In 2007, Apple gave us the iPhone, and salespeople saw that it was good.  Hailed by Time magazine as the “Invention of the Year”, the iPhone provided a leap forward in mobile communications and computing, with an extraordinarily intuitive interface, integrated multi-media support, and add-on applications.  However, as a mobile phone for salespeople, the iPhone is still less than perfect, even after taking the more powerful 3G version, introduced last summer, into account.  With exclusive availability in the U.S. only from AT&T, a closed architecture, and a spotty record of network and data synchronization performance, the iPhone is not the obvious choice for sales professionals who must have a powerful, flexible, absolutely reliable smartphone to do their jobs well.

Still, after Apple released their improved 3G version of the iPhone, I strongly considered purchasing one.  The exceptional multi-touch interface virtually oozes with that intangible “cool factor” that technology geeks salivate over, and I was no exception to the device’s appeal.  After playing with a friend’s iPhone for a while, my trusty BlackBerry, with its old fashioned physical keyboard, looked positively medieval in comparison.  In the end, however, I decided not to jump on the iPhone bandwagon, because it meant switching to AT&T (at significant cost), trying to get our highly territorial IT department to accept support of this strange alien device, and accepting Steve Jobs’ insular vision of an all-Apple, all-the-time universe.

And so I waited for my perfect mobile phone - one that would be just as easy to use as the iPhone, would run on my chosen carrier network (Verizon), and would be tailored to the unique needs of sales professionals.  Having used several BlackBerry phones (most recently, an extremely reliable 8830 World Edition), I hoped that RIM would produce a device that capitalized on the BlackBerry’s strong e-mail and messaging capabilities, but with an interface every bit as cool as the iPhone.

So it was great anticipation that I waited for RIM’s first device without a physical keyboard, the BlackBerry Storm 9530.  Now available in the U.S. from the top-rated mobile service provider, Verizon (and also from Vodafone, Telus and Bell Canada elsewhere in the world), I hoped that this new device might challenge the iPhone for ease of use and multi-media support, while also meeting the demanding telephone, e-mail, messaging, and mobile computing needs of sales pros on the go.  Could the BlackBerry Storm be the ideal mobile phone for salespeople?

The good, the bad and the ugly: the Storm’s screen

My hopes were high when I finally got my hands on a Storm.  My first impression was that the device feels great in your hands.  It’s about the same size (at 4.4 x 2.4 x 0.5 inches), but a little heavier (at 5.5 ounces) than the iPhone (which is 4.5 x 2.4 x 0.46 inches and weighs 4.7 ounces).  Like the iPhone, the front of the Storm is almost all touch screen - a large 3.3-inch, 360-by-480-pixel screen that is as slightly smaller than the iPhone 3G (3.5 inches diagonal), but at a higher resolution (the iPhone is 320 x 480 pixels).

The Storm’s touch screen looks great and works well, albeit with some minor annoyances.  First, it is very bright and clear - I had no trouble using it outdoors, even in bright sunlight, unlike my experience with the iPhone’s glassy reflective surface.  And unlike the iPhone, the Storm’s screen gives you some physical feedback when you press virtual buttons or the on-screen keyboard.  On the iPhone, you never really knew if you successfully pressed a key, other than seeing the effect on the screen.  On the Storm, the entire screen taps back at you with a reassuring click when you’ve successfully entered a keystroke - it feels like almost the same experience as using the physical keyboard on my old BlackBerry 8830.  Further, the Storm lets you use either a large QWERTY-style keyboard when you hold it in landscape orientation, or a version of the thinner BlackBerry SureType keyboard when held in portrait mode - and you can switch back and forth between the keyboards, even when in the middle of a message, just by turning the device.  For salespeople that use their mobile phone mostly for e-mail or text messaging, they are going to like the Storm’s virtual keyboards a lot.

However, while I love the Storm’s virtual keyboard, the user interface, which is based on the screen’s two qualities of touch sensitivity and physical feedback, will prove a challenge to most people, at least until they get used to it.  In contrast, the Apple iPhone’s multi-touch interface is based on single-tap selections, mostly - you find what function you want on the screen, tap it with your finger, and it does it.  But if you want to do something on the Storm, you tap the appropriate screen icon or virtual key with your finger, and then have to press down to execute your selection.  It’s an extra step that sometimes makes the Storm feel, for lack of a better word, “stuttery”, and even after a couple days, I never quite got the hang of it.

