BlackBerry Storm2 9520

RIM are a company with style and simply hopping on the touchscreen bandwagon with another iPhone wannabe just wouldn't suit them. They certainly realized the importance of having a full-touch device in their portfolio but wanted a clear and legible BlackBerry imprint on it.

The BlackBerry Storm 9500 was a truly intriguing device but never really managed to find its place in the new market it was built for. Too bold and unusual for the BlackBerry-loyals and yet too conservative for the rest of the world, it didn't quite get the results it was hoping for. But the successor might use the publicity the first Storm generated for its own good.

Key features Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE and 2100 MHz 3G with HSPA support 3.25" 65K-color capacitive touchscreen of 360 x 480 pixel resolution Improved touchscreen experience with piezo-electric touch feedback system 3.15 MP autofocus camera, LED flash BlackBerry OS 5 Wi-Fi and built-in GPS with BlackBerry maps preloaded 2 GB internal storage and a hot-swappable microSD card slot Landscape on-screen keyboard is as close to hardware keys as we have seen on a touch phone Nice looks and great build quality 3.5mm standard audio jack Accelerometer sensor for screen auto-rotate Bluetooth v2.1 and USB v2.0 Document editor Good audio quality

The good news is RIM decided to honor the Storm2 with a few upgrades over the original. However, none of them seems to be absolutely crucial so the greatest responsibility falls on the brand new piezo-electric touchscreen. The missing link between touchscreen and a hardware keypad is what many keen texters must have been waiting for. Or at least that's what RIM believe.

Now, the SurePress screen didn't work out particularly well on the first Storm and a second failure might herald the demise of the entire series. So the BlackBerry Storm2 knows it needs to impress the audience or it might take a spot in history for all the wrong reasons.

But first thing first, let's check out what you get when you buy a shiny new Storm2. Unboxing follows after the break.

Design and construction The BlackBerry Storm2 9520 sports some nice design improvements over the original Storm. For one, the four keys at the bottom now blend with the display and are part of the consistent touchscreen experience, not to mention the illusion they create of an even larger display. Also the side keys are now black instead of silver and are much more inline with the general styling of the device.

The rest of the design pretty much sticks to the original, the metallic battery cover and the sleek top with invisible buttons still our favorites. Combined with the solid weight, the nice exterior gives the Storm2 the feel to match the price tag.

Most of the front of the BlackBerry Storm2 9520 is taken by the magnificent 3.25" piezo-electric display. Its picture quality is among the best we have seen from RIM and this is quite an achievement given the consistently good BlackBerry screens.

The 360 x 480 resolution is hardly remarkable as we can easily think of a number of handsets that come with several times the pixel count but the image quality is splendid. The contrast and brightness are top-notch, easily among the best we have seen on an LCD screen.

The sunlight legibility is also great, the display easily maintaining readability and colors even in the brightest sun.

Now for the really interesting part - the piezo-electric technology that stands behind the touchscreen operation. If you don't have much experience with either of the Storm devices you might be led to believe they use the same clicking screen but that would be wrong. OK, not totally wrong perhaps, as the user experience is similar, but the improved performance of the Storm2 is certainly welcome.

The screen surface is a regular capacitive touchscreen, which responds to the lightest of touches, bare fingers only though (no gloves or stylus).

However, the Storm2 interface uses the tap-to-select and press-to-confirm logic. So, a tap will only highlight an app or a menu item. If you want to activate it, you will need to apply some pressure and push the whole display down.

On the original Storm the whole display was one regular big-ass button. Now with the piezo-electric enhancement, the screen now is much softer to touch. The piezzo technology is also said to allow multi-touch input, which wasn't possible with the SurePress on the original Storm.

You're not to expect pinch zoom or anything on the Strom2 but multi touch support is quite relevant to typing - think two-key combos like Shift + whatever. The reduced effort will also make sure your fingers are less tired after longer typing on the handset.

Because the Storm itself takes part in the display movement, pressing it down isn't possible when the phone is off - the screen won't click unless you power it up.

The new technology of the BlackBerry Storm2 9520 brings both positives and negatives but it's pretty clear where its strength lies. Typing has never been a touchscreen forte but the Storm2 is the closest you will get to a hardware QWERTY keyboard. Quite a lot of users complained about their hands getting tired after writing a few emails on their original Storms but we guess the situation has notably improved.

Anyway, the whole clickable screen thing only makes sense perhaps in BlackBerry terms. What makes a BlackBerry handset is messaging after all, and QWERTY and adding touchscreen to the equation shouldn't change things much.

But in regular touchscreen terms, the extra step (tap-to-select, press-to-confirm) is more of a disadvantage. In any case, we would strongly advise to try it in person before dropping the cash. And this will involve at least an hour or two of typing and navigating, not just a 5 minute trial.

