Blackberry: Going from a Pearl to a Storm
About a year ago I went from a traditional dumb phone, no PDA capabilities, to my very own Blackberry Pearl. I showed my new baby to my friends and coworkers. They gave the keyboard funny looks (it shares letters on each key and uses SureType technology to determine which one you actually want to use when you start typing), and truthfully, I wasn’t too sure about it myself. I wondered if I really needed to get my work email real-time. I hadn’t used the internet much on the old phone and didn’t know how many of the crazy functions I’d really use. Was I getting a tech gizmo gadget doohickey because I would really use everything it had to offer, or because I just wanted it?
Fastforward to now. I can’t live without my crackberry. I check my email first thing when I wake up and right before I go to sleep so that I know what’s going on with work and can help out whenever possible. I Google frequently and am on my way to developing carpal tunnel syndrome from texting so much. My phone is my camera, my schedule, my mp3 player, my link to Facebook, my Gmail account and Google Talk, and basically a piece of me. I feel naked without it. I dread long flights and dead zones. I went camping a month ago and had to drive into town to feel connected again.
However, I have several friends who have even fancier phones. Big, colorful screens. Screens you can touch, swipe, swivel and tap. The navigation button on my Pearl was starting to look a little sad. I liked the size of my phone, but not the size of my screen. I was developing “Touch Screen Envy.” Luckily for me, Blackberry had released the Storm model at the beginning of this year, and I was due for my “New Every Two” with Verizon. I dropped by the store in the mall and walked out with my very own touchscreen smart phone. I’ve had it for a couple days now. I haven’t used it as much as I thought I would; while the interface is sleeker and touching the screen gives me a thrill, the basic functionality is still the same and it’s not as new as an entirely different type of device like a Palm or an iPhone.
Personalization
I’ve installed Facebook, Gmail, Google Chat and Opera Mini; this process was surprisingly easier than on my Pearl, since the Storm has a fancy section called Application Center which gives download links to a dozen popular applications in one location. I had to search on the Pearl through the browser to get all this stuff installed before. It also comes with an 8GB microSD card, and I’ve already transferred all my music and pictures from my old card onto this new jumbo storage chip.
Email Functionality
Setting it up on our Blackberry Enterprise Server was the same procedure as with the Pearl, even the same menus. However, my emails are now separated from my MMS and SMS Text messages, and I really like this. Now my work stuff is my work stuff and my texts are in another folder. It’s a small thing, but I’m already happier.
Keyboard and Typing
The touchscreen is pretty nifty. I can set the sensitivity in the Options menu, but I haven’t felt the need to update this yet. Being able to swipe the screen sideways while reading emails has been handy; I can move between messages pretty quickly. However, I have found that so far, I type slower. I miss my Pearl’s physical keypad. I’ve used the Storm keyboard in horizontal and vertical mode, and it doesn’t seem to matter, although in vertical orientation it’s the same layout as the Pearl SureType keyboard. I could type a mile a minute on the Pearl and was pretty accurate, too. I find that even though the Storm keyboard highlights the area where your finger touches when pressing a key, I still make many mistakes in my typing. Perhaps this is just me calibrating my touch-style to this particular screen. Perhaps it will drive me nuts in the end. It’s still too early to tell.
I have 30 days to decide whether or not I like this new way of doing business. 30 days of typing and goofing up. Also 30 days of a screen twice the size of my Pearl and the option to “swipe” the screen around. It’s a cool gadget and I’m enjoying getting to know it. We’ll see if I stick with it, or decide to get a Curve instead!
Kristin Mott
Network Engineer Team Lead
Everon Technology Services
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Tags: Blackberry Pearl, Blackberry Storm, business and cell phone, cell phone, cell phone use, handheld, phones
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