Camera Phones Plaza

Announced in September 2008, Black Berry Storm 9500 has been made available on the market, barely two months later in November 2008.

Black Berry Storm 9500 is not just the first touchscreen Blackberry device, but it is RIM's first product that lacks a physical keyboard. For business people, who are the main target of the smartphones, this might sound weird. However, to replace this deficiency, RIM has introduced a new innovative technology called SurePress. Patented by RIM, the SurePress technology makes the physical screen to react like a button when pressed. The display also provides a haptic feedback, which means that you will not feel the difference between a physical and a virtual keyboard, on screen. However, we could not overlook the sense of insecurity that I had when I pressed the touch screen. It seems that it is well embedded in the body casing, and moving to each press. Moreover, the first time I held the phone in my hand, I thought that the device has a great defect, since the screen is 2mm shorter than its frame.



A thin foil protects the touch screen, so the number of fingerprints is limited.  The device appears to have been built very solid, can be held very well in hand, but is heavier than I have expected (155g including the battery). Entirely made from metal, its back case is the main reason that the phone is so heavy. However, Storm 9500 is not even a big phone compared with the HTC Touch HD, or even iPhone 3G, and measures 112.5 x 62.2 x 14mm.



Surprisingly for a business phone, Storm 9500 includes a 3.5mm jack port on the right. Below, near the port, there is a volume button and a dedicated camera button. On the left side of the phone, are a dedicated voice command button and a microUSB port. Under the 3.25-inches screen, there are 4-buttons: Accept and Reject call, Menu and Back. Above the touch screen, there is an LED, which is often used for alerts. The 3.2-megapixel camera, placed on the back of the smartphone, includes functions such as flash and autofocus. A thin plastic covers both the camera, as well as the flash. It has the role to protect the lens and the flash against scratches. Another innovative feature that we find in this smartphone is the two buttons on the top side of the device. Even if they are defined as buttons, you can still press their icons to use them. The left one blocks the touch screen so it cannot be pressed accidentally, while the right one interrupts the sound during a conversation in progress. The MicroSD slot has been placed under the back cover, so you will need to remove it before you put in a new memory card. On the backside, at the bottom of the metal case, you can see a small speaker. Overall, I was pleased with how the Black Berry Storm 9500 looks and quite happy with the way RIM has solved the problem of the external control layout.



As I mentioned above, Black Berry Storm 9500 is the first device that has a capacitive touch screen. It measures 3.25 inches and displays 65 000 colors and a resolution of 360x480 pixels. The capacitive touch screen eliminates the need to use a stylus, and is resistant to scratches. It includes the SurePress innovative technology, a technology patented by RIM (Research in Motion), which offers a haptic feedback. This screen allows the user to navigate through the phone menus, using the fingers, similar to a computer’s mouse. To select an option simply click on the screen surface. If you wish to start the selected application, you only have to click it again. These displays have the ability to adjust the screen settings, so double click can be used as a method of selection and navigation through the phone menu.



The legibility under bright light is good, but you will have to set your screen brightness to its maximum level. As the main tool for text input, the TFT LCD touch screen includes an accelerometer function, which enables users to use the QWERTY keyboard by simply turning the phone in landscape mode. Unfortunately, while the responsiveness of the touch screen is very good, the need to press virtually every letter practically leads to decreasing the speed of writing.

The 3.2-megapixel photo / video camera presents characteristics like autofocus and flash LED. Unfortunately, the camera interface is missing almost completely. The only way to adjust some settings is to click the Menu button after you open the camera function. However, the camera includes some interesting features for photo fans: geo-tagging and image stabilizer. The maximum image resolution is 2048x1536 pixels, but it can be reduced to save storage space. The only other camera settings are colors, and picture quality. Shooting photos with the Black Berry Storm 9500’s 3.2 megapixel camera is quite difficult, as the preview image on the screen is covered at the bottom with a band, which has some settings. This makes the framing of the picture to be quite difficult. Otherwise, I found the quality of the pictures to be quite good. Even if this camera is not one of the best, the quality of the pictures is certainly above average. The color and the contrast look good, while the noise is kept to a decent level. Videos can also be recorded in QVGA resolution at 30fps, but the quality is lower than I expected, so it is not recommended to use the smartphone for recording clips. Overall, I think Black Berry Storm 9500 includes a camera, which is good enough for a smartphone that has as a target the business segment, a camera, which I am sure that it will meet the needs of this phone’s users.



Black Berry Storm 9500 runs the Blackberry 4.7.0 operating system on a platform version 4.0.0.98. This seems to be the old OS 4.6.0, converted to the touch screen. Starting with the Black Berry Storm 9500, it is the latest operating system available on BlackBerry devices with touch screen.

However, if you already have or have had a BlackBerry, 9500’s interface will not surprise you at all, because RIM did not come with anything new in terms of productivity tools. Instead, the new BlackBerry interface now looks much better than the old one. The colors of the icons you will find in the main menu are illuminated slightly in contrast with a dark background, and make a very good impression, even to an old BlackBerry fan. As usual, the Office suite, called Documents To Go, developed by DataViz, is included in the operating system. Unfortunately, you can only read and edit Word documents, Excel Docs, and PowerPoint presentations, but you will have to pay if you want to create new documents. Instead of risking bringing new functions that might not serve too much to the user, RIM chose to maintain all the old functions and applications, to which they gave a graphic gloss. It is not a bad idea, since most of the Blackberry productivity tools are solid. Problems arise when you dig deeper and see that the menus are boring.