When will the Blackberry Storm 2 be released here?

CivilEx

Spotted this on BGR, so the US looks like it's going to get the Storm 2 in the next month or so. I rang Vodafone, but they don't list the new version within the next month or two. Anyone else heard anything as to when we might get it here?

whiterebel

Probably as soon as everyone forgets how bad the first one was?:D I really considered BBs carefully when I was changing last month, but the stories about the storm were terrible. Any BB starting at €FREE with VF you know is trouble. Still, different touchscreen and including WIFI might make this what the original should have been.

CivilEx

I thought long and hard about the Storm the first time around, but couldn't get past all the bad reviews. The suretype "clicky" screen is supposed to be eliminated in the newer version and it has WiFi (all rumour of course), two of the biggest issues the first time around.

I suspect Vodafone might slip this one under the radar by not even describing it as a relaunched phone or upgrade, but supplying it after a certain date as the standard Storm.

The Onyx looks like the Storm would be as a keyboard version...?

boardswalker

I have a storm and I am very happy with it.
The phone is good. The pda is very good. Its plays music and videos. It has gps - I prefer the google maps to the the blackberry maps. Email is very good. Browsing is good. It came with an 8GB micro sd hc card and its upgradeable to 32GB. 32GB are not widely available now but they'll come.
I don't have a problem with the screen. I think if you were doing a lot of typing then it may be a bit slow but it doesn't cause me any problems.
I had two Palms which I loved. Then I got the Dell Axim which was hopeless. No WinMo for me, thank you.
I was going to wait for the Palm Pre, was looking at the iphone and then realised that with my usage pattern O2 would cost €70 pm extra. Plus the phone was going to cost 100+. I looked at the storm and it was a no-brainer. The storm cost 19.99. Yes 19.99. I figured I could go back to my nokia 6300 if it was as bad as they said. But it was great!
I upgraded the OS but to be honest I can't see any improvement.
I think its a great phone. I have added the following free software - google maps, google sync, bbfilescout, quickpull. ereader - the following paid software - talklock €2.99, quicklaunch €4.24. I tried opera mini but I could not see any advantages over the BB browser.
I am waiting for Toodledo BB to come in July for To Do list management- then I'll have everything I want.
Have the people slating the storm used the device with the most recent software? I can't believe the value I got.
Its obvious from browsing the blackberry forums that the original phone was released too soon. But it looks as if it has been sorted since then.

whiterebel

No WIFI was a real killer with this phone. Glad yours is ok, but there were reports of 50% of these being sent back. In this day an age the manufacturers can't afford to send out shoddy phones in the first place. I knew there was problems when the other BBs were €250-300 and the brand new storm was free-€50. I got a 5800 which I'm delighted with.

boardswalker

I take it then that you don't have first hand experience of the phone.

Jumpy

I have a storm and its a piece of crap. Stay AWAY.

TinCool

I was playing around with whatever BB Storm is currently available in Vodafone UK over the weekend (living in UK). To be honest, I wasn't really impressed. Sure I only played about with it for about 5 minutes to get a general feel of the thing. The touch screen was weird, well, not something I'd be used to. My current phone isn't a touch screen but I have an Ipod Touch and that was what I was comparing it to. The camera functionality on it was terribly slow. It felt like about 5 seconds after pushing the button to take the photo and when it was presented to you back on the screen.

I also got an opportunity to play around with the new HTC Magic. The touch screen on this is really good, similar to to the Iphone/Itouch and has a very nice usable and quick interface. I'm going to pick up one of these in the next couple of weeks.

boardswalker

The General consensus with the Storm-owning community seems to be that it takes about one week to get comfortable with the screen.
Not everyone likes the screen - it seems to be about 50:50 for and against.
Vodafone are still shipping the storm with OS 75. Most owners haver upgraded to OS 113, 131 and some to 141. The newer upgrades are better overall but the camera in particular seems to benefit, also the accelerometer,
It really comes down to your use of the phone. For me, the camera is a bonus - I don't use it that much. I wanted a phone with email, browsing, PDA and video. It does all that very well. I wasn't looking for GPS but now that I have it its great.
Lack of wifi does not bother me. Browsing is quick enough and I rarely download large files to the phone.
Every user has their own needs and wants and not every phone is right for everyone. But for me the storm works and is great value. I would recommend people have a look at it - taking into account cost to buy and cost to operate.

CivilEx

Boardswalker, give us an idea of what the battery life is like if you are using it a lot for e-mails and calls?

boardswalker

Well, I charge it every night - overnight.
On a typical day is goes down to about 40-60% with my normal use.
I use about 800 mins of outgoing calls per month with maybe 50-100 texts.
Not sure about incoming calls.
If I have heavy use ie 1-2 hours of music or video, gps, with bluetooth on in the car - it could be down to 20% or below by end of the day.
I have only once or twice had to recharge within the day - that day I was using the camera, using gps a good bit and using bluetooth for about 6 hours.
Not much different to my old nokia 6300. I used get about a day and a half from it and that was only for calls and text.
I just keep it charged.
Given that it only cost 19.99 I wouldn't mind buying a spare battery - although i have a charger in the car and thats where its seems to run down most - bluetooth, gps, music.

boardswalker

By the way, smartphones are complex pieces of kit and they do have problems.
Google "iphone problems" and see what you get.
I think the more you push the phone the greater the problems. Adding third party apps is likely to cause conflicts, memory leaks etc.
The consensus on the Storm is that the hardware was always excellent but the operating software was not quite up to the standard it should have been. But it seems to have improved. Thats my experience.
I had windows mobile 5 on my Dell Axim and it was the most frustrating software. I went back to paper after that. I stopped using the pda.
I now have one gadget that, so far, reliably does almost all of what I want.
I no longer carry a phone, an mp3 player and a filofax.
I am sure that if I bought it last November I would have been frustrated but I bought it in early April.

CivilEx

I'm looking forward to the release to get my hands on the new version and to try it out. I'm getting tired of carrying a mains charger with me everywhere at the moment for my iPhone & the lack of Exchange functionality that a Blackberry gives you - profiles etc.

Is there much difference in the OS between say the Bold / Curve and the Storm. There doesn't seem to be any issues with Blackberry OS's other than that being mentioned for the Storm?

boardswalker

I don't know much about the other BB models. I had the use of a pearl for a few weeks. The screen was too small and the radiation was quite high. I don't think it good for music/video but I didn't really test for that.
Have a look at crackberry.com and the other blackberry forums to find out about the OS's of the other models.
I think typing on the storm keyboard could be a PITA if you do a lot of typing - for texts its ok, for long emails its not super but I'm getting better and I have changed some settings to make it more accurate.