It may seem like the iPhone may have the full touch screen smartphone market cornered. There aren’t many phones to choose from in this family. It takes a very innovative company to release a rival full touch screen smartphone. Blackberry offers consumers such a rival. The RIM Blackberry Storm is one of the latest additions to the full touch screen smartphone line. It is the first full touch screen cell phone from Blackberry. Blackberry entered the race with a complete set of advantages and feature set it has brought along with from its impressive Blackberry smartphone line. With its impressive list of features and low price the RIM Blackberry Storm will make a great phone for anyone who is looking for an affordable replacement to the iPhone. But the Storm also does come with a list of minor problems that can hamper a person’s enjoyment of the phone.

The RIM Blackberry Storm is quite similar to the iPhone in its design and look. The notable differences are that the Storm is shorter and heavier than the iPhone. Also there are standard phone controls located under the display screen. The biggest achievement is the Storms utilization of SurePress technology. This allows the user to perform functions by actually clicking on the screen instead of just tapping it. Unfortunately clicking on the screen does take a while to get used to because honestly clicking on the screen feels awkward. Also anyone with big hands or fingers might have trouble typing messages because the keyboard that is displayed is quite small and the letters are crammed together. Those accustom to trackball navigator might miss it as it is absent on the RIM Blackberry Storm.

The RIM Blackberry Storm offers the same features found on all previous Blackberry phones. It continues offering its users an amazing operating system and even upgrades it from the previous installment. The user is able to use and open various Microsoft Office files such as Word, Excel and even Power Point. As with previous Blackberry phones the Storm is able to link with your company’s Blackberry Enterprise Server allowing you access to corporate emails and files. The phone can even act as a wireless modem for laptops. It is an amazing application which costs only $15 a month.

The phone feels as if it was rushed to be released just in time for the holidays because there are a lot of bugs and small glitches. The accelerometer needed more work. Switching the phone to and from landscape mode was fine but websites took a while to change screen position. The multimedia controls are also affected by this. When rotating the phone the controls sometimes appeared to be flashing and even disappear from the screen at one point. Aside from the accelerometer websites generally took a while to load and certain apps were sluggish upon launching.

As far as the phone performance the RIM Blackberry Storm did great. Callers can enjoy clear and crisp calls. The voices on the other end will sound very well. Also your voice will sound clear to your caller as well. The microphone is great at isolating and not picking up background noise.

The RIM Blackberry Storm could use more work. There have been promises of firmware upgrades which will fix many of the bugs found on this phone. While the updates to fix some of the problems they don’t address all of them. But for the price of the phone and amazing capabilities it is still a reasonable buy. Just be sure to get the firmware upgrade if you decide to purchase this phone.