Anyone picking one up today? I'd like to hear what you think of it.

 

+1. The WSJ had a preview a few days ago and raved.

 

The reviews seem to be all over the place but most seem to think it's the best Blackberry yet.

Hopefully a few people here will pick them up today and give us a firsthand review.

 

I think the only downside is going to be that the OS wasn't designed to be a touch screen OS like the software in the iPhone.. the functionality was just added to the OS in the other BB devices.

 

A co-worker of mine got one this morning, and I played around with it for about a minute. I like the clickable screen.. gives it a very nice feel. The touchscreen is pretty responsive, and I had no problem typing on the KB.. never hit a wrong key. Multi touch would be sweet, but I could get by without it. My first impression was positive, but I definitely didn't spend enough time with it to make up my mind.

 

Giz has a review also, it's kind of mixed.

 

Sorry I'm 2 days late on the first day review, but I got mine Friday. It is a killer phone - does all kinds of things while retaining the Blackberry goodness.

There are three things I have against it:

1. Takes a while to get used to the keyboard, but you do get used to it. You're never going to win a speed-typing contest, but I'm already to a point where I'm only slightly slower on the Storm than I was on the Curve. If you actually do a timed typing test instead of going just by perception, you'll be surprised at how quick you're really going. You'll be more mistake-prone on the Storm though. I'm getting better with this as well.
2. Switching between applications can be slow - if there was an hourglass or "thinking" symbol it wouldn't be so bad because you'd know not to hit another button while nothing seems to be happening
3. When on a call it is too easy to push your cheek into the Mute or Speaker phone buttons. I'm really hoping they'll do something about this.

Other than those 3 things the phone is killer. It is more like a small computer than a phone. After having the Storm for a few days, and reading those first reviews again, many of the points of those reviews were made because the dumbass reviewers didn't read the instructions. It is a totally different Blackberry and needs to be treated as such. If you go into the Storm thinking it will behave just like your old Blackberry, you're going to be disappointed. If you look at it as something new with many of the features you like about Blackberry, you'll be much happier.

Verizon certainly screwed up the release of this phone in multiple ways, but they've been making good on it with money off of things. I got my Storm in the morning and had to revisit the Verizon store 4 times because it couldn't be activated. They kept calling me to come back each time the computers came back up, then they'd crash again. Fortunately, my Verizon store is only 1 mile from my house. They compensated me well for my troubles though, so I'm happy now - one of the reasons why I've stuck with Verizon for so long.

I heard the Storm is being delayed till December 5th or 15th now.

 

Been looking for ways to speed up the Storm and found this: http://forums.crackberry.com/f86/what-i-di...-better-100717/

makes a huge difference

 

Nice review Alex.

I haven't seen the Storm in person...but we recently had our BlackBerry Pearl Flip launch party sponsored by RIM in Charlotte and I asked the BlackBerry reps about the Storm. I'm excited to know we'll have a refreshed Curve coming out sometime in Jan/Feb...it will finally include GPS and WiFi along with a refreshed browser and the Pearl's media applications.

I'd like to see a Curve that has a touchscreen versus an entirely touchscreen phone.

I recently played around with the at&t BlackBerry Bold and really, really liked it...but we won't have it anytime soon and the retail price is a little on the crazy side.

BlackBerry is building these little phones and they really are mini computers but they need to spend more on fitting them with the right processors. Often times these phones can really get bogged down when you have too much media and/or while you're typing a message...it slows way down as it has an incoming message.

It's funny that Verizon and BlackBerry didn't test the Storm more...especially with the applications loading, etc (like you said...an hour glass or something would be a great help). The pushing of buttons holding it against your head is another thing...granted that the Storm fans will tell everyone to just use a Bluetooth headset.

Again, awesome review!

 

its' a damn nice phone, my roommate has it and i've been playing with it more than he has. My only complaint would be wifi and the browser. I owned a iPhone (OWNED) and it was one of the nicest phone browsers I have used.