When can you tell that the large touch screen feature phone or smart phone craze is in full swing? When Blackberry maker RIM releases a large touch-screen device, this time called the Storm. Probably going to be the one of this year’sbiggest releases in the smartphone world, next to the Nokia 5800 Xpressmusic. What stands out is the impressive amount of radios packed inside: CDMA / EV-DO Rev. A, quadband EDGE, and 2100MHz HSPA, making it according to Engadget, ‘One of the most global phones ever to hit the market‘ Wi-Fi on the other hand is missing on the new Storm. The design itself looks more home user than business friendly, the guys from dialaphone say that the dramatic change in design started with the Bold an now continues with the Storm, by taking a ‘more creative approach’ and ‘delving into the currently very competitive touch screen market in which manufacturers are all vying for the crown of iPhone killer’ Another unique feature of the Storm is the ‘haptic’ clickable screen that actually depresses when touched. The user will actually distinctly feels the screen being pressed and released with a gentle ‘click’, similar to the feeling of a key on a physical keyboard or a button on a mouse. The innovative screen also supports multi-touch, taps and slides.
The software itself is the usual from Blackberry, save for a few aesthetic changes here and there. Other things worth mentioning is the built-in Accelerometer, 3.5mm audio jack, GPS with A-GPS and a fairly average 3.2 Megapixel camera. As for storage it has 1GB of built-in storage and most importantly it will take microSDHC cards.
No word on pricing has been announced, but is set to be released by the end of the year.
Is this the direction RIM should be taking or should they stick to their business roots?
Written by Devin