Below the Storm’s display are four keys: two for picking up and ending calls, a menu key, and one for backing up out of menu or screen selections.   Everything else is controlled by the screen interface, except for muting calls (located on the top of the device), and a function button on the side that adjusts to the context of the program you are running.

The (not quite) “Perfect Storm”

When I occasionally overcome the learning curve for the Storm’s on-screen user interface, I find that this smartphone operates quickly, powered by a 528 MHz processor - that is, when it doesn’t hit an annoying bug.  At first, I thought it was my lack of mastery over the user interface that was the problem, but then I realized that the Storm was hiccuping rudely at me from time to time.

Other reviewers, such as Sascha Segan at PC Magazine, have reported significant problems with the Storm’s sometimes spastic performance.  My experience was a little better than theirs - but not by much.  Three times I had to reboot the phone: once when the home screen vanished, once when it froze when I was using the otherwise excellent built-in camera and another time when trying to run video on the media player.

The Apple iPhone 3G also arrived with a plethora of problems when it was first introduced.  It’s almost impossible to squash all the bugs inherent in a new mobile device as complex as the iPhone or Storm when they are first introduced to the market.  Like new models of automobiles, the first units generally have glitches and problems that are solved as the line settles down after initial launch.  Fortunately, unlike automobiles, and like the iPhone, the Storm can receive updates and software fixes - and, in fact, the first such update has already been issued, and users are reporting some improvements in their new Storms’ performance and reliability.

With the latest fixes, is the Storm perfect yet?  No - but I’m optimistic that it can be, eventually.  More on this later.

But, is the Storm a good phone?

With all this talk of screens, tactile feedback and user interfaces, it’s easy to overlook that fact that the Storm is first and foremost a telephone.  And in this capacity, I find it excellent - although a lot of the credit here has to go to the device’s carrier in the U.S.: Verizon.

The phone sounds great, especially the speakerphone, which I found to be very clear and louder than I expected on such a compact device.  I never experienced a dropped call during my evaluation, and every call was crystal clear.  The Storm includes built-in noise cancellation, although I found it wasn’t as strong as when I used a Aliph New Jawbone Bluetooth headset, which was a snap to configure.

I occasionally travel abroad, which is why I use a BlackBerry 8830 World Edition phone, since it supports GSM networks overseas with an optional SIM card.  The Storm also operates on multiple networks, including Verizon’s EVDO network in the U.S., and on HSDPA networks abroad.

I found I had to charge the Storm nightly.  Other reviewers report between seven and eight hours of talk time on a single charge, and about half that when using the more power-hungry on-screen video player - which is about the same as the Apple iPhone.  During my testing, I used the Storm a lot for browsing the ‘net, and found that also drained the battery faster - enough to think about recharging every four hours or so.

Storming the ‘net

The Storm’s browser is, well, just okay, in my humble opinion.  It seems to run slowly on any site that uses JavaScript.  And the Storm’s web-browsing experience is clearly inferior to the Apple iPhone’s, which is more intuitive to use, thanks to its excellent multi-touch interface.  Some Storm users report better performance using the Opera Mini browser, although I didn’t have a chance to test that.  Still, for a quick search on Google or reviewing the latest news, I found the Storm’s web browsing experience to be acceptable - not great, not bad, just okay.

I tested the Storm as a USB tethered modem to my laptop PC (something the iPhone, as yet, cannot do), and got reasonable download speeds of about 750 kilobits per second.  Unlike the iPhone, the Storm lacks support for wi-fi connections to the ‘net.  I would have loved to see this feature on the device, since it would improve download speeds.  But if you can get to a 3G network - and I never had a problem finding Verizon’s EVDO network available - you can use the Storm as an acceptable connection to the web.

How else does the Storm stack up against the iPhone?

