April 7th, 2009
Clash of the Touch Titans: iPhone 3.0 3G vs RIM BlackBerry Storm
I have now written up my thoughts on the iPhone 3G vs. Palm Pre and iPhone 3G vs. HTC Magic so now it is time to move on to the RIM BlackBerry flagship product, the Storm. The BlackBerry Storm is currently the only RIM device with a touchscreen and thus fits in perfectly with our look at touchscreen focused devices. It also runs the latest version of the BlackBerry OS, version 4.7. I laid out what we know of the iPhone 3G with 3.0 OS operating system in my first article so I won’t repost all of that content here. I will run through each section for the BlackBerry Storm and then offer my personal thoughts on how it compares to the iPhone 3G with 3.0 OS update on the last page of this feature.
I had a chance to spend a couple weeks with the RIM BlackBerry Storm when it was first released so I do have hands-on experiences to include in this article. There have been updates issued for the device since then that I understand have fixed several issues so I will try to make sure to account for that in my thoughts here. The BlackBerry Storm is a device that is sold here in the US through Verizon, but is also available as a GSM device in other parts of the world. I will focus on the US perspective and Verizon Wireless in this article since I am using these to personally evaluate and decide if any touch screen device is a fit for me.
Let me start off this article by also clearly stating I am not an expert in the BlackBerry world and use RIM devices from time to time as they are released. I switch my SIM into way too many devices to be locked into a BB provisioned SIM so I can never keep one around for too long.
Operating System - BlackBerry OS 4.7.x.x: The Storm was the first device to be released with this version of the OS because support was needed for the touch screen technology. Unlike the iPhone or Google Android devices where the OS was created and optimized for the touch interface, RIM took the existing BlackBerry operating system and added a few touch elements to it so it really is not a clean and slick solution that is optimized for touch. When I checked out the device there were several times when I could tell the OS was optimized for a hardware keyboard and touching to activate something often led to the wrong selection. I don’t think RIM should start over from scratch with an OS optimized for touch because I am not completely sold that touch is the only way to go in the future. RIM is very good at QWERTY devices and for the most part their OS takes advantage of the tight hardware integration.
I do like that RIM provides you with a full QWERTY keyboard in landscape mode. A full QWERTY should also be coming to portrait mode in an upcoming software update. I think this is important because at this time you are restricted to a virtual SureType keyboard or multi-press phone keypad layout in portrait mode. This requires users to have two different keyboard layouts on the device and may lead to less efficient text entry. You still have the option of using SureType in portrait mode and offering the user more choices is usually better in most cases since everyone has different preferences.
One of the limitations in the BlackBerry OS is that all applications must be installed and run from the device memory and cannot be placed onto an external memory card. I understand there may be hacks to enable this, but we are not covering hacks here in these articles. The BlackBerry OS is designed to only allow storage of music, videos, ringtones, and photos on the microSD cards. This really only gets to be much of an issue for serious power users who may try to load up a ton of applications and I personally have never run into a low memory issue even with over 25 applications on BlackBerry devices. I have seen this error on my T-Mobile G1 running Google Android that also requires apps to be loaded into the device memory.
For the most part I find the BlackBerry OS to be very stable and robust. However, depending on what 3rd party application I may be trying out the device has been known to just freeze (similar to what the iPhone does) and you can’t tell if something is running in the background or what is going on so you just need to reset it and move on.
The OS does support multitasking which I will mention more in my 3rd party application section and depending on your use of the device this could be a major factor in your decision process.
Cut, copy, and paste are supported on the Storm, but this will also be supported (and in an elegant manner) on the iPhone with the 3.0 update.
The BlackBerry OS is highly focused on messaging and one aspect that you either love or hate (I hate it myself) is the integrated inbox that puts messages from all of your accounts into a single inbox. On the iPhone it is a bit of a pain to back all the way out of an email account and then dive back in to check email, but I personally do like having my email appear in separate inboxes since I don’t like to mix my work and home email accounts. You can also toggle this capability on a BlackBerry to have separate inboxes appear in the email client. There are some other settings for BES vs BIS, but I have never seen or used a BES supported device so I have no experience to comment on this aspect.
I cannot stand the way settings and options are managed on the BlackBerry OS and going into the settings takes you back to the 80s with a text formatted list that has several different settings and configuration options hidden deep down in cryptic topics and menus. They need to devote some developers to really cleaning up this area, but I suppose it discourages new users from changing many options and settings that may result in fewer tech service calls. As a power user though, I hate the whole settings layout and odd system with standard and advanced menus.
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Matthew Miller is an avid mobile device enthusiast who works during the day as a professional naval architect in Seattle. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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