BlackBerry Storm sells out hard and fast

We don't have official confirmation of this yet, but we're hearing from all over that Verizon's launch of the BlackBerry Storm has so far been a raging success -- from what we can tell, it's sold out nearly everywhere, and the online store is buckling under the load of thousands of eager buyers. Sounds like RIM's on track for a hit -- any of you have any luck scoring a Storm today? How'd it go? Digging the SurePress screen? Hit us up in comments!

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

[brock @ Nov 21st 2008 3:08PM]

Storm = FAIL, Bold = WIN

[striggity @ Nov 21st 2008 3:10PM]

wow, you purchased them both and came to that conclusion? lucky fella.

[RyanTV @ Nov 21st 2008 3:23PM]

I'm not sure he quite deserves a low rank on that one... you dont have to have purchased them to know what you like. I went and played with both of them and I honestly don't like the clicky touch screen on the Storm. The iPhone/Instinct style touch screen makes more sense and i dont think the psudo-tactility of the Storm's screen adds anything to it's usability and the OS just isn't totally touch-screen friendly if you ask me.

The Bold on the other hand is a great phone in the standard tradition of a Blackberry. it has a beautiful screen, of course the QWERTY keyboard, and the OS just makes more sense for a device with a trackball. I know that BB was trying to go a different direction with the Storm, but it just wasnt pulled off as tightly as i would have liked.

[Metkis @ Nov 21st 2008 3:26PM]

Maybe we wouldn't low rank him if he expressed some reasoning, or hell... used words other than 'FAIL' and 'WIN' to describe a gadget on a gadget blog. I never liked it in forums and I don't like it here.

[haX0r @ Nov 21st 2008 4:22PM]

Metkis - that would be asking him to actually have some sort of intelligent vocabulary, which he does not.

[Eric @ Nov 21st 2008 5:45PM]

I hate the people that assume using the word fail makes them inherently funny.

[OneLove @ Nov 21st 2008 5:58PM]

Maybe he is practicing for a remake of Frankenstein?

[Shivors @ Nov 21st 2008 8:51PM]

The staff at our VZ said both stores int he area sold out and they were able to get drop shipments in at about 2:00. I have been torn between the iPhone and Storm. Decided to take a leap of faith and picked up the Storm. After a few hours of geek massage we have become fast friends.

I dig the click type interface and the screen is just fantastic. I had to help the VZ guy a little but they were well staffed and ready.

[Jermaine @ Nov 21st 2008 9:55PM]

i am positive RIM deliberately gave limited no. of units for each Verizon store to make it look like the BlackBerry Storm was selling fast and out.... Truth is a lot of the stores had less than 10 units... only the few bigger main stores got more... so y'all buy into the false hyped popularity.... I waited for 1 hour and when i finally got to touch it, i was so disappointed.... the click wasn't quick in springing back after each click.... so I passed... didn't feel not as cool in person... i saw other people who were outside >2 hours and were told to go home b/c they only had 20 units at the store....

Oh & I saw this review/comparison on Google Finance. too long for me to read.:

http://admiralh.wordpress.com/2008/11/21/why-the-blackberry-storm-is-no-iphone-killer/

[AT&T rep @ Nov 21st 2008 10:49PM]

OBTW, it does seem like RIM is into sending limited stocks at launch. When AT&T released the Bold, most AT&T stores got fewer than 10 of them on opening day. However, the Bold didn't have quite the hype, so our store (in a large suburb) only sold 3-4 that day.

[Danny @ Nov 21st 2008 3:09PM]

No Storms at the Verizon store on 84th and Bway in Manhattan. They won't even let people into the store...

[Ayman @ Nov 21st 2008 3:15PM]

Maybe they're closed

[Danny @ Nov 21st 2008 3:17PM]

No...they're open, lots of people inside...

[Patriks7 @ Nov 21st 2008 3:33PM]

So there are lots of people inside, but they won't let people inside?
Makes sense..

[Tonicboy @ Nov 21st 2008 3:39PM]

@Patriks7

When do they usually stop letting people inside? When there are already too many people inside. Makes perfect sense to me.

