Blackberry Storm 2 9520 deals & review

In a word or two

The BlackBerry Storm 2 9520 feels good to use and is a far superior smartphone compared to the original Storm.

The Design

The BlackBerry Storm 2 is the same size as its predecessor and has a 3.25 inch screen which is a normal touchscreen with inbuilt SurePress technology. This means you can scroll using your finger and then press the screen to select – it clicks when you have selected. The screen is also multi-touch so you can type on two areas at once, making it effortless to use.

Like the original, the Storm 2 is a reasonable size but it fits nicely in the palm of your hand. The front is attractive as the only buttons are call, menu, return and call end, which are all touch sensitive and flat, neatly lined beneath the screen. There are a few buttons on the side of the phone including a convenience key for setting your favourite application shortcut.

Specifications

The SurePress technology is better than on the original Storm, making the screen easier to press. And as you can press two parts of the screen at the same time, browsing web pages, editing documents in Word or Excel, or typing an email is easy. One of the best improvements on the screen is that it locks when the phone is in sleep mode. This means the screen can’t be pressed when the phone is off. There is also an indicator at the top of the phone which flashes different colours for different things such as charging or new message, which is convenient as you need never miss a thing.

The BlackBerry Operating System 5.0 – which is also used on the BlackBerry Bold 9700 – is a user-friendly interface. Each screen on the BlackBerry Storm 2 is minimal and you can click through for more options depending on what you want to view. For example, the connections button, when pressed, will show you all the active and inactive connections available such as Wi-Fi and Bluetooth – but the screen is kept clutter-free until you want to view what’s available.

If you want hassle-free social networking support, you’ll be pleased that the BlackBerry Storm 2 supports the Facebook Connect feature. This syncs all your Facebook friends’ details onto your phone and lets you poke or message them from your phone straight onto Facebook, similar to the Motorola DEXT. In the Messaging Centre, you can view all your messages in the one place including Facebook, texts and emails.

Staying in touch with contacts is easy too as the phone book lets you build a profile for each person, with picture, birthday, web page, company info etc. This is especially useful for business as you have a client’s details to hand before making a call or sending an email. The email function lets you add both corporate and personal addresses and you can have up to ten accounts.

Considerations

The SurePress can make clicking web links on sites a little tricky as the screen can roll as it’s pressed. However, this does get easier with practice.

Verdict

The BlackBerry Storm 2 has some great additions to the original Storm. The touchscreen is great to use – the scrolling is on a par with the iPhone 3G S and the SurePress makes the virtual keyboard more like a normal computer keyboard as you physically press the buttons, which is a nice sensation. With access to the BlackBerry App World, a music player, 3.2-megapixel camera, Google Talk and Yahoo Messenger, the Storm 2 is a welcomed successor.