BlackBerry Storm 9500

The storm RIM BlackBerry 9500 is the first touchscreen BlackBerry device, incorporating many features found in the BlackBerry Bold 9000 with a brand new display.

BlackBerry devices are all about messaging, and yet there is no physical keyboard on the 9500. RIM approach is to use a keyboard on the screen, but they skillfully two distinct versions - a virtual SureType keyboard (like the BlackBerry Pearl) is used in portrait (tall) mode, with a larger QWERTY keyboard to the use in landscape (wide) mode.

The touch panel is clearly the most interesting on the BlackBerry Storm. It is a 3.25 inch with 480 x 360 pixels panel that apparently gives users the feeling of pressing a real key, which lights up.

The 9500 storm also a high-GPS receiver and navigation function. GPS can also be used to automatically geotag photos taken with the camera of 9500, which is 3.2 megapixels with autofocus and flash.

It is a 3G device, the BlackBerry 9500 Storm a quad-band GSM and UMTS 2100 with the support of HSDPA high-speed data. There is also a U.S. version, the BlackBerry 9530 Storm that runs on CDMA / EV-DO networks. Neither the BlackBerry Storm supports WiFi, which is a serious omission from our point of view.

Quite a heavy 155 grams and 113 x 62 x 14mm in size. The large 1400 mAh battery can provide up to 5.5 hours Autonomy and 15 days standby time on 3G, which is impressive. The overall design is clever but unexciting, with only four physical buttons on the front under the big screen. Internal memory is 1 GB, expandable to 16 GB with microSD cards.

It offers almost everything you could want from a smartphone, except for WiFi, and a high-end as the storm should be the standard. If you’re a business user on the Vodafone or Verizon network, then it does look like a good, particularly with the intelligent virtual keyboard and long battery life.