BlackBerry Storm

With a whirlwind marketing campaign behind it, the RIM BlackBerry Storm 9530 for Verizon has been a highly anticipated smartphone. Why? This is the first touch screen BlackBerry. Gone is the hardware QWERTY keyboard synonymous with the 'Berry. Instead we have an on-screen keyboard-- actually two: 1) a standard QWERTY in landscape mode and 2) 20 key SureType in portrait mode. Who'd have thought even RIM would jump on the touch screen bandwagon gone rampant since the launch of the first iPhone?


And RIM has done something different here: this isn't the resistive touch screen usually found on Windows Mobile devices, nor is it the "simple" capacitive display found on the iPhone and a few other phones. The Storm's huge touch screen display is capacitive but it's a screen made of floating layers, and the screen actually moves downward when you press it, giving a tactile click. Thus the whole screen moves just a hair, and clicks like a key on a standard BlackBerry. Funky. RIM calls this "SurePress". This changes the way, or rather ways we interact with touch screens. The light to moderate touch works with the capacitive layer (it reacts to the electrical resistance in your skin, so a stylus won't work). You'll use this to scroll a web page, document or palette of icons. To select a web link, menu item, icon or keyboard key, you must press down until the display moves and clicks. Very funky... but kinda cool. It's one of those things you're either going to love or hate.


The Storm has an accelerometer that rotates the display when you turn the phone on its side (either side). You'll get the full QWERTY on screen keyboard in landscape mode and a SureType keyboard in portrait mode. The accelerometer is quite sensitive and we found a steady hand was required to avoid accidental rotation.

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BlackBerry Curve 8520 Review

What's hot: Good battery life, durable, great trackpad.

What's not: Lesser features than the BlackBerry 8900 for not much less money.

The BlackBerry Curve 8520 aims to go where no 'Berry has gone before, a land with no trackball. RIM's trackball is beloved and like the BlackBerry line, addictive. It's responsive, accurate and more efficient than the much more common d-pad. So why axe it? The trackball does pick up dirt which can affect performance (and require an alcohol rub-down to get working), gets dingy and involves several moving parts (moving parts are more likely to break down). The Curve 8520 instead has a small optical trackpad in place of the trackball and miraculously it works nearly exactly like the trackball. And it moves down and clicks for the center-press action-- nice. No small engineering achievement on RIM's part, the trackpad is great. For those of you who've used the optical pads on Samsung phones such as the Omnia and some imports, this isn't the same animal: it's much more precise and controllable

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BlackBerry Bold 9700

What's hot: Good multimedia features and great messaging experience. UMA Wi-Fi calling is a big plus on T-Mobile version.

What's not: Slow web surfing even with 3G.

Editor's note: the BlackBerry Bold 9700 is available on both T-Mobile and AT&T. For this review, we used the T-Mobile version of the phone.

The BlackBerry Bold 9000 was a big success for RIM in both design and features, making it the BlackBerry smartphone to beat on GSM networks. The original Bold is a large phone, too big for some, and so the Bold 9700 is smaller and lighter. The Bold 9700 runs on the same 624 MHz Marvell processor, and has increased RAM to 256 megs but reduced ROM to 256 megs. The smartphone has a 3.2 megapixel camera, an upgrade from the 2 megepixel camera on the Bold 9000. Other upgrades include BlackBerry OS 5, Bluetooth v2.1 from v2.0 and added support for more video formats. The BlackBerry Bold 9700 has a built-in GPS, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g with Wi-Fi calling via T-Mobile's UMA service. The BlackBerry Bold 9700 is a quad band GSM phone with 3G HSDPA on T-Mobile's US 3G bands.

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BlackBerry Curve 8530

What's hot: Good trackpad and keyboard experience, good GPS performance.

What's not: Battery life isn’t very good.

BlackBerry 8530

The BlackBerry Curve 8530 is the CDMA version of the new generation of Curve smartphones with an optical trackpad and music playback controls on top of the smartphone. We first saw this design on the BlackBerry 8520 GSM versions, and now the CDMA variants are available on both major US CDMA carriers: Verizon and Sprint. We take a look at the Verizon version in this review, but the hardware and the RIM bundled software are very similar on both Verizon and Sprint versions. The biggest difference is the carrier branded software and services.

The BlackBerry Curve 8530 is a CDMA digital dual band phone with EV-DO Rev. 0 for data. The smartphone has WiFi 802.11b/g, a 2.5" QVGA 320 x 240 pixel display, a 2 megapixel fixed-focus camera, Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR and an SDHC microSD card slot. Verizon currently offers the BlackBerry Curve 8530 in black and Smoky Violet colors; and Sprint offers it in black and Royal Purple.

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BlackBerry Bold 9650

What's hot: Great voice quality, speedy. Optical trackpad is wonderful.

What's not: Small screen, middling reception, not much sex appeal.

As BlackBerry smartphones go, the Bold line is at the top of the non-touchscreen heap. RIM briefly played with the Tour line on CDMA carriers (that means Sprint and Verizon) as another high end line but in the end, the Bold name has more traction. Like the appropriately named Tour, the BlackBerry Bold 9650 is a CDMA phone that works on Sprint's network in the US and it has a GSM radio for use overseas.

The Bold offers a few key improvements over the BlackBerry Tour, and they're likely good enough reasons to upgrade from an older BlackBerry. However, if you're a Tour owner, the improvements probably don't warrant an out of cycle upgrade. New goodies in the Bold 9650 include an optical trackpad, double the RAM and the addition of WiFi. The added RAM makes for a speedier 'Berry, even though the CPU isn't any faster. The optical trackpad means no more worrying about balky trackballs that fall prey to pocket lint and dust.

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BlackBerry Torch

What's hot: Capactivite touch screen, great hardware QWERTY keyboard, OS 6.0.

What's not: In the specs war, the Torch isn't at the top.

Black Berry Torch

It's insane, really. Next to the iPhone, a major new BlackBerry gets more attention than most any portable consumer electronics device. And much weight is heaped upon that new smartphone's shoulders, as it portends RIM's future. Maybe it does; OK let's say it does because that's great for news headlines. Yes, a new design from RIM, maker of what is still the most popular smartphone platform here in the US, is significant. But I must question that the new BlackBerry Torch either heralds RIM's death or signals their rebirth from the ashes of QWERTY business doldrums.

RIM flirts with new designs, like any phone manufacturer. Though we think of the wide QWERTY bar when we conjure up the BlackBerry, RIM has released the all touchscreen Storm and Storm 2, the short-lived BlackBerry Pearl flip and the skinny and successful semi-QWERTY Pearl line of phones. The Torch, at least for those who don't despise touch screens (are there any touch screen haters still out there?), is one of RIM's brightest ideas. You get that wonderful hardware QWERTY keyboard and a capacitive touch screen. I know some of you actually like the Storm's SurePress moving display, but it's safe to say it wasn't a mainstream hit (no one copied it, did they?). Capacitive displays are the bee's knees: they're easy to use, allow multi-touch and are found on most Android phones and all iPhone models. If you're a 'Berry person, you know that it's hard to beat a good hardware keyboard for serious messaging. But nobody wants a tiny display and RIM's raison d'etre isn't jumbo phones, so we need a slider to allow room for both. Voila: the pocketable, QWERTY touch screen BlackBerry.

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