BlackBerry Storm not as cool as an iPhone, but a harder worker

OK, let's get the Apple iPhone comparisons out of the way at the beginning: When it comes to pure cool, the BlackBerry Storm, the new global smartphone from Research in Motion, is no match for the iPhone.

While the Storm sports a touch-screen interface rather than a physical keypad, it can't match the iPhone's finger-flicking, pinch-zooming touch-screen panache.

Nor does it have many of the slick consumer applications the iPhone offers, such as Shazam, which can identify songs being played within earshot of the phone.

Finally, while the Storm is stylish, it is thicker, heavier and not quite as elegant as the iPhone.

So why bother? Actually, many consumers — especially professionals — will find good reasons to opt for the Storm over the iPhone.

For starters, a lot of organizations don't allow use of iPhones because they offer limited enterprise-management tools and they lack the security of full-device encryption. BlackBerries, including the Storm, excel in both categories, making them a more attractive choice for certain professionals.

Second, while many veteran BlackBerry users won't want to give up their physical keyboards in favor of the Storm's touch-screen keyboard, the latter is decidedly easier to use than the touch-screen keyboard offered on the iPhone. The Storm's touch-screen is unique in that it moves perceptibly when you push on it. As a result, when you use the touch-screen keyboard, as well as menus, you get tactile feedback.

In fact, the Storm allows users to choose between two touch-screen keyboards. When you turn the phone between landscape and portrait mode, the contents of the screen change as well. This makes it handy to get a better view of certain photographs or Web pages.

But it also changes the configuration of the keyboard. In the landscape mode you get a full Qwerty keyboard. In the portrait mode, the truncated keyboard can be configured to employ either a mulitap method — in which you tap the button multiple times to evoke certain letters — or a SureType mode, which tries to guess what you're trying to enter.

At first, I thought the SureType mode was a loser. But that's because I was watching what it came up with after each press of the key. When I went ahead and typed without looking at the results, I found the SureType method was surprisingly effective.

By giving up the physical keyboard, of course, Storm owners gain a lot more room for cruising the Internet and viewing photos. Here, too, the Storm has an edge over the iPhone. The Storm's 480 x 360 pixel display offers just a tad more resolution than the 480 x 320 pixel display sported by the iPhone. As for photographs, the Storm's 3.2 megapixel camera overshadows the 2.0 megapixels offered by the iPhone camera.

Both the Storm and iPhone can open and read Word and Excel files, a handy feature for traveling professionals. With the Storm, however, you can install DataViz software that allows you to edit these files as well. Of course, no one is going to want to do extensive editing on a cellphone, but the capability to make limited changes is very welcome.

Finally, I found the Storm to have the edge on battery life. The iPhone does show smarts in conserving battery life by automatically turning off GPS when it's not in use, a trick the Storm would do well to emulate. But if you manually turn off the GPS, the Storm, like other BlackBerries, stretches out a charge better than most. You can expect up to 15 days of standby time and 5.5 to 6 hours of talk time with a single charge.

To touch or not to touch?

OK, enough of comparisons. How does the BlackBerry Storm stand on its own? Pretty darn well.

True, the Storm has gotten already taken a lot of flack from some analysts. Some longtime BlackBerry fans question the move to the touch-screen and some critics cite the awkwardness of the software keyboard (even though it's arguably the best on the market).

Fact is, the Storm is a "tweener." It's a phone that combines the business power of previous BlackBerries — including full-device encryption, push e-mail, enterprise-management tools, etc. — with the large screen that makes surfing the Internet and viewing e-mails much more enjoyable.

What's more, the phone — oh, yeah ... besides the Internet, e-mail, music, videos and camera, the Storm actually includes a telephone function — offers very clear sound.

There are a few glitches I found in this first edition of the first BlackBerry touch-screen phone. To begin with, some of the menus are less than intuitive.

Also, the device comes with so many applications preloaded that performance suffered. When I freed up application memory by unloading some unneeded applications, things improved considerably. I decided I could do without French and Korean character sets, and even the BlackBerry Messenger applications. Once I disposed of the excess, the unit's pauses and hiccups for the most part disappeared.

Finally, I found the phone to be extremely slow to charge through a USB connection. Fortunately, that's not a major issue unless you're traveling and forgot to bring along your wall-socket charger.

The upside is that all these glitches — save, perhaps, the last one — can be fixed with software updates.

The bottom line

There are so many cellphones on the market that the real question isn't whether this particular phone is good or bad. The real issue is who will want this phone.

The BlackBerry Storm is a phone of choice for traveling professionals who view — but don't write — a lot of e-mails on the phone and who want to cruise the Internet with the extra elbow room offered by the Storm's touch-screen. Don't expect the flash, sizzle or slick consumer applications of the iPhone. But do expect reliability, security, long battery life and management tools of the BlackBerry line.

The device is currently available only from Verizon Wireless for $249.99 with a two-year contract commitment. A $50 mail-in rebate is available. Verizon offers service plans tailored for BlackBerries that range from $49.99 to $99.99 per month.

Patrick Marshall writes the weekly Q&A column in Personal Technology.