Will it be what you want it to be???

Exclusive: First Look at the BlackBerry Storm 2!!

Thank you for sharing

If it's as good as it should be, it might be out by the time my upgrade comes around in 18 months... ;)

lol, reading all the comments over at CB makes me wonder why people are so angry at other people for either liking or hating this phone...

I'm excited none-the-less and love the fact that the screen is more streamlined with the device body and love the fact that they got rid of all physical buttons on the face of the device......also interesting to feel out how they managed to fine tune the screen to integrate the accuracy of the pseudo-physical buttons...

anyways...baby steps...where's 5.0 for the loyal Storm users!?

Why couldn't this have gone into one of the other multitudes of Storm 2 threads?

I dont think the storm 2 is as big as its made out to be. I get the fact that its got wifi and slightly better resolution with physical buttons eliminated but personally I have an unlim data plan so wifi wont do me any good. Plus I dont find surfing the web on the phone all that fun if I have a laptop right next to me. Second I am not a big fan of having everything touch. Resolution is all I can think of that makes it better. I couldnt justify buying a storm 2 if I already have a storm based on that. The size looks relatively the same with slight mods to it.

Pictures taken off of CB by RIM's request, they're still up on BGR as of now if anybody has yet to see them.

Not sure why they did that really, it just confirms the leak to everyone by doing that. If rim generally can't stop these leaks then they need to take the opposite approach and just leak so much random misinformation that there is no way for people to know what is true and what isn't, drastically lower the reputation of any of the blogs for accuracy and people won't notice the leaks the way they do now.

Great point, I thought the same thing once they took out the pictures from CB. Whatever RIM wants to do, I guess that's their own decision and we, the consumers, just live with it.

Blame Hendricks, not me!

Storm 2 hand on and Video!!

BlackBerry Storm 2: the official unofficial hands-on

Glad they got rid of the stupid click screen. Nothing but a failed gimmick.

Will you also be the first to complain "I wish they'd get rid of the stupid haptic feedback touchscreen, nothing but a failed gimmck"?

I'm very disappointed RIM is taking the unimaginative route and just going with a boring capacitive touch screen. The click screen had some issues to work through, but I think it's great. I type pretty quickly on it, and it's fantastic for web browsing and clicking on links.

Apple wins again.

Odd how Apple wins... BlackBerry is still outselling them by a large margin.

http://www.blackberrynews.com/2009/0...s-marketshare/

For many quarters in a row.

It's a nice enough idea that they could have improved in its next gen, but I wouldn't be surprised if they have made this change due to cost and overall hardware reliability.

Its all very well bringing out something new, but if it costs more and/or is more likely to break than other options without being clearly better to most people then it just doesn't make sense to keep it, but knowing rim it seems unlikely that they won't still try and do something new with this touchscreen to try and distinguish from others.

I meant "Apple wins" in the sense that instead of sticking with something that was really interesting and innovative, RIM chose to go with a boring capacitive screen. Just one more in the pile of iPhone clones. I'm talking purely about innovation, not market share.

I know it's strictly anecdotal, but I"ve introduced no less than 9 users to the Storm, each and everyone LOVES the click screen. The device was one of VZW's best sellers. None of this makes sense to me.

No haptic keyboards are fine. And apparently I'm not the only one who didn't like the click screen, otherwise RIM wouldn't have been so quick to dump it.

Maybe because the iphone is only offered on one network and the BB is available on all the networks. If the iphone was available for all, I think the numbers would be a little different. Many people are very happy with their network and changing just for a certain device isn't an option.

So, how smart does that make the Apple boys for signing on to only one network?

Hmm... RIM wins again.

I'm not so interested in a touch screen phone. :(

There is the real reason why more blackberries are sold not what networks the various phones are on, rim offer a wider range of form factors and don't just assume their customers would all be happy with only one option.

For now.

If the iPhone ever makes it to Verizon I'm convinced it would be a HUGE success.

Granted I would probably still key a full keyboard BB over an iPhone because I can't stand typing on a touchscreen but I'm sure people would be lining up to dump their old phone for an iPhone.

I may switch to verizon for this

You may want to wait for the reviews before you do.

Nah, just do it willy-nilly with no reviews or anything, just like any Apple fanboi would for the next iPhone iteration.

