In a few weeks, carriers will start rolling out RIM’s new Blackberry lineup which includes the Torch 9810, Bold 9900/9930, and the Torch 9850/9860.  All of these will come with a faster processor and runs the newer Blackberry 7 OS.  The star of the show would be the Bold 9900/9860 which is nicknamed the Bold Touch because of its 2.8” capacitive touch screen.  The Bold Touch will be sporting a 1.2 GHz processor, 5.0 MP camera capable of 720p HD video recording, and it’s the first Blackberry with NFC support.  Near Field Communication (NFC) is a short range (4cm or less) wireless technology which allows 2 devices to communicate.  Most noticeable use of NFC would be using your phone as a digital wallet by just bringing your phone close to the payment device to transmit the necessary credit card information.

Lately, Research In Motion hasn’t been having a great time with layoffs and loyalty issues with their Playbook (me being one of them).  Let’s hope this new lineup will redeem their corporate image.

Filed in categories: Blackberry related, News

Tagged: Blackberry, bold touch, RIM

RIM’s new Blackberry lineup originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on August 17, 2011 at 2:30 pm.

Blackberry 6, RIM’s soon to be released update to the BlackBerry OS, is shown off in an action packed new video. The next big release for RIM is looking to be a touch-focused affair with a slick new look, and it’s as clean and purposeful as ever. Social media looks to be integrated gracefully, as you can see with the FaceBook and Twitter additions to the homepage. The screenshots also show a software keyboard, and promise a “visual, fluid interface”, which makes me hope RIM is going to bring some spiffy new hardware to run this new OS on. Take a look at the BlackBerry 6 Sneak Peak 2 video yourself, and tell us in the comments what you think of BlackBerry’s upcoming OS.

Filed in categories: Blackberry related, News

Tagged: blackberry 6, RIM

BlackBerry 6: A New “Sneak Peak” Video Released originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on July 13, 2010 at 11:45 am.

Seven days ago I started using the BlackBerry Storm as my primary phone. I forwarded all my calls from my AT&T account so that I would actually be forced to use this phone full time, with no cheating. Today was my last day to work on this series of articles and I spent it trying VZ Navigator, the e-mail client and the Opera mini browser.

I’ve used VZ Navigator before when I reviewed the LG Chocolate 3. For those of you that haven’t heard of it, it’s a map and navigation service provided by Verizon that is pre-installed on the Storm. Usage is not included with your normal monthly bill. You can either pay by the month ($9.99) or by the day ($2.99) to use this feature.

It has turn by turn voice prompts, movie search, maps and traffic, and local search features. It works just like a stand alone GPS. You give it an address and it will give you the real-time directions for getting there, even with spoken street names.

It’s really easy to use. The only issue I had was during the first time I used it. The voice prompts were crazy loud and I pressed the volume key to turn it down. Mistake. Doing so pops up a volume selector screen instead of just turning the volume down a little. Getting back to the navigation screen wasn’t real easy while I was trying to drive.

Other than that bit of pain, I would definitely use this application instead of packing a stand alone GPS with me when I go on a vacation. Much more convenient.

I finally got a chance to play with the email client today. I remember how lightening fast the BlackBerry Pearl was at grabbing mail, and was anxious to see how the Storm compared.

The setup app walks you through creating accounts for Yahoo!, AOL, Gmail and generic server based email accounts. To start pulling in mail from my brand spanking new GMail for Domains account, I just tapped GMail, typed in julie@the-gadgeteer and my password and was done. You can’t get much more simple than that!

The BlackBerry email client is pretty basic with not a lot of bells and whistles.

It can handle attachments but doesn’t show them in the email. You have to click on them to load them in a viewer. I tried images and .PDF files, which it handled just fine.

It can handle HTML email, but it wants you to click on images to load them.

As far as speed, it’s just as fast as I recall the Pearl being. It was seeing new messages before GMail on my iMac saw them. Nice!

My last task with the BlackBerry Storm was to test the free Opera Mini browser to see how it compares to the built-in web browser. This requires a download and install, but it’s fast and not hard to do. BTW: the BlackBerry Storm only has 128MB of memory available for applications.

After launching Opera mini, you are presented with a speed ‘dial’ bookmark list. Now the cool feature I discovered really quick is the fact that you don’t have to click the screen to select a link. You just tap it with your finger. Yay!

And wow, Opera Mini is about a billion times faster than the built in browser. If you like to surf on your Storm, you want Opera Mini. Trust me.

