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BlackBerry Storm 9500

By Joseph Hanlon on 05 December 2008

The Storm is a successful experiment and a decent smartphone. Those who take to the clickable touchscreen will love its ease of use and the excellent range of productivity tools on-board.

Editor's rating:7.9 User rating:5.6

Comments (71)

  • BBStorm user 613 gave 9/10 on 29/01/2009 09:50

    • Good: ITS EVERYTHING THE IPHONE ISNT
    • Bad: ONLY 1 PAGE ALLOWED TO BE OPENED AT A TIME IN THE BROWSER
      APP STORE NOT RUNNING YET =(

    *** TOO ALL THE PEOPLE WHO HAVE HAD PROBLEMS WITH THIS PHONE ***

    DON'T BE SO IMPATIENT. KEEP IN MIND HOW LONG IT TOOK APPLE TO GET THE IPHONE RIGHT. WE DIDNT GET THE IPHONE HERE IS AUSTRALIA UNTIL IT WAS PERFECTED.

    THIS PHONE HAS ONLY RECENTLY BEEN RELEASED. RIM ALREADY RELEASED UPDATES FOR THIS PHONE WHICH FIX NEARLY ALL OF THESE ISSUES RAISED BY THE STORM HATERS ON HERE I TOO ADMIT THAT THE PHONE WAS FRUSTRATING AT FIRST WITH THE ORIGINAL SOFTWARE. THERE IS ANOTHER SOFTWARE UPDATE (UNOFFICIAL) JUST BEEN LEAKED WHICH HAS BEEN GIVEN NOTHING BUT FANTASTIC REVIEWS ON THE IMPROVEMENTS IT MAKES.

    LETS FACE IT PEOPLE THIS PHONE HAS EVERYTHING THE IPHONE DOESNT HAVE. EXCLUDING WIFI (WHICH IS BLOODY SLOW ON THE IPHONE ANYWAY)

    EVERYONE COME TO YOUR SENSES AND REALISE THAT THIS PHONE IS A MUCH MORE CAPABLE ALL IN ONE DEVICE THAT THE IPHONE.

    I SUGGEST YOU GO OUT AND BUY IT, AND UPDATE THE SOFTWARE STRAIGHT AWAY.

    *** YOU WILL NOT REGRET **

  • jvsyd gave 1/10 on 26/01/2009 14:52

    • Good: big screen
      battery life
    • Bad: no wifi
      you can do a lot of thing with wifi, much faster and cheap.

    no wifi? how stupid!

    i'm eyeing to renoir or omnia or pixon instead.

    Storm is loser!

  • Macsta gave 2/10 on 23/01/2009 18:51

    • Good: Looks Good
    • Bad: Very very slow, Locks occassionaly when using the pad, vertical to horizontal very slow and sometimes doesn't even change.

      Recommend against wasting your $$$

    Definately the worse BB i have used.

  • Clem gave 2/10 on 22/01/2009 04:00

    • Good: - Nice screen.
      - Great sound quality.
      - Loud speaker.
    • Bad: - Very, very, very slow. Becomes impossibly slow once more than 2-3 standard applications are opened. This sometimes results in 'wait times' of 10secs+
      - Hard to navigate webpages, especially ones requiring text entry.
      - Context toolbars (such as one for the browser) is inconsistent and auto-hides for no apparent reason (need it for zooming out).
      - Impossible to type quickly.
      - Reception is poor.
      - Design fault in click mechanism. One corner is softer than the others requiring harder press which is very annoying especially QWERTY keyboard falls on that corner.
      - Accelerometer causes screen orientation to change very easily and sometimes need to flick the device to change it's orientation.
      - Very easy to get dust in the device as there is a gap between the screen and the rest of the phone.
      - The UI is a little incosistent.
      - Short battery life
      - Vodafone will NOT unlock it regardless of if you want to pay for unlocking or not.
      - Lack of WiFi (wouldn't be a problem if the reception/3G worked better - which it doesn't)
      - Holding the phone against your face in a call can sometimes activate one of it's call buttons (such as mute) which is annoying.
      - Touchscreen lag. Sometimes if you click to quickly, the touchscreen doesn't register selection by the time you push the screen so that the device opens the previously selected icon rather than the one you clicked on.
      - Hard to use text insertion/selection (even with smaller fingers).

    *** STRONGLY RECOMMEND AGAINST PURCHASE ***

    Bought this recently from Vodafone and it is literally the worst phone I have used. My cheap Sony s500i was less frustrating to use.

    *** STRONGLY RECOMMEND AGAINST PURCHASE ***

    Get the Bold (I have now bought this at my own cost) if you are serious about a high performance Blackberry.

  • frencett gave 9/10 on 18/01/2009 16:10

    • Good: Click is easy
      Applications are well integrated
      Easy to view
      Fantastic Media
    • Bad: Vodafone network is crappy
      Battery can die down quickly with heavy use

    I love my new Storm. It's smooth to use, and little lag. The battery does die down quicker than I'm used to, but I charge and back-up of a night so it's no biggy. Love it!
    Do I love it enough to recommend it - hell yeah!

  • P-Dog gave 3/10 on 14/01/2009 11:45

    • Good: Looks Great
    • Bad: no wifi
      locked with voda
      crap plans

    no wifi means if you want to stream a video off youtube or something voda will charge 2c per kb!!! to use maps voda will charge $79 per year omnia is the better option so far maps are free and wifi.

  • brencom gave 1/10 on 07/01/2009 09:31

    • Good: looks nice !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
    • Bad: worst BB i've ever had , went back to shop and they had most returned they sold over the last few weeks , crap battery life, hard to use and sooooo slow

    worst BB i've ever had , went back to shop and they had most returned they sold over the last few weeks , crap battery life, hard to use and sooooo slow

  • Jimmy gave 9/10 on 21/12/2008 13:53

    • Good: Looks, features, touch screen is great. Decent camera, good video, doesn't have wifi (this is good!)
    • Bad: Only on Vodafone network

    Had a play with one yesterday and it looks great. Has all the features I will ever need, and is more practical than the iPhone. May consider the HTC but this looks much better. Only problem is that it is only on Vodafone...

    Who needs wifi?!?! Get a laptop...

  • SL gave 4/10 on 20/12/2008 22:30

    • Good: This phone is gr8 looking and possibly works fine too.
    • Bad: A serious no no was the no WiFi for me. I use it extensively at home for emails, news feed all auto setup in my Touch Pro to download before stepping out or stepping into my home.

      Hence from tech point this is a mediocre phone for me.

    After checking this phone, the BBbold, Nokia N96 & Iphone, I bought the HTC Touch Pro.

    Couldn't be happier once I had installed Spb Mobile Shell, works like a charm.

  • Patanjali gave 7/10 on 19/12/2008 17:45

    Just to clarify, my review below IS about the Storm, not the Dopod!

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