Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Blackberry Storm likes and grips

I've had my Blackberry for 3 weeks now and for the most part I'm very impressed. First of all I'm not looking for it to be an iphone killer. I'm looking for a better experience than my LG vx8300. The 8300 is basically a web enabled/mp3 playing phone(which I highly recommend). So lets get to it. I purchased the Blackberry Storm at Verizon wireless, signed up for unlimited texting and the lower cost data plan. I feel like I got good service from the sales team and good pricing on my Blackberry service and phone. The following are my likes and gripes:

  • fit and finish are hands down sexy, some back lighting leaks through around touch screen and buttons. I gotta tell ya this isn't near as bad as most reviewers made it out to be.
  • The touch screen is clear and bright, able to be seen in the daylight. downloaded and watched full length movies that were DVD quality and beautiful. Now lets talk about the sure type touch screen. Typing is a challenge but gets better as you learn to how to use this feature. To be completely honest this would drive me nuts if I had to edit long documents on the fly. You will make several mistakes just twittering. could be much better, but still not a deal breaker.
  • Web browser is average to slightly below due mostly to constant resiszing the screen to select a hyper link. This is enough to tick you off right away. The other thing that bothered me was the absense of flash video player. Without flash player youtube has to be watched from the Verizon client, and no hulu or other video streaming services that use flash, unless you have aspecial client software. This is definately the long way around to do the same thing.
  • Works great in tethered mode to my laptop. Verizon broadband service is slow but when there is no other way to get online, this is better than dial-up. Very workable in the field.
  • Sound is very loud and pretty good(miss stereo speakers though). Stereo sound is available through bluetooth enabled stereo head sets and standard stereo headsets and the sound is great if you take the time to try all the equlizer preset modes that only work on the headsets. Ripped DVDs that I own and loaded on to the Storm, and they sounded so good. Mp3s also sound second to none through the headsets(depending on the source quality). Phone calls are kinda tinny sounding through handset(much better sound on speaker phone.
  • Applications are best when they are specifically designed for the Storm, otherwise it is hit or miss, meaning all Blackberry apps do not work on the storm. Most do but check to see if the is a Storm specific app before installing.
  • The operating system(OS) is pretty good for my style of use. I especially like all the ways to stay in touch with people 7 e-mail acounts,SMS,MMS,PIN,and instant messaging, oh and the phone(what else can you ask for?). OK (remember instant Check Spellingmesseging) how about preloaded Facebook, Youtube, Flickr, and Myspace client software. Not enough? Remember I mentioned instant messanging not one preloaded clients but five(Yahoo,AOL,Blackberry,Googletalk,Windows Live).Now for the not so so good the phone has crashed to the point where I had to take the battery out and reinstall it and then power up. In Blackberrys defense, I do tend to push the phone past its capabilities by too much multi tasking. Which brings us to the fact that the phone is multi tasking capible...keep it down to two tasks at the same time and you should be ok. I get into trouble because I am twittering, listening to music, and browsing at same time. Just to help you out my phone crashed maybe 6 times in three weeks always because of the fore mentioned reason. In my opinion the OS is stable but can be tweaked in future updated versions(look how much they have fixed so far). It stinks that we have to do the beta testing after we buy what we believe is a whole and viable product. My personal opinion is that this device can doe so many things pretty good and it will only get better as new updates are introduced. I did not cover everything that the phone is capable of, but instead the key points that I have found. All in all this is a very handy device, you can and will be doing business on this phone, as it exists now and better in the future. I'm already thinking about what the next gen Storm should bring. Not that RIM listens to me ....YET!!!

Saturday, February 7, 2009

Thursday, February 5, 2009

Ok I guess I'm the only one with something to say... here goes. Nintendo DS, not a bad gadget in all. We bought one for my wife and she loves the games (pogo island, spyro). I have tinkered with it every now and then and found that the web browser and wifi are just ok. Meaning that the browser is slow and devoid of a lot of features. Some webpages will not work no matter which mode the browser is in(mobile or full size or resize). As for the wifi, the range is insainly small so what is the point? Having said that wifi for multi play(adhoc) works fine for us.

OK now for my thoughts on a better next gen(would love to hear your thoughts too)

-better(read full featured) faster browser

-more on board storage

-productivity apps that are actualy usefull


ok this is a start. Please join us.

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

next up nintendo DS

Monday, February 2, 2009

Case in point: bought a psp and I enjoy the games and movies played on it. Now having said that, these are my suggestions for a better product next go round. Here goes.

-faster wifi (802.11n spec maybe)
-touch screen data entry
-add bluetooth (headset for voip, head phones for games and music)
-dual core cpu or at least a fast single core
-productivity apps (calender, contact list, e-mail, ect. )
-louder speakers,better sound quality
-lose the UMD drive, replace with faster tech
-better battery life

Thats all for now, but I would like to hear more from everyone.