Obviously the most interesting part of the Storm is the single big button of a screen so we’ll just cut to the chase. The touchscreen in general works as you would expect, sensing your touch on the glass and allowing you to scroll through things like lists, menus and across maps. What’s different about the touchscreen on the BlackBerry Storm which sets it apart from other touchscreen phones is that the glass display is like a single large, mechanical button.

When you lightly press your finger on an item on the screen it will not take action on the item, but simply select it or set focus to it. To take action you must press a little harder until the entire solid display physically depresses down a tiny distance. This gives a very intuitive and clear sensation of a button click as if you had really pressed a button. The display is not flexible in anyway, but it rests on the phone at multiple points, so for example pressing in the bottom left corner will angle the display to the bottom left corner only instead of depressing the entire piece of glass down evenly. It’s actually pretty neat and works very well. The display is very crisp, clear and most importantly large!

Using the keyboard was especially interesting. Turning the BlackBerry Storm on its side will automatically turn the display sideways as well and provide a full QWERTY keyboard with generously sized keys. You have to go slow enough to let the screen pop back up after the previous key press and I found it to be a little bit more cumbersome than using other touchscreen devices, or devices with real buttons for that matter. Tipping the phone back upright gives a more compact keyboard with multiple letters on each key, just like you would see on the BlackBerry Pearl.

The only things we didn’t like was that it really didn’t have that little “zing” you could do with the iPhone and scroll through things as if you are sliding them across a sheet of ice. Also, the edges of the display seemed to leak a little of the backlighting out from the sides and looked like an awesome place to make an impressive pocket lint collection. The device doesn’t come with a case so unless you get one separately you’ll be cleaning this out often.

Current BlackBerry users will find the navigation really easy to pick up on as the Storm has kept the four main buttons for answering calls, the BlackBerry menu, Go Back and Hang Up/End to help with getting out of where you currently are in the OS and getting that handy dialog menu at any time. A nice addition to the OS interface on the Storm is the folders. The system has folders that can be used to organize applications much like you would on a PC or Mac.

Overall the device seemed very well built and sturdy to hold. It has all the cool business-centric features of the current BlackBerry devices coupled with an awesomely large display and convenient touchscreen. Of course it also has a 3.2MP camera, GPS, a fast, fast browser and something we did not expect to see - a SIM card. Inside the back cover nestled right next to the battery and the 8GB microSD card (which is included with the Storm, BTW) is a removable SIM card making the BlackBerry Storm a 3G world phone capable of hooking up to networks in many places around the globe.

The BlackBerry Storm launches Friday November 20 in the U.S. with Verizon Wireless for $200 with a two-year agreement.

Mossberg said that "neither I, nor any of the several BlackBerry addicts I asked to try it out, considered typing on the Storm’s keyboard to be very similar to using the keyboard of a traditional full-sized BlackBerry," but ultimately concluded that it's "another good option for anyone who is looking to buy one of the new, more powerful, pocket computers."

Matt Buchanan said "I kind of came to hate typing on it" and called it "tiring".

Joshua Topolsky, quested if the clicky touchscreen could "actually improve the experience of using this sort of device -- and in our opinion, they do not."

Danny Dumas says the laggy operating system "moves like a tranquilized yak," and that it's not as good as RIM's own Bold, let alone the iPhone.

Yardena Arar, from PC World described it as "awkward and disappointing," and that "People who were hoping for a credible iPhone alternative fortified with BlackBerry's strengths as a mobile tool for corporate travelers will likely find the Storm a disappointment."

Laptop Mag's Mark Spoonauer knocks the "sluggish performance," issuing a verdict that stops short of outright condemnation: "The one thing that most BlackBerry users have grown accustomed to—a superior keyboard—is frustrating to use on the Storm."

Peter Ha at CrunchGear won't be ditching his current model: " I wish the Storm were the real iPhone killer, but it’s not..."

So, who, apart from Mossberg, liked it?

Boy Genius Report goes back and forth at length, but its firmest points are the positive ones: "This is the best phone to ever touch Verizon Wireless so far. If you’re a Verizon Wireless subscriber and a dumb phone won’t cut it, you’d be pretty air-headed to not pick this bad boy up above any other smartphone in Verizon’s lineup. ... "

David Ciccone at Mobility Today offers unreserved praise: "We will not compare the iPhone to the Storm since the iPhone is clearly not a full fledged business messaging device. If you are in the market for a new phone the Storm definitely has to be on your holiday list this year! Great job RIM!"

The second generation Prada phone slapped with a QWERTY keyboard, LG KF900 Prada II, has been officially launched and released in Europe. The addition of a slide-out keyboard might be the biggest noticeable improvement, but there are a few other upgrades as well.