BlackBerry OS 5 goes touch The BlackBerry Storm2 9520 runs the new, fifth, version of the company's proprietary OS. It brings a couple of nice new extras to the touchscreen-operated Storm, unlike most other BlackBerry devices which benefited very little from it.

If you have been keeping track you would know that we aren't in love with the BlackBerry OS looks but, in all fairness, the touch implementation is a bit better. The little 3D touch to the icons and the few nice transitions look better than what the 9700 Bold has to offer.

The BlackBerry OS 5 also introduces kinetic scrolling which greatly facilitates handing of longer lists. The automatic rotation is also supposed to be faster now. Those upgrades have also made their way to the original Storm via a firmware update so they aren't Storm2-exclusive.

Unfortunately, very little has been done about the tons of plain ugly text-only submenus that can still be found in the BlackBerry Storm2. Even with the slickest theme applied you are still just a couple of clicks away from these eyesores.

And with the Storm2 we aren't talking hardcore business users only - the target audience has now widened and might include some people that, you know, might have an eye for the aesthetics. Touchscreen handsets need to provide nice user experience or else their existence is pointless.

Coming with a generally new touchscreen platform took quite a lot of R&D effort, but they should have saved some for the UI polishing. We really hate it when nice ideas fail only because of negligence. But we digress.

The homescreen is pretty well organized with 8 (by default) shortcut buttons placed at the bottom and all status icons at the top. The profiles can also be accessed straight from here, as well as two other features that you choose to assign to the convenience keys. Tilting the handset to the side doesn't bring a landscape mode of the homescreen but opens the main menu instead.

The BlackBerry Storm2 has a menu structure completely different from any other touchscreen handset on the market (save for the original Storm of course). Unlike the iPhone's what-you-see-is-what-you-get approach, you have a menu button here, which revels a list of context-sensitive options. You might want to spend some time learning what is available where if you are a newcomer to the BlackBerry world.

We are pleased with the Storm2 performance. Lagging was very rare and the handset seemed pretty stable for the time of our review. There was only one restart in about a week's time and that's not bad at all. RIM doesn't provide any information about the CPU inside the Storm2 but either it is faster than the original Storm or the new version of the OS is better optimized to make the device feel snappier.

Telephony fares much better Getting some eyesores from the phonebook we went over to inspecting the Storm telephony and we were in for a nice treat this time.

We really dig the Smart dial feature, which works when inserting contacts in messaging too.

The BlackBerry Storm2 9520 in-call screen offers four large and easy to press buttons plus five shortcuts to features you are most likely to need during a call. Those include notes, calendar, contacts, dial pad and home screen. Well that last one might not be what you need during a call but it's the quickest way to an application that is not on the list.

Very good audio output The BlackBerry Storm2 9520 has virtually identical audio quality to its predecessor and that is as high as we have seen the BlackBerries go. The handset performs well in every aspect of our test and goes pretty close to the best on the market. It didn't break any records but the great overall performance is more important here and the Storm2 managed to deliver it.

The phone boasts a really good frequency response keeping on perfect track for most of its range. The rest of the readings are also excellent with great noise level and dynamic range and distortions kept well within standards. The stereo crosstalk reading is quit good. All in all, you will be enjoying some fine sound with BlackBerry Storm 9520.

A great video player Watching videos was one of our favorite activities on the BlackBerry Storm2 9520. The great picture quality, the ample screen and the good number of supported codecs make the handset a decent portable player.

The video player usually works fullscreen with the virtual buttons only appearing upon a tap on the display.

The best part about the Storm2 video player is that it comes with DivX and XviD support. We had no trouble playing most of our test videos on the handset, which is better than most of its RIM stablemates.

So in most cases you will only need to upload the video to your Storm2 and start the player - no converting necessary.

Passable image gallery The image gallery of the Storm2 is nothing spectacular, being hardly any different than the one we saw on its predecessor a year ago. It does pretty well overall with the 100% zoom shortcut earning our appreciation.

The gallery has standard functionality including thumbnail and list view of the images. It also offers finger gestures, meaning you can browse pictures by sweeping your finger across the screen. You can also zoom in on a photo by pressing the screen and sweeping with your finger. Opting between portrait and landscape mode is automatic, thanks to the built-in accelerometer. All you need to do to switch modes is to flip the phone sideways. An average 3 megapixel shooter The BlackBerry Storm2 9520 is equipped with a 3 megapixel autofocus camera and a LED flash. We are used to expecting next to nothing from the BlackBerry cameras so when one actually produces average photos we are nicely surprised.

The camera interface is still on the worse side of devices we have tested. Since the display has the same aspect ratio as the camera sensor, the readings that appear at the bottom cover a part of the viewfinder and impede proper framing.