BlackBerry Storm2 9550 Review

By virtue of hewing so closely to the earlier formula, the new phone does inherit some of the same criticisms of its predecessor. Although the raw numbers don't indicate it, the Storm2 is still noticeably bulkier than most keyboardless phones, including the iPhone it will invariably be compared against. It's actually shorter than the taller-ratio Apple phone but noticeably thicker and wider; you won't put the BlackBerry in a tight jeans pocket.

This does have an upside in expansion, as before: unlike its nemesis, the BlackBerry still has a removable battery and a microSDHC slot (albeit behind the battery cover). And thankfully, you likely won't need to access the slot through the lifespan of the phone: both the Telus and Verizon models have a 16GB card pre-installed, or enough headroom for some whole music collections as well as the usual app and photo collections.

Of all the changes, though, it's the one that's hardest to see that should matter the most: the touchscreen. It's still the same 3.25-inch, 480x360 display, but it abandons the very literal downward movement of the first-run Storm for a piezoelectric system that uses pressure sensors to detect movement. In most cases, it does work more effectively as it requires less conscious effort to press and doesn't create the uneasy feeling that the mechanism could break just through heavy use.

But the real question is whether even an upgraded version of the same system should be there at all. While you do eventually get used to actually pushing down to invoke most actions, the necessity slows down virtually every task on the phone, even if just for a half-second. Typing is still especially slow as you still can't truly move to the next key before the screen is back into position.

The slowdown is enough of a hindrance that, in many ways, it ruins the primary advantage of a touchscreen: intuitiveness. Instead of simply performing an action, you're always second-guessing your behavior and taking more time to accomplish a task, not less. To put it bluntly, RIM has misunderstood what owners of BlackBerries like the Bold 9700 or Tour prefer about physical QWERTY keyboards. It's not the tactile sensation they miss, it's the certainty of pressing the right key. As it is, the Storm2 still loses that certainty but doesn't have much of the responsiveness of a touchscreen, either.

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