It also renders sites on the small display much much better than the stock browser. Go check out the images of the built in browser  in part 2 of this series (links below).

The only weirdness that I noticed with Opera is that if you open a webpage in portrait orientation and rotate your phone to landscape, it will not automatically reformat the page. It will keep the same width. But…

If you initially load the page in landscape mode, it will fill the display. And then when you rotate to portrait…

It will prompt you to reload the site to reformat the page. No big deal I guess. Anyway, I love Opera!

And with that, my testing of the BlackBerry Storm has ended. I have to be honest with all of you… The thrill of reviewing this phone left me late last week at about day 2 of this series. Now I’m just looking forward to being done, so that I can get on to other things. I think I’ve mentioned in the other parts of this series that I’ve really been trying to like this phone. Unfortunately, it just didn’t happened for me.

I know a lot of people think I’ve came into this ‘review’ with a comparison of the iPhone already in my mind, making this review biased. Yes, it’s true that I use an iPhone. It is not my primary phone, but I do use one on and off. I also use a Palm Centro and other phones. I rarely stick with any phone for more than a few weeks at a time because I just get bored easily. I’m lucky that I have a drawer full of phones, and as such, I know what I like and don’t like out of a phone. I have my own set of features that are important to me, but might not be important to someone else. That’s the nature of reviewing products though, you do bring your own likes and dislikes to the table.

I’ll say it again, I prefer my phones to have buttons. I like to be able to press a button to make and receive calls, launch apps, etc. You can’t do that with an iPhone, so the BlackBerry Storm has the advantage in that regard, with the voice dialing feature. Another feature that I like on the Storm is the big, vivid display and very good macro camera capability. Those three features aren’t enough to make me love this phone though. The sluggish rotating display and input method just make me feel like it’s more chore than fun to use this phone. For that fact, I am glad to box it up and send it back to Verizon.

Filed in categories: Wireless

Tagged: Blackberry, RIM, Smartphone

A Week with the BlackBerry Storm Smartphone Day 7 originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on January 14, 2009 at 9:49 pm.

I spent the weekend and today trying a few of the Storm’s built in applications including the suite of Documents To Go applications, Visual Voicemail, and the video viewer. I also revisited the Yahoo! chat client to try a feature that had failed for me on my first try last week.

Documents To Go from DataViz allows you to view and edit Microsoft PowerPoint, Word and Excel files right on your BlackBerry Storm device.

When you start one of the three apps (Word to Go, Sheets to Go and Slideshow to Go), it will allow you to search the Storm’s internal memory, or an installed MicroSD card for .DOC, .XLS and .PPT files.

The Excel application called Sheets to Go easily opened several .XLS files that I tried. I didn’t have anything too complex, just simple spreadsheets with some formatting (colors, fonts) and calculations.

Just like using a spreadsheet program on your desktop computer, on the BlackBerry you can edit cells and insert functions. My issues with the touchscreen came into play again as I tried to tap specific cells for editing. Of course, the smaller the cells, the harder it is to select them with your finger. This made me wish for a stylus.

I didn’t have any problems with the Word to Go application either. I was able to view large documents with embedded images relatively well. Scrolling through documents with images feels a bit sluggish when you hit a image and it would need to load it. The only issue I noticed was when I entered edit mode. In order to take advantage of some of the features such as check spelling, tables, inserting bookmarks, etc., you have to have to buy the premium version of Documents To Go. The version on the Storm is only the Standard version.

The app I had the most trouble with was the SlideShow to Go app. As long as my PowerPoint file was less than 1mb in size, it seemed to load and display just fine. Anything much larger and I would see the spinning clock. At one point, when I was loading a PowerPoint around 3mb in size, it locked up the phone and I had to remove the battery in order to reset it.

Documents To Go is handy for viewing files, but I would not want to do any heavy lifting with it…

I also played around with the video player application. I tried .WMV, .MOV, .MP4 and .M4V files. The only video file that gave me errors when I tried to play it, was an .M4V file. These movies didn’t look anywhere near as good as the demo BabylonAD movie trailer included on the phone though. I’m not sure what format it is. I wouldn’t have any problems watching a full length movie on the Storm if it was thet same quality as that sample. The Storm really has a wonderfully bright and vivid display.

I revisited the Yahoo! instant messaging client and tried sending a file again. It worked this time when I sent it to someone who was using Pidgin (opensource multi chat client). So I guess the issue with my first try was entirely the fault of Adium.

