BlackBerry Storm looks nice - but you should wait for an OS update

The BlackBerry Storm might have been touted as a rival to Apple’s iPhone 3G, but makers RIM have served up a significantly inferior product, it has been claimed.

Murad Ahmed, writing a review in the Times newspaper, was almost apologetic at having to put the boot into latest BlackBerry offering as he is a self-confessed fan of the technology.

However, he said he was left disappointed on a number of levels, making criticism unavoidable.
His main grievance is that the Storm is entirely without wi-fi connectivity. [...]

Source Mobilemarketingnews.

Well, he is not the only one who has not such a good experience with the BlackBerry Storm. You can read those reviews all over the world on all major review sites. To be honest: I am bit disappointed by the Storm as well as it seems to come with a quite buggy BlackBerry OS 4.7. Its 3rd party application support not as smooth as it should (old versions should run without any problem!) and even the touch integration - the new main feature of the Storm - does not work as easy it should. I might be crucified by the BlackBerry community here but I think the iPhone does this much better.

From my point of view I think that RIM didn’t want to release the Storm that early with such a lot of bugs in the OS. It is just not RIM’s style. However, the major network carrier giants Verizon Wireless and Vodafone (who actually owns Verizon Wireless partly) wanted to push this and bring this ‘fancy’ device to the market before Christmas. I can see the $$$ signs in their eyes…

Don’t get me wrong. I believe the idea of having a BlackBerry Storm is right. Having a real iPhone competitor / iPhone like phone with BlackBerry’s experience in the enterprise market secures RIM’s leading position as enterprise mobile device and infrastructure provider. Especially in front of the background that some companies thought of switching from the BlackBerry to iPhones because it was sooooo cool! (notice: I personally don’t see anything cool on the iPhone - it lacks in features and didn’t have anything new except the touch flow - well, it looked OK too) RIM needed to come with something as “cool” as the iPhone. Employees, managers and CIOs of big companies are normal people like you and me. They want to have something fancy in their pocket too. And - unfortunately - for quite many people it is more important to look good than to have good and reliable technology at hand. Anyway, back to the topic.

Cunclusion: I would not buy a BlackBerry Storm now. Just to kick Verizon’s and Vodafone’s ass for pushing RIM to release such a buggy BlackBerry OS. This hurts RIM and especially RIM’s image quite heavily which is actually not justified.

I hope we get a new BlackBerry OS for the BlackBerry Storm soon and every current user can then upgrade that OS version.

Exclusive EMail Service Get our articles sent to your mailbox for free:

Software for BlackBerry® Exclusive software offers for your BlackBerry - 20% below market rates! BlackBerryInsight Software Store

Professional Discussion Forums BlackBerry professionals discuss software issues here: BBInsight Forums. Register now and get a $50 shopping voucher.