Review - Verizon's Blackberry Storm 9530

In case this is the first time you've been to this blog please note--I am busy! Not just sometimes, all the time. The reason I stress that is because although I really really like technology (probably more than I should), I no longer have time to read the manual for hours and hours.

Enter the Blackberry Storm 9530, with promises of consolidating up to 8 emails, messages, etc., cutting down my face time with the monitor & allowing me to upload to Flickr & Facebook in a flash--right out of the box.

That sounded good. After fighting the smart phone trend for awhile I finally decided to give in so that I could (hopefully) quit having to run to my computer all the time. I've had the Blackberry for about a month now, & it's time for a review, so here goes. I'm going to talk about features that are important to me, that's all I've paid attention to anyway.

• Screen--by far the best I've ever had. Colors are clear The touch screen took a little getting used to, but now it's a breeze. 1 touch to enlarge images & text, 2 to engage. There is a copy & paste in there somewhere, but I haven't needed it yet. The accelerometer is the thingy that makes the screen orient horizontally or vertically & it is a little slow sometimes, but usually no problem.
  
• Keyboard--took about 3 days for me to get used to. I actually thought it needed re-calibrating at first until I realized that it was calibrated for use with both hands perfectly. I had been using my left hand only with my previous phone (the much-loved 1st generation LGEnv). Obviously with a touch screen, there is nothing tactile to give you physical clues, so you have to watch the screen all the time. Also, extra characters & numbers actually show up on a separate screen--which is a bit of an annoyance if you are trying to email a phone number because each time you hit the number button it automatically switches back to the alphabet screen, meaning you have to double the buttons you type for a phone number.
  
• Bluetooth--the Storm paired easily with my Original Jawbone bluetooth device, but after 4 days the voice command feature simply quit working. That could be a deal killer for me, as I am not going to give up my Original Jawbone & I don't want to use the dial feature on the road. After checking Verizon's site & finding nothing, I went the Jawbone site & read: "There is a known issue with Blackberry voice dialing hanging in conjunction with the use of Bluetooth devices.

  To resolve the issue, reset your Blackberry. You can either do this by performing a hard reset (remove the battery from the Blackberry, wait a few seconds, and then replace the battery) or a soft reset (consult your Blackberry's User's Guide for instructions).

  It's also recommended that you make sure you have the latest software update installed for your Blackberry. Visit Blackberry's website for the most recent updates.

  There are several online resources such as BlackberryForums.com that may offer other solutions."
  
  Bummer! The Blackberry battery is a bitch to get out of the case if you have long fingernails-which I do. Not only that, but I have to take it out of the silicon case every time? Big sigh. Plus it takes a couple of minutes to reboot itself. I sure wish I had known this when I was researching this phone--I would never have bought it in the first place.
  
  Now I'm faced with the prospect of either giving up my precious Jawbone, or wasting my time with resets & the like.
  

• EMail--Six days into ownership & I finally got the email set up. I set up 4 separate accounts, 1 google, 1 yahoo, 4 private domains--all POP3. Absolutely no problem at all, worked like a champ. After a day or so I realized I had cut down my monitor time by almost half! I am really pleased with how the Blackberry handles this. All my messages are compiled into one "Message" icon on the screen so I can see everything instantly--the CEO snapshot if you will. Totally a timesaver. The messages are also sorted into their various accounts as well. If I choose to reply via phone, I will receive a message from Blackberry on my email server letting me know that I replied to this message via Blackberry on a certain day at a certain time--thus eliminating a point of failure that I was kind of worried about. It's easy to delete email as well & I have the choice of either deleting it just on the Blackberry, or on the server as well--nice!
  
• Battery Life--better than my worn out LG. But only time will tell as to how long that will last.
  

I was starting to like this phone when it started rebooting itself. I had even decided to try another bluetooth device (I had no choice really). The reboots happened randomly. I called tech support at Verizon & found out it was yet another "known issue". Sheeze! They promise a firmware update soon that should take care of it. My question is how soon? Soon as in tomorrow or soon as in sometime in the future? No answer for that one...

• Flickr--It's a given that cell phones come with cameras now. I adored the camera on my LG & looked forward to an even better experience with the Blackberry so I was keen on setting up the Flickr app. It works like a champ. Took about 2 minutes to set up. Unfortunately, the camera itself is not nearly as user-friendly as I had hoped. Guess I will have to read the manual to figure out what it is I'm doing wrong. I will as soon as I get the chance. Till then I will keep taking the occasional picture, hoping I will get it figured out. The phone came with an 8 gig memory card--I hope I get to put it to work.
  
• Facebook--This app was more of a curiosity for me than a must-have, but I set it up & managed to post a couple of times when I was bored & had nothing to do (at the DMV). It takes a while to get around on it, so you need to be really addicted to Facebook to get the full benefit of this app I guess. Also you can't edit if upload something by mistake. I found out after uploading a "pig" (not pic) of an old house.
  
• Browser--meh, whatever. I like that I can check weather, movies, headlines, but it's really not that crucial & it's really not what I'm used to as far as web connections go. Frankly I'm at the point in my life where I want less internet & more me time.
• GPS, word processing apps, games--I simply don't use them, so I havent checked them out yet.
• Contacts--I have 399 contacts. So far, so good. I'm told that I can have an unlimited amount with this phone. Ok, cool.
• Sound quality--as expected.
  

I bought 2 of these phones. I gave one to Tom, who is even busier than I am. I decided to set up his email for him, since he hadn't gotten around to it yet. It turned into a tech support nightmare. His phone simply would not accept the POP3 settings. I must say that the folks at Verizon were extraordinarily helpful. I would have given up on me! They never lost their cool. That's why I love Verizon. When Tom's phone reset itself in the middle of the tech support they suggested I take them in & trade them out. I agreed at this point. And that's where it got interesting...

The tech guy at Verizon on Airport Road in Asheville (Mr. Leather) at first refused to trade them out. He said that there was a known issue with these phones & he wasn't going to do it, even though I brought all the proper paperwork & was well within the 30 day guarantee range. I told him that I had just spent over two hours with tech support the day before & was bringing them back on their recommendation & he bluntly told me too bad, they hadn't notated it in my account, if I wanted to call customer service & get them to notate it he would trade them out, but that was the only way. So I called them, right there, right then. They were mortified. After handing my phone to Mr. Leather, he spoke to them for a few seconds, then proceeded to start the trade out. Then after all that, he told me that I had to take them to the store I bought them from because "he couldn't find the sale" in his computer & couldn't change anything. Seems I bought them at a resellers store. (It said Verizon on door!)

Now normally I would have stayed & made him take care of the problem but at this point Mr. Leather had already wasted 45 minutes of my time & I didn't want to trust him with my data. I knew I could go to the original store I bought them from & get some lunch while the phones were getting transferred, and that's what I did. The folks at the Skyland store were really helpful, & it was no problem. I didn't have to assuage anybody's ego just to get new phones.

The final verdict? Undecided. I don't know if these features have been worth the extra time I've had to put into them. My 2nd brand new phone started resetting itself last week & is doing it 4 or 5 times a day now.

The saga continues...