried and true Blackberry. It's what happens when a company sticks to its knitting, making improvements on what it does well rather than trying to imitate what others have done. It's innovative, but BlackBerry users will find it familiar. One thing they could do to improve it would be to add a touch screen, without taking away the keyboard.
By Larry Magid