I bought my Storm on launch day. We all know how awful of an experience that was. Was 40-50 people back in Washington, DC's L Street location. A corporate sales guy was assigned to that store that morning to smooth things over with an anxious crowd, handing out free coffee and assuring everyone in line would get a Storm. He claimed 200 units. The actual number was closer to 130. No cards with numbers were handed out, no vouchers, no nothing. It was absolute mayhem once the "6-8 allowed inside at a time" rule was ignroed and everyone was brought in. I was on several paper lists and signed my name into the visual television sales queue and even though I made it to the front of the visual queue, it was at that time that all the sales reps were instructed to use the paper list (which version of the FOUR that were floating around the store, no one knew). Two guys in line with me got their phones within the hour that the store was first opened by just grabbing the next available rep at their counter. It did not help that people were buying Storms 2, 3, 4, even 5 at a time. It was a combination of these individuals buying multiple Storms that kicked off the initial system lag that was the catalyst for the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic VZW store network to be brought down to painstakingly slow speeds. Schedule as follows:
7:50am - I arrived in line 8:00am - DC L Street store opens under 6-8 person limit guidelines 8:30am - store admits as much of the line as the store's capacity can handle 9:30am - store reports stock depletion (false, in order to get people to leave the store as things were getting very heated) 10:10am - finally assured that I would be getting a phone 11:25am - activation for my phone begins 1:00pm - finally leave store. phone still not activated. no payment tendered. left for work 1:50pm - received call from store explaining that system was up again just barely to process my phone 2:00pm - arrived at store only to find that system crippled again. brought girlfriend with me this time to wait until system was up again 3:30pm - girlfriend left with no phone still 6:35pm - received call from store saying that system was up again and ready to be activated and paid for 6:50pm - arrived in store. activation begins 7:15pm - store system denies my personal check 3 times. had to call girlfriend to use her credit card as i was waiting for bank to send me my new card and waiting for my first credit card in the mail (both came the following day on saturday) 9:00pm - phone browser and email set-up finally operable
It took me the ENTIRE operating day from open to close to receive my working Storm. My expectations were through the roof. I helped myself to some Storm accessories while the store was packed with people about to explode. I felt bad for those as early as 8:30am being informed that they werent getting a phone that day and that they would have to order online (even though verizonwireless.com was practically crippled the entire day)
[i'm sorry. i've read every forum on every post on every major tech blog site regarding the Storm since August and i haven't commented until now]
Intially the Storm was slow, but not at any point in time was the phone ever BUGGY as people incorrectly mention. I'm posting now when I've had the phone for four straight days instead of some f*cking pre-madonna that played with the in-store model for 5 seconds. I know he or she waited in line for as long as 25 minutes just to play with the model (that was the case at DC L Street) so those posters were speaking out of some unreasonable anger.
The Click Through tech gets some getting used to, but you find it pleasurably useful once you realize it's nice to be able to highlight the link you want in a grouping of multiple ones in close proximity, before actually selecting it by depressing the screen. The zoom is a little finicky and zooms when you dont want it to at times, but the system is learning, or rather i'm learning the system. Having a mouse cursor is also helpful in those first hours when learning to navigate the browser. Needless to say, although Safari on my second gen iPod Touch has crashed very few times, the Storm's browser has not crashed on me at all. Not even once, with higher than average usage in a 18 hour per day period.
The accelerometer is also very sensitive and needs a calibration feature on the next build. It seems that the only way to make the phone return to portrait is to have the phone positioned in a very specific limited 3D position (perfect right angle but then tilted slightly back, as if you were looking down at it from a reasonable distacne away from your head). The slightest degree of tilt to left or right will bring up landscape mode. This could use some fixing, but at least I know how to return to portrait (and it is NOT by shaking it).
I find the UI delightful. I like being able to pull my instant messanger programs out of their folders and put the one or two i want on my home screen, along with a dedicated Engadget button and Gizmodo button (I already mentioned i read at least these two) that launch the browswer and navigates directly to one or the other website. The screen's sharpness and color vividness wipes my iPod Touch off the floor (I know all about the yellowish tinge in comparison to the 3G iPhone) Interesting is that the screen protectors available for the Storm retain the vividness and sharpness of the screen as if there was no protector, unlike the protectors available for the iPhone and iPod touch that are much more textured and can make the images a bit grainy and dull in color. Only drawback is that the Storm screen protectors are very prone to smudging.
Everyone that has a Storm has been saying the software is speeding up as they use the phone. Part of this lends itself to the idea that we are all just learning how to navigate the phone better and more efficiently. I cut out a lot of the fat on my phone when I did the backup thing with my computer and was able to remove VZ Nav and Visual Voicemail and that helped things move along also. The Office suite handles those kinds of attachments very well. Rendered a 47 page doc with images and tables embedded with no problem. The keyboard dictionary is learning my typos better and better. OH! And a thing to say about those who complain about the Storm keyboard and it being prone to typos. LEARN HOW TO TYPE. Don't cry and gripe about how the iPhone always corrects your upsetting lack of grammar and mobile typing skills. BlackBerry's are business devices first and foremost and don't need to pander to a college kid texting errors.
For those of you getting this phone shipped, it will be worth the wait. Those that say they want to return their phone simply don't have the patience to experience the qualities of this phone. Those that are going back to the Curve are going to get that pre- iPhone internet browsing experience again. The Curve/Bold design is so solid: physical keyboard and trackball, but for those that are willing to try this out (for longer than 20 min!), this is the phone to get if you're serious about email and network reliability.
For the one or two people that said they already had a blown pixel on their Storm, you're so totally completely full of $h!t.