[Rainier @ Nov 21st 2008 3:56PM]

@Tonicboy

It's a precautionary measure in case of an emergency. There will always be room capacity limits in case something happens, like say a fire.

[Andir3.0 @ Nov 21st 2008 4:09PM]

But if you squeeze more people in the building, things happen faster!

[Mark @ Nov 21st 2008 3:09PM]

Not really sure how it can be a success when inventory at stores was limited and you can't order online or over the phone because the system is overloaded. Not to mention that I couldn't even buy a different phone due to the overloaded system. Personally, I think Verizon may have sold a bunch of Storms today, they also lost a lot of sales due to the glitches.

[snowglyder @ Nov 21st 2008 3:25PM]

Probably didn't lose sales, just delayed. You'll be back another (not so busy) day...

[Hey Ya @ Nov 21st 2008 3:31PM]

From what I understand, if they don't have them in store, they're still selling them and hooking people up with free next day shipping. So, you may not be able to have it in hand today, but you can tomorrow.

[somedude @ Nov 21st 2008 3:09PM]

Still trying to figure out that background....

[youngstunna @ Nov 21st 2008 3:12PM]

it appears to be daily life in an average japanese city.

[leesa @ Nov 21st 2008 4:09PM]

its an eboy pixorama of tokyo. found here: http://hello.eboy.com/eboy/2007/12/12/eby_tokyo_53tpng/

[david @ Nov 21st 2008 4:55PM]

The image is a eboy pixel art image, the main image is called Tokyo, and it's been cropped to show what you see.

If you want a copy let me know, and I'll see what I can do.

I have the same image edited into an iPhone wallpaper, but I have the original image if you want to edit it yourself to whatever size you want.

Cheers

David

[John H. @ Nov 21st 2008 3:10PM]

im a failtard at html other than on ebay

[o rly @ Nov 21st 2008 3:14PM]

No, you're a failtard at reading. A little under where you click "Add Comment" is a section that says "To create a live link, simply type the URL (including http://) or email address and we will make it a live link for you."

Any reason why you simply didn't reply to your original post? You being a failtard again or Engadget's error?

[jordn @ Nov 21st 2008 3:11PM]

Loving the Eboy background Engadget!

[e420 @ Nov 21st 2008 3:46PM]

That's the only reason this story caught my eye. haha

[Brock @ Nov 21st 2008 3:11PM]

Also, here is why:

There is a single key that must be pressed when typed, therefore you can't type fast on the device. It's exhausting to use.

[??? @ Nov 21st 2008 3:21PM]

Okay, so what you just did was try to get "first!" kudos by posting a trolling post, then put your explanation to said post afterward, just so you could maintain "first!".

I'm sorry, but you just suck.

[Johan S @ Nov 21st 2008 3:12PM]

The icons look like crap .. they need to colorize it a bit more and not have a wireframe look.

[William Lee @ Nov 21st 2008 3:13PM]

I got a Storm this morning. The line had over 50 people in it, and the store got 20 phones in. A very sad day for quite a few people. I'm having a great time with it, the speaker is great when watching movies or listening to music. The iphone barely whispers in comparison (I have both of them). Interface is great, a little sluggish on the accelerometer but I'm hoping they'll fix that in a future code update. Basically love the device.

[Wifiguy @ Nov 21st 2008 3:35PM]

I played with the Storm today, and have to say that if you are coming from a non-smartphone it will be a joy to use and you'll love it. But coming from an iPhone or traditional Blackberry experience, it's a huge step backwards. You will sorely miss the browser and rubberbanding in comparison to iPhone.

And if your used to the Blackberry keyboard you will sorely miss it.

[Michael Scrip @ Nov 21st 2008 4:57PM]

> "But coming from an iPhone or traditional Blackberry experience, it's a huge step backwards."

So, is the Curve now the best Blackberry on Verizon?

[WickedEast @ Nov 21st 2008 5:46PM]

So now "rubberbanding" is THE killer feature now?! For God's sakes, let's be serious here. 99% of serious users won't care.

[Rod @ Nov 22nd 2008 11:46PM]

The load took VZ's network down for much of the day. The online store wasn't responsive until about 8pm on the 21st.

[Dan @ Nov 21st 2008 3:15PM]

GREAT!!! I hope Apple sees them as a threat starts trying to match them blow for blow!