First off, internet connectivity – the new LG KF900 Prada II has 7.2 Mbps HSDPA connection; the old Prada phone doesn’t even have 3G. The new phone is also rocking a 5 megapixel camera (with slow motion video recording) while the old one has a more basic 2 megapixels. Prada II is using the brand’s latest active flash user interface and there’s also haptic feedback for touch inputs as well as a new DIVX capable player. But it doesn’t stop there – LG is also releasing a companion to LG KF900, the Prada Link Bluetooth watch. The watch can be used to monitor text messages and phone calls remotely. But if you’re thinking the watch would come free with the phone, then you’re sadly mistake. The LG KF900 Prada II phone is priced as AU$1,200 while the LG Link watch comes for an extra AU$600.

Via LG

So what did the press think? They loved it...and they hated it...depending who you talk to.

CNET
...its 3.25-inch VGA glass display also demands attention for its sharpness and brightness, showing 65,000 colors at a crisp 480x360-pixel resolution. We weren't as impressed with the Storm's screen as the BlackBerry Bold, but it's still beautiful.

PCMag
A solid voice phone, the Storm has fine reception, and earpiece and speakerphone volume are both very loud. There's also some pleasing in-ear feedback of your own voice. Transmissions sounded steady on the other end, with just a little background noise coming through, thanks to the phone's dual-mic noise cancellation.

Laptop
One thing’s for sure: The Storm puts the iPhone 3G’s speaker to shame. When playing Keane’s "Perfect Symmetry," the sound was quite loud even at medium volume, and the music application displays large album art that nicely takes up most of the screen.

Wired
When you want to select anything, be it a multimedia app or the number five, you have to press the screen down a millimeter, it's roughly the same sensation you get when clicking a mouse. But that small press makes a huge difference. Text messaging is amazing — pounding out a long-winded SMS (with a lot of compound words and no abbreviations) is just as easy as typing one out on a MacBook's keyboard. This is the single killer feature of the Storm and if not for a few glaring flaws a good reason to go out and buy one right now.

PCWorld
The decision by Research in Motion to differentiate the Storm by giving its capacitive touch screen a mechanical component (the entire screen functions as a button for confirming selections or initiating actions) turns out to be more confusing than helpful. Ultimately, the Storm's touch interface feels like a failed experiment.
Popular Mechanics
With a little practice, we were able to get used to [the virtual keypad] and speed the typing along, but it was never quite as fast as typing with a real mobile keypad, or even with the iPhone's virtual keypad.

The Wall Street Journal
The Storm also has a keyboard oddity that I found annoying, and that may put off others. It presents you with a full virtual keyboard only when you are holding it horizontally. When you hold the Storm vertically, you get a mashed-up keyboard, like the one on the narrower BlackBerry Pearl, which has multiple letters on each key.

DVICE
Why would BlackBerry addicts want to give up buttons for a touchscreen typing system that is almost, but not quite as good? The trade-off is for the big, beautiful screen that you get when you're not using the keypad. It's far better for reading emails, using GPS or playing BrickBreaker than any BlackBerry that's come before.

JKOnTheRun
...the web browser on the Storm, new to OS 4.7, is very good. I wouldn't say it's as good as the browsing experience on the iPhone but it's pretty darn close, certainly close enough. Web pages are rendered quickly in full page mode and when you double tap on the screen the browser zooms in to column mode...Simply hit the Back hardware button and you instantly zoom back out.
InfoSync
The camera on the BlackBerry Storm should have been much better. After all, with auto focus, a 3.2-megapixel sensor and plenty of advanced settings for shooter, you might expect the camera will take decent photos...[yet] colors seemed sapped out of even the most exciting scenes, as Times Square and our little hot pink action figure were both rendered drab. Noise was somewhat of a problem, though there was a nice amount of detail in pics when the auto focus was doing its job correctly.

Bonus Take: Gizmodo
I think that the Storm falls short of what RIM was aiming for, and ultimately what all the hype is driving people to expect. Some of this is fixable: The damn thing needs to crash less often. But SurePress is not the end-all, be-all of touchscreen technologies—it's not really an evolutionary step forward, even.
The Storm will be available tomorrow (November 21) for $200 after Verizon rebate.

• a fully featured touchscreen


• a 3.1 MP camera


• micro-notebook, including a desktop and a handheld mode.


• large landscape screen


• full QWERTY keyboard


• mouse


• Windows Mobile


• satellite navigation via GPS


• emergency first aid software


• medical history storage and a 24/7 international helpline.


• microSD


• Bluetooth and 3G support


• emailing and messaging.

via unwired