Are you kidding? I would never buy any device, from any company without reading the reviews of it. I've owed all kinds of devices and I always look before I leap. If the new iphone is crap, I won't get it, trust me. I am loyal to no company, I buy what works best for me at that time. If RIM wants me back, they need seamless Mac support and Exchange support without the costly BES.

I just switched from an 8900 to the Storm on Tmobile preparing for the worst with all the negative reviews on the click screen. I have to say that I actually LOVE it...you can move around the screen without selecting anything then when you have highlighted what you want, click.

I've had numerous speed typing contest with curve and bold users and I have been able to keep up with, if not beat most in speed tests. These were seasoned blackberry users of all ages.

In fact, now that I have my Storm, I don't even use my iTouch anymore to surf the web. I'm going to miss the surepress screen. Wish I would've switched sooner instead of just last week...

Seasoned they might be, but fast they clearly aren't.

That's exactly right...where I live, Verizon, is simply the best network. Being in Pittsburgh area AT&T has coverage all over, but it continually drops calls - when I talk to my brother, he always has to call back - where I worked, my boss always had to call back to the office...the calls would just drop. My brother would always say, "I might lose you here," because he was used to it. If Verizon sold the iPhone I probably would have gotten one...mostly for the big screen...so I was excited about RIM producing a touch phone. My NE2 is up in July and I was ready to get a Storm, but now I will wait for the Storm2...I just will not switch to AT&T.

It was interesting in that article that said in Q1 Apple doubled its marketshare in smartphones to 10%. That's a pretty big jump but a pretty small %. I also believe their statement that touchscreen is all the buzz in smartphones. People want to use that feature even if it doesn't do much funtionally or even if it's actually harder to type on. The iPhone fans continually swear up and down they can type so very fast and yet the #1 reason for ditching it is the typing thing. To me "touchscreen" is a lot like "3G" these days. A lot of hype but maybe not all it's cracked up to be for the end user.

Touch screen or large screen is certainly no hype.

When it comes to productivity and business, activity that leads to such can be broken into two basic categories. Communication and messaging is one category. The second category is information gathering and presentation.

Blackberries excel in messaging. But where the iPhone truly excels is information gathering and presentation. This is where a large display comes in with superior navigation and access control comes to play, things that the iPhone tends to excel.

The iPhone is certainly trying to improve the messaging part of the equation. But Blackberry needs to improve their part of the productivity equation on information gathering and presentation. That's where the Storm and future larger screen Blackberries have to come in.

If the BB excels in messaging, then why do you need to purchase the expensive BES to get the same MS Exchange experience you get with the iphone out of the box. That BB is the best at messaging is wearing thin and is less and less true every day. RIM needs something more then this same mantra if it hope to stay on top.

wish this thread had a lot more storm 2 info and a lot less unrelated chatter!

I think the storm 2 without a click screen has the potential to be pretty nice as long as it isn't doesn't lag down like the storms 1's do (as a matter of fact, like every other blackberry i've owned does)

In my opinion, the storm 2 can't really be that much better than the original without a MASSIVE OS upgrade.

Os 5.0 doesn't seem like its going to cut it. Namely, they need to trash their horrible browser and advance their webkit based browser. Stop wasting development time on the super cr@ppy current browser. One of the main reasons I would want a big touchscreen is to be able to surf super proficiently like on the iPhone.

Secondly, they need to design an OS that is designed for a touchscreen from ground up. The OS's that have been released recently are in my opinion antiquated compared to anything the competition has out: android, webos, iphone os. They are just tweaks and add-ons to an already outdated OS. If they keep this up I can see them having a similar issue to Palm before they gave up on Garnet and all their old junk to restart with Webos.

Sure the blackberry is the king of business email, and I will most likely stick with BB for that, but without a massive overhaul to their OS, they will never have a touchscreen device that can rival palm, apple, google.

I couldn't agree with you more! IMO, your points are well taken--the OS is a piece of dung. I sure loved the screen and the SurePress keyboard though...and the call quality and speaker volume. Navigating the Storm is awful though. oh, and I loved the customization of tones, font sizes, etc. So much potential, but not fully realized. What I wouldn't give to sit down with RIM and explain to them what's wrong with the interface (and have them implement some changes I'd suggest).