Picking up the BlackBerry Storm2, it's clear that Research in Motion's thought process here was simply to build a better BlackBerry Storm. They weren't thinking about building an iPhone killer or worrying about what Palm is up to with their Web OS or what the next wave of Android phones might look like. RIM looked at the original BlackBerry Storm, assessed where it was great, where it was good, where it was bad and where it was ugly and they fixed it. I'm sure many of the BlackBerry Storm2 reviews that emerge will state the BlackBerry Storm2 is what the original BlackBerry Storm should have been, and well, they'll all be right. We don't want to dwell too much on the Storm's shaky start; after all, it was a pretty big success for RIM from a sales standpoint, but it's impossible to review the Storm2 without looking back at the original BlackBerry Storm.
Like all BlackBerry products, the Storm 2 has excellent messaging and e-mail capabilities. You get BlackBerry Enterprise Server support for your work e-mail, and you can load up to ten work or personal POP3 or IMAP accounts. The Storm 2 doesn't come loaded with the new BlackBerry Messenger 5.0, but you should definitely download it from BlackBerry App World. Trust me, you'll never go back to the old Messenger: Version 5 sports a spruced-up interface that's easier to use, it offers more emoticons to choose from, and it has the ability to display your location via GPS.
Pages loaded quickly over Verizon's 3G network, and even faster over Wi-Fi. Yes, the Storm 2 has Wi-Fi, and that alone makes the revised handset a big step up from the original Storm. RIM says to expect all of its future CDMA handsets to ship with Wi-Fi connectivity, so kudos to the company for finally getting past that roadblock. The browser will default to a mobile page when one is available, but it also loads full sites without any issues. Of course, the BlackBerry platform doesn't yet support Flash, so Flash-heavy sites won't load.
The music player displays album art and has easy-to-access touch controls. Audio quality sounded a bit hollow piped through the bundled headset and on my own higher-quality earbuds. Video playback was very smooth throughout most clips; I noticed only a bit of stuttering in fast-action scenes.
Overall, I was impressed with the Storm's 3.2-megapixel camera. Snapshots taken both indoors and outdoors looked better than pictures taken with the iPhone 3GS. Colors were a bit washed out and even more so when the flash was on, but details were sharp and I didn't detect any noise or graininess.
BlackBerry Storm2 Specifications
- Size (LxWxD) 112.5 mm x 62 mm x 13.9 mm
- Weight (battery included) 160 g / 5.65 oz
- Memory 256 MB Flash memory, 2GB eMMC
- Expandable Memory : MicroSD located under battery door cover (up to 16 GB)
- Battery : 1400 mAhr removable/rechargeable cryptographic Lithium cell
- Battery Life : CDMA: 11.2 days standby, 5.5 hours of talk time. GSM: 12.7 days standby, 5 hours of talk time
- UMTS: 11.7 days standby, 6 hours of talk time
- Display : High-resolution 480 X 360 pixel color display 3.25" (diagonally measured)
- Transmissive TFT LCD : Supports over 65,000 colors Dynamic hardware brightness control
- Camera : 3.2 MP camera, flash, auto focus, image stabilization, 2X digital zoom
- GPS : Integrated GPS with A-GPS
- Wi-Fi : 802.11 b/g enabled
- Media Player : BlackBerry Media Player
- Video format support: MPEG4 H.263, MPEG4 Part 2
- Simple Profile, H.264, WMV
- Audio format support: MP3, AAC, AAC+, eAAC+, WMA,
- WMA ProPlus
- Headset : 3.5mm stereo headset capable
- Network : Quad-Band: 850/900/1800/1900MHz GSM/GPRS/ EDGE networks .Single-Band: 2100 MHz UMTS/HSPA networks. Dual-Band: 800/1900 MHz CDMA/EVDO Rev A network
storm 2 screen shot "wifi integrated"