[Samboini @ Nov 21st 2008 3:22PM]

Here's hoping, as soon as the iPhone includes a micro-SD slot and is available on Orange (UK) I'm there!

[Jon Niola @ Nov 21st 2008 3:31PM]

I hear that! This is one of the few industries where capitalism is alive and well. Good, vibrant healthy competition forcing innovation in product lines.

[Dude @ Nov 21st 2008 3:18PM]

Considering that this product lacked the month-long buildup and sycophantic media coverage that Apple products get, this is quite amazing.

[Dan @ Nov 21st 2008 3:53PM]

I was shocked as well...

I thought this would happen with the G1... I have only really known about the storm for the better part of a month.

Then again, I guess I am overlooking the amount of people who NEED a Blackberry for work.

[Chris @ Nov 21st 2008 3:54PM]

You honestly think this device hasn't had a month(s)-long build up? Or media coverage? Or Engadget coverage? Or commercials and teasers and Verizon "slipped" memos or any of the other insane amount of coverage this thing has gotten?

I think them selling out on day 1 was an inevitability with all of the excitement over this device.

[sanctified @ Nov 21st 2008 3:20PM]

Long lines at the local verizon outlets... Unable to activate in the store or online due to Verizon's servers being hosed. In spite of that my coworker walked out with one after waiting about 3 hours... After playing with it for a few minutes I was more impressed than I thought I would be but not enough so to upgrade from my pearl... yet...

[Dan Magorian @ Nov 21st 2008 3:22PM]

Disappointing, Engadget's review was right. It wasn't the SurePress screen itself, it was that the horizontal virtual keyboard really didn't work for my fingers, almost impossible to press the right key, and my fingers aren't that big. Also, the 2 demo models in the store today were incredibly slow, to the point of flaking out. I agree with the review bottom line: "promising, but not fully cooked yet".

[Ryan C @ Nov 21st 2008 3:24PM]

My friend got one, and I got a chance to use it for a bit. The SurePress is annoying, at least to me. The software is pretty slow too. He has some more complaints with it and is gonna return it tomorrow. I think that RIM could had done a little more, as in making a totally new OS that is designed for the Storm only, instead of using a modified BB 4.6 OS.

[Jazz1 @ Nov 21st 2008 9:36PM]

I really wanted to like this BB. Local shop told me they would not open early, but did. By the time I got there they were of course gone. I jumped on the offer for next day delivery, and then went over a tried one out. The screen seemed to be made out of plastic, am I wrong? The OS seemed slow and the scrolling was really jerky and didn't coast like I thought it should. A lot of effort to scroll back and forth. The vertical keyboard didn't work for me, and I even had difficulty with the larger, horizontal screen. The switch over from screen orientations were slow.

I'm not a touch screen newbie as I own an iPod Touch. Maybe software updates will iron these issues out? In the end I cancelled the order. I guess the BB8830 will be with me for a while longer.

[Abhishek @ Nov 21st 2008 3:26PM]

I went to a verizon store today to check it out and maybe buy it, despite the engadget review.
They had 3 phones to play with, and all 3 taken by asshats who thought it's their uncles shop and they can hog the Storm all they want. After waiting for 10 mins and giving onna the guys, who had the phone in his hand for well over 15 mins and at times not even messing with it just holding it, a piece of my mind...I left the place. I didn't get a chance to even play with it, plus they were none in the inventory.

The good thing Verizon are doing though is if you sign-up with them today (and they're out of stock), the phones will ship in on Monday...and they'll just credit the rebate to you immediately.

Chicago Downtown.

[Abhishek @ Nov 21st 2008 3:30PM]

P.S. - before anyone comments on how come I only waited for 10 mins but knew the guy had the phone for 15, I asked the friendly lady who was s'posed to help me with the Storm...on how long had the fucktard been on the phone so far..and she said "Hmm..about 5-6 minutes".

[paul eastwood @ Nov 21st 2008 3:45PM]

I was wondering about your math. Thanks for clarifying.

[z0iid @ Nov 21st 2008 4:09PM]

@paul - i bet he doesn't even get that you are being sarcastic.