Blackberry Storm: first RIM touchphone with iphone like multi-touch
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Research in Motion has announced the Storm, the first Blackberry smartphone with a touch interface. With the Storm, RIM now officialy has an iPhone competitor. The new phone will make it much more difficult for Apple to enter the enterprise market as the Storm is a worthy competitor and has the advantage of the Blackberry brand name, the leader in enterprise Smartphones.
In the U.S., the BlackBerry Storm 9530 has been launched on the Verizon network giving customers 3G EV-DO technology for faster data downloads. Outside the US, in Europe, India, Australia and New Zealand, the Storm 9500 is available on Vodafone’s UMTS/HSPA and quad-band EDGE/GPRS/GSM networks.
RIM is calling the Storm “the worlds first clickable” touch-screen phone which responds like a physical keyboard and also supports single-touch, multi-touch and gestures.
The touch-screen actually depresses slightly when the screen is pressed. The user is supposed to feel the screen being pressed and released with a gentle “click,” similar to the feeling of a key on a physical keyboard or a button on a mouse. The “clickable” touch-screen gives the user positive confirmation that they have made a selection.
In addition to the familiar navigation keys (“phone,” “menu” and “escape”) that are common to other BlackBerry smartphones, the new BlackBerry Storm adds support for multi-touches, taps, slides and other touch-screen gestures, so users can highlight, scroll, pan and zoom for easier navigation.
The Storm also features a built-in accelerometer like the iPhone, allowing its touch-screen to automatically switch between landscape mode and portrait mode as the user rotates the handset – RIM’s SureType keyboard layout is available in portrait mode and a full QWERTY keyboard in landscape mode.
The BlackBerry Storm also includes the following features and functions:
- 3.2 megapixel camera with variable zoom, auto focus and a flash that also provides continuous lighting when recording video
- Built-in GPS supports location-based applications and services, as well as geo tagging of photos
- 1 GB of onboard memory storage and a microSD™/SDHD memory card slot that supports up to 16 GB of additional storage
- Media player that can play movies smoothly in full-screen mode, display pictures and slideshows quickly and manage an entire music collection; playlists can be created directly on the handset and there’s an equalizer with 11 preset filters – including “Lounge,” “Jazz” and “Hip Hop” – for customized audio ranges when using wired headphones or external speakers
- A 3.5 mm stereo headset jack, support for Bluetooth® stereo audio profile (A2DP/AVRCP) and dedicated volume controls
- Large (3.25″) glass lens with a 480 x 360 resolution at 184 ppi
- An ambient light sensor that automatically adjusts back lighting
- Accelerometer that allows customers to view applications in either portrait or landscape mode by simply rotating the handset.
- Removable and rechargeable battery that provides approximately six hours of talk time on 3G networks and 15 days of standby time.
