BlackBerry Blowout: Storm vs. Bold vs. Curve 8900
By Joshua Topolsky 
posted February 5th 2009 3:58PM
posted February 5th 2009 3:58PM
After careful consideration, our takeaway here is that the Bold feels like the odd man out in terms of design direction for the company. It's clear that the Curve and Storm represent the new look for RIM's phones, while the Bold -- however handsome you may find it -- comes off as a bit out of shape and chintzy in comparison. The plastic metal bezel seems cheap by comparison to the Curve's similarly styled (yet refined) implementation, which bares more than just a passing resemblance to the Storm.
Still, all things being the same we thought that the UI response time was faster and more precise on the Bold (when compared directly with the Curve). We actually found the trackball movement with the same settings to be less accurate on-screen, though what the cause could be is anyone's guess. The pixel density on the Curve is considerably tighter in comparison to the Bold, and it borrows some of the Storm's UI tweaks, though doesn't improve on the Bold's abysmal browser (as we noted in our review).
Between the three phones, there's a noticeable difference in display color temperature, much like we saw with the iPhone and iPhone 3G -- the Storm and Curve have a noticeably "yellower" hue than the Bold. It's difficult to say if one is better than the other, but the blacks seemed more defined on the latter two phones.
The keyboard differences on the Curve and Bold are also noticeable, and puzzling. The Bold very much subscribes to RIM's 8800 design, with some spacing and font changes, while the Curve relies on the split key design used on previous models (hello 8300!) which we find is actually easier to type on. Regardless, our resident BlackBerry fanatic, Jacob, claims that Curve keyboards hurt to type on after prolonged use -- we have yet to experience this damaging side effect.
Ultimately, you're buying into incredibly similar products here, especially between the Curve and Bold -- that's more of a carrier decision than anything else. Even with the Storm, the general experience is roughly the same (if a little more frustrating), but it's surprising to see how far RIM has moved beyond the Bold's styling in such a short period of time. One thing is clear, however: whichever phone you choose, your email is going to be totally awesome.
Further reading:
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T-Mobile BlackBerry Curve 8900 review Along with the Pearl, the Curve series represents the kinder, gentler side of BlackBerry; it's the side that appeals to consumers without sacrificing power. |
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BlackBerry Storm review The Storm, a widescreen, touchscreen device boasts many of the same features as the iPhone, but adds innovations like a clickable display, and comes packed with RIM's legendary email and messaging services. |
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AT&T BlackBerry Bold hands-on We've been playing with AT&T's just-launched BlackBerry Bold for a few days now, and once we got past the absolutely gorgeous display, we wanted to find out what else there was to RIM's latest QWERTY device. |
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Editorial: All I wanted this year was the best smartphone ever I juggled the iPhone 3G, T-Mobile G1, and BlackBerry Bold for the last few months, desperately wishing I could merge them into one perfect device. |
All that Rim has to do is to add a sliding keyboard to Storm.
...this is like a dejavu in miniature reminding of the origami project where the frustration was fixed by the addition of a keyboard and as a result creation of a netbook market
Everyone there is searching for a holy grail that would replace a normal keyboard. It spread out like a wildfire like a disease...touch this!!!
Touch is great except for the keybaord and iPhone is an awesome example of everything working nicely... except the keyboard.
Google and Palm see this limitation and Rim was trying to build a better iPhone instead of a better Blackberry.
I don't think iPhone keyboard sucks. It takes some getting used to, but the text prediction is quite accurate, and the keyboard usually gets the right key. If not, I can see I am hitting the wrong hey and slide my finger to the right one. It takes some practice, but so do BlackBerry keyboards. I used a BlackBerry a few days ago and had an awful time trying to type on the itty bitty keys. I'm sure I could get used to the BlackBerry keyboard with practice, but saying that it sucks just because I'm not comfortable with it yet is kind of ridiculous.
So what's the final verdict?
Curve 8900 > Bold > Storm?
Fail > Fail > Epic Fail
I tried downloading songs / movies into the Storm. It seems a LOT slower than any of the other Blackberrys I've used!
Anyone else notice this?
@ dclamster, keyboards are better when they are tacktile and on screen keyboards are usually not. Blackberry tried this pseudo tactile touch screen with the Storm but the fact is it works better for occasional buttons and mayble limited typing. Iphone doesn't have any tacktile feedback when you type. It is human nature to have a feedback when you push something to sense a move acknoledging in your brain that it is indeed moving, we are wired this way. Swiping you finger on the screen works beautifully simply because you are sensing the move through the friction when your finger is gliding on the screen. Typing just doesn't feel right because of lack of that type of feedback. We can sure train ourselves to overcome this and become very good at typing on that type of screen, yet it will never "feel" right.
Why your blackberry bold has white numeric keys? I have a bold,and mine has them red!
The AT&T version of the BlackBerry Bold has white numeric keys. The Rogers, Orange, and Vodafone versions have the red Numeric keys.
You guys should have just called it Bold VS Curve 8900. The Storm had very little mentioned.....
I would have preferred a detailed video review/preview of the three.
interesting review. I will stick with my pearl thou.
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