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I bought my Storm on launch day. We all know how awful of an experience that was. Was 40-50 people back in Washington, DC's L Street location. A corporate sales guy was assigned to that store that morning to smooth things over with an anxious crowd, handing out free coffee and assuring everyone in line would get a Storm. He claimed 200 units. The actual number was closer to 130. No cards with numbers were handed out, no vouchers, no nothing. It was absolute mayhem once the "6-8 allowed inside at a time" rule was ignroed and everyone was brought in. I was on several paper lists and signed my name into the visual television sales queue and even though I made it to the front of the visual queue, it was at that time that all the sales reps were instructed to use the paper list (which version of the FOUR that were floating around the store, no one knew). Two guys in line with me got their phones within the hour that the store was first opened by just grabbing the next available rep at their counter. It did not help that people were buying Storms 2, 3, 4, even 5 at a time. It was a combination of these individuals buying multiple Storms that kicked off the initial system lag that was the catalyst for the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic VZW store network to be brought down to painstakingly slow speeds. Schedule as follows:
7:50am - I arrived in line
8:00am - DC L Street store opens under 6-8 person limit guidelines
8:30am - store admits as much of the line as the store's capacity can handle
9:30am - store reports stock depletion (false, in order to get people to leave the store as things were getting very heated)
10:10am - finally assured that I would be getting a phone
11:25am - activation for my phone begins
1:00pm - finally leave store. phone still not activated. no payment tendered. left for work
1:50pm - received call from store explaining that system was up again just barely to process my phone
2:00pm - arrived at store only to find that system crippled again. brought girlfriend with me this time to wait until system was up again
3:30pm - girlfriend left with no phone still
6:35pm - received call from store saying that system was up again and ready to be activated and paid for
6:50pm - arrived in store. activation begins
7:15pm - store system denies my personal check 3 times. had to call girlfriend to use her credit card as i was waiting for bank to send me my new card and waiting for my first credit card in the mail (both came the following day on saturday)
9:00pm - phone browser and email set-up finally operable
It took me the ENTIRE operating day from open to close to receive my working Storm. My expectations were through the roof. I helped myself to some Storm accessories while the store was packed with people about to explode. I felt bad for those as early as 8:30am being informed that they werent getting a phone that day and that they would have to order online (even though verizonwireless.com was practically crippled the entire day)
[i'm sorry. i've read every forum on every post on every major tech blog site regarding the Storm since August and i haven't commented until now]
Intially the Storm was slow, but not at any point in time was the phone ever BUGGY as people incorrectly mention. I'm posting now when I've had the phone for four straight days instead of some f*cking pre-madonna that played with the in-store model for 5 seconds. I know he or she waited in line for as long as 25 minutes just to play with the model (that was the case at DC L Street) so those posters were speaking out of some unreasonable anger.
The Click Through tech gets some getting used to, but you find it pleasurably useful once you realize it's nice to be able to highlight the link you want in a grouping of multiple ones in close proximity, before actually selecting it by depressing the screen. The zoom is a little finicky and zooms when you dont want it to at times, but the system is learning, or rather i'm learning the system. Having a mouse cursor is also helpful in those first hours when learning to navigate the browser. Needless to say, although Safari on my second gen iPod Touch has crashed very few times, the Storm's browser has not crashed on me at all. Not even once, with higher than average usage in a 18 hour per day period.
The accelerometer is also very sensitive and needs a calibration feature on the next build. It seems that the only way to make the phone return to portrait is to have the phone positioned in a very specific limited 3D position (perfect right angle but then tilted slightly back, as if you were looking down at it from a reasonable distacne away from your head). The slightest degree of tilt to left or right will bring up landscape mode. This could use some fixing, but at least I know how to return to portrait (and it is NOT by shaking it).
I find the UI delightful. I like being able to pull my instant messanger programs out of their folders and put the one or two i want on my home screen, along with a dedicated Engadget button and Gizmodo button (I already mentioned i read at least these two) that launch the browswer and navigates directly to one or the other website. The screen's sharpness and color vividness wipes my iPod Touch off the floor (I know all about the yellowish tinge in comparison to the 3G iPhone) Interesting is that the screen protectors available for the Storm retain the vividness and sharpness of the screen as if there was no protector, unlike the protectors available for the iPhone and iPod touch that are much more textured and can make the images a bit grainy and dull in color. Only drawback is that the Storm screen protectors are very prone to smudging.
Everyone that has a Storm has been saying the software is speeding up as they use the phone. Part of this lends itself to the idea that we are all just learning how to navigate the phone better and more efficiently. I cut out a lot of the fat on my phone when I did the backup thing with my computer and was able to remove VZ Nav and Visual Voicemail and that helped things move along also. The Office suite handles those kinds of attachments very well. Rendered a 47 page doc with images and tables embedded with no problem. The keyboard dictionary is learning my typos better and better. OH! And a thing to say about those who complain about the Storm keyboard and it being prone to typos. LEARN HOW TO TYPE. Don't cry and gripe about how the iPhone always corrects your upsetting lack of grammar and mobile typing skills. BlackBerry's are business devices first and foremost and don't need to pander to a college kid texting errors.
For those of you getting this phone shipped, it will be worth the wait. Those that say they want to return their phone simply don't have the patience to experience the qualities of this phone. Those that are going back to the Curve are going to get that pre- iPhone internet browsing experience again. The Curve/Bold design is so solid: physical keyboard and trackball, but for those that are willing to try this out (for longer than 20 min!), this is the phone to get if you're serious about email and network reliability.
For the one or two people that said they already had a blown pixel on their Storm, you're so totally completely full of $h!t.