Full review: BlackBerry Storm

The last of 2008's touchscreen heavyweights is here, and on paper at least, the Storm—complete with messaging and multimedia features aplenty, not to mention a groundbreaking touchscreen—looks set to give the iPhone 3G and T-Mobile's Android-powered G1 a run for their money. Unfortunately, the Storm's poky performance and failure to truly embrace touch keep it from landing a knockout punch.

Measuring 4.4 by 2.4 by 0.55 inches and weighing in at 5.5 ounces, the Storm lands somewhere between the svelte iPhone and the bulky G1 in terms of size and overall heft, and it fits relatively comfortably in a jeans pocket. Below the roomy display you'll find the standard Call, End, Back, and Menu controls, while on the top corners are buttons for silencing ringers and locking the screen.

Speaking of which, the big draw of the Storm ($199 with a new two-year contract, available Friday, Nov. 21) is, of course, its 3.25-inch touch display, and it’s a beauty. With its resolution of 480 by 360, the Storm's touchscreen actually manages to pack in more pixels than the iPhone's larger, 3.5-inch screen, and the result is a rich, razor-sharp image, perfect for composing e-mails, Web browsing, or watching videos.

RIM also scores with the Storm's clickable "ClickThrough" technology, which lets you move the cursor with a light tap; press harder—hard enough to feel a physical click—and you'll select items or otherwise take action (and yes, that includes cut-and-paste). It's an ingenious idea, as it mimics the functionality of the old BlackBerry jog dial (or the trackball on newer models)—flick to select, click to take action. Even dyed-in-the-wool BlackBerry veterans will likely figure out the new interface after a few of tries, although iPhone and G1 users accustomed to quick taps may face a steeper learning curve.

Sounds great, right? But the Storm's coolest feature reveals one of its key weaknesses. By doing such a good job of replicating the old BlackBerry clickwheel with ClickThrough, the Storm essentially relies on the standard BlackBerry interface—complete with contextual menus and zillions of submenus that, frankly, are easier to navigate with a jog dial than via touch. Meanwhile, options that RIM could have surfaced with touch controls (like "Send," for instance) must be accessed through the familiar Menu key.

And another gripe: The Storm's overall performance is noticably sluggish. Turn the phone on its side (an accelerometer detects the Storm's orientation), and the display often takes several seconds to switch from portrait to landscape modes. That alone isn't so bad—the iPhone and the G1 can be slow to turn their screens, too—but it gets worse. Flick up and down on the main menu, and the icons take their sweet time to scroll. Tap an icon, and there's often a pregnant pause before something happens. And tapping out messages on the virtual keypad (full QWERTY in landscape mode, SureType in portrait) can be a real pain, especially when the keystrokes start lagging behind.

The Storm's plodding performance is keenly disappointing (especially after testing the peppy BlackBerry Bold), given that the GPS- and 3G-enabled, dual-mode CDMA/GSM Storm (for making calls on worldwide networks) comes packed with a boatload of otherwise enviable features.

Messaging on the Storm is, as expected, aces all around. Besides BlackBerry Enterprise Server support, the Storm will tap into any number of Web mail (including AOL, Gmail, and Yahoo! Mail) accounts, as well as POP and IMAP accounts. Text and picture messaging are also present and accounted for, along with instant messaging (Windows Live, Yahoo!, Google Talk, AIM, and BlackBerry IM are all supported). HTML e-mail messages arrived nicely formatted, complete with clickable links.

Productivity apps are also top-notch, especially thanks to the included DataViz Documents To Go suite—good for opening and editing Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files. And of course, hundreds of third-party BlackBerry—ranging from games and RSS readers to Facebook and MySpace apps—are available online.

The Storm's Web browser is impressive, though not without its flaws. As with the Bold, the Web pages I tried all downloaded and rendered quite nicely, even the big, tricky sites like the CNET.com home page. But the Storm's sluggish performance bleeds into the Web browser as well, and while you can double-tap to zoom in on a page, you can't "pinch" to zoom out again—instead, you must tap one of the two magnifying glasses at the bottom of the page.

Back on the plus side, call quality on the Storm was solid; my callers said they couldn't tell I was talking on a cell phone, and the speakerphone is nice and loud, if (predictably) tinny. I also liked that touch controls for the speakerphone, muting, adding calls, and calling up the dial pad appear while you're in a call (now that's an interface that's been re-thought for touch). Even better: Visual voicemail, including the ability to forward messages via e-mail. Hey, Apple: Read 'em and weep.

Multimedia options are plentiful, including easy-to-use music and video players (and as I wrote earlier, movies and videos look marvelous on the Storm's sharp display). You can listen to your tunes over stereo Bluetooth headsets or using the 3.5mm earphone jack, and the phones comes with 1GB of internal storage and an 8GB microSD card. (The microSD slot is hidden beneath the Storm's back panel, but you don't have to remove the battery to swap it out). Audio quality on the Storm (which comes with an on-board equalizer) was excellent, easily equal to that of the swell-sounding Bold. Snapshots from the 3.2MP auto-focus/flash camera looked solid enough, and yes—video capture is included.

All very nice, but a key feature is missing: Wi-Fi. Now, as Verizon Wireless reps were quick to point out, you can always tap into the carrier's 3G EV-DO network for speedy data access (and indeed, streaming videos and full-track music downloads via Verizon's V Cast service are coming soon to the Storm). True, but that's little consolation for jetsetters looking for cheap data while traveling beyond Verizon's 3G footprint (and since the Storm was designed to work on both CDMA and worldwide GSM networks, data use overseas is a relevant issue).

Barring its lack of Wi-Fi, the Storm makes for one of the most feature-packed BlackBerrys yet, and something tells me that the engineers at Apple will be giving its ClickThrough display a close (and potentially envious) look. That said, I'd be lying if I didn't say that the Storm's sluggish performance didn’t drive me nuts. Now, if BlackBerry could whip up a Storm that's as peppy as the Bold, well ... that would be something.