Blackberry Storm smartphone
Blackberry has just announced the new Blackberry Storm, a smartphone that it’s hoping will be seen as the true challenger to the Apple iPhone. Blackberry used to be a niche player in the smartphones market, focusing solely on business users and therefore eschewing the kinds of features that are typical in your average smartphone.

Not any more. The rise of the iPhone, the introduction of new Google Android phones and the increasing move towards smarter phones in general has seen a an increasing number of new entrants encroaching on Blackberry’s market. To fend off these new pretenders to the enterprise throne, Blackberry had to produce something special – and with the Storm, it looks like it might just have succeeded.

Blackberry Storm overview

Blackberry Storm mobile phone
The first thing that immediately hits you about the Storm is the keyboard – or, rather, the lack of one. No iPhone killer would be complete without a touchscreen, and so that’s exactly what Blackberry have done, endowing the Storm with a huge 3.25″ touchscreen with 480 x 360 resolution.

Along with the new touchscreen comes a new user interface, which seems to provide a nice mix of visual attractiveness while retaining the professional look that Blackberry needs to keep if it’s to continue its success in the enterprise field.

New multimedia features

Blackberry Storm touchscreen phone
Where the Storm really deviates from previous Blackberries, though, is with its new list of features. Just take a look at the following:

  • 3.25″ Touchscreen (480 x 360)
  • Accelorometer
  • Visual Qwerty keyboard
  • 3.2 Megapixel Camera
  • Integrated GPS with A-GPS functionality
  • 1GB Onboard memory with MicroSD support
  • 624 MHz Processor
  • 3G
  • EDGE
  • Built in Handsfree
  • Bluetooth
  • 3.5mm Stereo Headphone Jack
  • Mini-Usb connectivity

Most of these features are what you’d expect from a Nokia N-Series phone or other feature-phone – not a device traditionally known as a messaging tool.

Applications

Blackberry, then, are entering new waters in an attempt to fend off the competition. However, it’s not just features that will sell a business phone – the applications it comes with are just as important, and it’s here that Blackberry has been particularly strong.

It’s no different with the Storm, as it comes with the following applications:

  • BlackBerry® Internet Service, BlackBerry® Unite!, BlackBerry® Professional Software and BlackBerry® Enterprise Server support
  • a Media Player which supports many audio and video formats. It can be used to play slideshows and create playlists and even has 11 equalizer preset filters.
  • Blackberry Maps
  • DataViz Documents on the Go which allows you to view and edit Word, Excel and Powerpoitn documents directly on the handset.
  • Ambient light sensor that adjusts the backlighting according to the surrounding light.
  • Organiser
  • Calculator

Conclusion

The smartphone market is now getting almsot unbearably crowded, with a new platform being released almost every day. Not all fo them can succeed, but with the new Blackberry Storm, the company’s showing that it has no intention of ceding its crown as King of the business phones.

My only reservation would be the lack of 3G. As users of the original iPhone found out, EDGE simply does not cut it in the world of mobile data, as it’s far too slow, and with smartphones from the likes of Samsung now supporting 7.2Mbps, a technology such as EDGE that’s over 20 times slower seems a backwards step at best.

Still, that aside, the Blackberry Storm looks superb, and has all the right features and software to make it a credible alternative to the other smartphones that are clamouring to take its place. The Blackberry Storm release date is rumoured to be the end of Ocdtober 2008, so we’ll keep you posted as to whether it lives up to its promise or not.

In the meantime, if you can’t wait to see what the new Storm will look like, you can download and play around with a Blackberry Storm simulator, which will give you a feel for the phone before it’s launched.

For UK readers, both Dialaphone and Phones4U will be heavily promoting the Blackberry Storm, so keep an eye on their sites for pre-release info and for ordering the phone when it’s launched.