The Storm includes a number of other features that invite further comparison to the Apple iPhone 3G.  Here’s a quick summary of these capabilities:

• Applications support: the Storm includes a number of standard applications, familiar to anyone who has used a BlackBerry device: e-mail, contact management, a Web browser, etc.  It also now includes support for Microsoft Office document editing, although I can’t imagine using the Storm for doing this except in a pinch - you really want to do this on a PC.  The Apple iPhone’s functionality can be extended with the iTunes App Store, and there are now thousands of applications available there at nominal fees, albeit with Apple’s heavy copy protection.  RIM’s answer to the App Store is the BlackBerry Application Center, although for now its shelves are relatively sparse.  I have to give the nod here to the iPhone, but if RIM can get more third-party developers interested in contributing to the Application Center, this could even out over the next year.
• Cut and paste: oddly, this is one simple, oft-requested feature that still isn’t on the Apple iPhone - the ability to cut and paste text across applications.  The Storm clearly wins here - you can select lines of text with a touch of a finger and paste it into other programs.
• Media player: the iPhone clearly wins here, it is essentially a glorified iPod, the best media device in general.  You can drag and drop music and video files on your PC into your Storm, and even transfer music from iTunes (if unprotected).  But I found this to be a clunky experience, compared to using Apple’s iTunes program.  This is one advantage Apple has, thanks to its closed architecture.  But I suspect that most salespeople care little about the Storm’s multi-media abilities anyway, and like me, they will probably just bring along their iPod if they want to listen to music or watch a movie on the plane.  Still, music does sound great on the Storm, and the MP4 video playback quality is excellent.
• Data synchronization: enterprise salespeople need to be able to synch contacts, calendars and messages with their corporate systems, and the Storm clearly wins here.  RIM has a long record of integrating well with Microsoft Exchange servers, and the Storm carries on that tradition.  Apple stumbled badly with their MobileMe synchronization option, and it has not fully recovered from initial problems after release.  The iPhone 3G introduced better support for Microsoft Exchange, although some IT departments are still reluctant to support it.
• GPS: support for global positioning systems for navigation and directions is critical for traveling salespeople, and here the Storm wins over the iPhone handily for several reasons.  First, for another $10 a month, Verizon users can subscribe to VZNavigator, which provides audio turn-by-turn driving directions and maps.  The Storm’s GPS is fast, intuitive to use and very accurate - I found it comparable in performance to my built-in navigation system on my Acura.  Further, the GPS system on the Storm is unlocked, which means that third-party applications can use it to find locations.  The Apple iPhone offers no turn-by-turn navigation (as yet), and it is tied to the closed architecture - in fact, third-party developers are banned from using the iPhone’s GPS for navigation functionality.
• Camera: I’m often surprised how often I want a camera in sales meetings.  The ability to take a quick snapshot of a flip chart after a customer meeting is very useful.  The built-in 3.2 megapixel camera on the Storm, with an LED flash and video recording capability, will be perfect for this purpose - it is clearly superior to the iPhone’s camera, which is just 2 megapixels, and does not include an LED flash or video capture.  Both the iPhone and Storm support geo-tagging, which means that your photos will include location information from the GPS system - helpful for figuring out where you took those shots at that last meeting.

Sales Pro Value Score

The BlackBerry Storm is a great mobile phone, no doubt about that.  It’s well constructed, is packed with state-of-the-art features, and is a very good and highly reliable telephone, e-mail and messaging device.  It builds on RIM’s solid track record and strengths, with better data synchronization than similar offerings, including the venerable iPhone.  It also has a better GPS and camera than the iPhone.

The Storm’s virtual touchscreen interface, however, is a mixed bag.  I love the tactile feedback of the press-to-click screen, especially when entering text on the virtual keyboards.  But it is more difficult to use when selecting and interacting with other applications.  Here, the iPhone multi-touch interface is clearly simpler and easier to operate.

Verizon has priced the Storm attractively, with subsidized pricing and data plans comparable to AT&T’s plans for the iPhone 3G.  So there’s no obvious financial incentive to choose one over the other.

So, should sales pros run out and snatch up a BlackBerry Storm?  No - we would recommend caution, for now. Above all, sales professionals need their mobile phones to be absolutely rock-solid dependable, because they depend on them so much to do useful work.  For this reason, we suggest that salespeople watch and wait until RIM distributes enough online updates to squash the initial bugs.

Our first impression of the Storm is generally positive, and for that reason, we are awarding it a Sales Pro Value Score of 3.5 - but if RIM can get rid of the annoying glitches inherent in most new releases, we’d happily increase that rating to 4.5, and heartily endorse the BlackBerry Storm 9530 as the best all-around mobile device for sales pros.  We’ll continue to watch, and report…

Tags: Apple iPhone 3G, BlackBerry Storm 9530, Verizon

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