Today Verizon Wireless and Vodafone announced their exclusive claim to being the first family of carriers to offer the new RIM BlackBerry Storm smartphones. Verizon Wireless will have exclusive rights to the BlackBerry Storm 9530 smartphone while Vodafone, one of Verizon's parents, will claim rights to the BlackBerry Storm 9500 in Europe, India, Australia, and New Zealand. No specific launch dates have been given, but the joint press release mentions availability "later this fall."
As the first touchscreen BlackBerry device, a lot is riding on the Storm for RIM. BlackBerry devices have always been known for their fine, usable keyboards and the devices on a whole have been the tool of choice for many people that rely on email to do business. As such, the introduction of a touchscreen on a BlackBerry is something of a risk, as touchscreens have long been considered poor when it comes to text input - and a BlackBerry is nothing without text input.
To that end, RIM is using what it calls the first "clickable" touchscreen display on the market for the Storm. RIM president Mike Lazaridis says that the Storm "solves the longstanding problem associated with typing on traditional touch-screens" by responding more like a physical keyboard. The 360x480 pixel resolution, 65k color touchscreen is made of glass and can be pressed in as if it were one large hardware button. Because of that, users will feel a positive click when they press on it. This unique system also allowed RIM to use a capacitive touchscreen(INFO) in the device, like the one in the iPhone and T-Mobile G1, and as a result the Storm can support multi-touch(INFO) finger inputs as well.
The touchscreen is also backed up by an accelerometer, which enables it to automatically rotate with the device. As such, RIM is able to have the Storm use a SureType 20 key virtual keypad design, similar to that of that BlackBerry Pearl, when the phone is held vertically while offering a full QWERTY layout when used in landscape mode. The auto-rotation also helps when used with the web browser, which has a row of buttons across the bottom of the screen that allow users to switch between page and single column modes as well as control whether the user's finger controls the mouse pointer or is used for panning and scrolling. Another feature of the browser that people will appreciate is the double-tap zoom control, like that found on the iPhone and in Opera's 9.5 browser for devices like the HTC Touch Diamond and Samsung i900 Omnia.
And since RIM knows just how important text is to a BlackBerry user, the Storm also supports copy and paste functionality. We don't have a lot of other details on the phone yet, but we do know that there will be GPS support for navigation, and that the browser can handle RSS feeds. A 3.2 megapixel camera with autofocus is on board, backed up by special versions of Flickr and Facebook, and Bluetooth stereo support is there along with a regular 3.5mm headphone jack socket.
The RIM BlackBerry Storm 9500 for Vodafone will support 3G UMTS(INFO) and HSPA(INFO) data on the 2100MHz band as well as quad-band GSM/EDGE. The Verizon version goes a step further by offering all of the network support of the 9500 as well as EV-DO Rev A(INFO). support for Verizon's 3G network for true dual-mode(INFO) 3G world roaming. It measures about 112.5mm x 62.2mm x 14.0mm (4.4" x 2.4" x .5") in size and weighs about 155g (5.5oz). It offers 1GB of internal storage space and supports microSD cards as large as 16GB in capacity.
Vodafone has said that its Storm 9500 will be available in November and that pricing information will be made public in a few weeks. So far Verizon has only said that the Storm 9530 will be available later this fall.
Specifications for the RIM BlackBerry Storm 9530
Band CDMA 800/1900MHz, GSM 850/900/1800/1900MHz, UMTS 2100MHz
Data 1xRTT/EV-DO Rev. A/GPRS/EDGE/WCDMA/HSPA
Size 112.5mm x 62.2mm x 14.0mm (4.4" x 2.4" x .5")
Weight 155g (5.5oz)
Battery Life Up to 15 days standby
Up to 6 hours talk time
Main Display 3.25" 65k color touchscreen, 480x360 pixel resolution
Camera 3.2 megapixel with autofocus
Video Video capture/playback
Messaging MMS/SMS/IM
Email Yes
Bluetooth Yes, A2DP stereo
Memory 1GB internal, microSD card slot (up to 16GB)
Availability Fall 2008
Other GPS, media player, 3.5mm stereo headphone jack, HTML browser
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