I also played with the Visual Voicemail feature, which is ummm… similar to the visual voicemail feature on the … wait for it… iPhone Sorry, couldn’t resist. It works the same way. You are presented with a list of voice messages, the person’s name (if they are in your contacts), the number and timed they called. Just click on the play button to hear their message. You can also easily call the person back, send them an SMS or a record follow up voice message (which I guess only works if you are responding to another Verizon customer).

I also spent some time making and receiving phone calls. No one complained that I sounded like Charlie Brown’s teacher, so I consider that a good thing

Tomorrow is going to be my last day using this phone. I plan to test VZ Navigator, Email and the Opera Mini browser. I’ll post my experiences with these apps and my overall thoughts on the BlackBerry Storm in a last entry to this series on Wednesday.

Filed in categories: Wireless

Tagged: Blackberry, RIM, Smarphone

A Week with the BlackBerry Storm Smartphone Day 4, 5 & 6 originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on January 12, 2009 at 9:00 pm.

Three down and four to go… I’m actually kinda bummed that I said that I would spend 7 whole days with this phone. The more I use the BlackBerry Storm, the more I am becoming annoyed by it. But it’s only been three days, so I’m not going to give up yet. I promise.

Today I focused primarily on trying the instant messaging clients again (Yahoo!, AIM, etc.), the camera and music player. Yesterday when I was trying to connect to my account on Yahoo! AIM and Windows Live, I kept receiving errors saying that I needed to check the time on my phone. I really didn’t pay attention to the errors because the clock appeared to be correct. This afternoon when I tried to connect again, I noticed that the date on the phone was December something. Weird! So I went into the settings to see if I could change it. It was correct in there and when I went back to the home screen, it had corrected itself. Very odd behavior and one which I’ll be sure to keep an eye out for again.

This time I was able to connect to Yahoo! to test instant messaging with this phone. It connected very quickly and presented me with a list of my contacts.

Chatting with the Yahoo! client on this phone feels very similar to chatting with Pinger on the iPhone. When you’re typing a message, the keyboard takes up about 2/3rds of the screen, that makes it hard to keep up with someone that sends multiple messages in succession. The keyboard on the Storm continues to frustrate me. I end up pressing the wrong letters often and have to backspace.

One cool feature that the Yahoo! client has, is the ability to send files to the people you are chatting with. I took a quick snap of myself to send to Rob. Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to receive it after trying twice… I think it’s an Adium (multiple chat client on the Mac) issue though.

Next up, I played around with the built in 3.2 megapixel camera.

Nothing too wild and crazy here unless you count the built in geotagging feature and image stabilization.

Click thumbnail to see full-size image

One of my pet peeves is a mobile camera that can not take a good macro shot. I don’t want to take close ups of bees pollinating flowers or anything like that, but I do want to be able to snap a picture from a magazine or book. I’m always flipping through mags at the book store and will come across a URL or info that I want to remember, but don’t want to buy the mag (jeez magazines are expensive these days huh?) or find pen and paper to jot things down. Most phones take horrible macro shots. Not the Storm. It does a great job!!! Not entirely sure why WordPress is showing the images rotated like this, but you get the idea…

Click thumbnail to see full-size image

Using the Storm as a camera is very much like taking pictures with a regular digital camera. You press the side shutter button halfway to focus and compose your shot and then press it completely down to take the picture.

One thing that I noticed is that colors look a tiny bit more washed out in the snapshots than they are on the screen when you’re viewing them through the media player.

I also noticed that even though I had the resolution set to max (2048 x 1536), it only captured images at 1024×764.

I wouldn’t want to use the BlackBerry Storm as my primary camera, but for snaps here and there, it works well.

Now let’s listen to some music…

The media player can play music, video, ringtones, voice notes and show pictures. It will show media stored on the Storm itself and the installed MicroSD card.

You can zero in on specific songs by artists, albums, genres and playlists.

Here’s the Now Playing screen (it’s missing the control bar at the bottom the screen (the screen capture program I used has some issues…). Audio quality is good through the built in speaker and headphones.

Besides playing music, taking pictures and chatting via Yahoo!, made and received more calls through the phone. My side of the calls always had good audio quality. But today at two different times, the people on the other end of the calls said I sounded muffled or as Ryan said, I sounded like the teacher on the Charlie Brown cartoons. He couldn’t hear a word I was saying and had to hang up and call back. I don’t know if this was an issue with the Storm or Verizon. Both times I checked the phone and had at least 3 bars signal strength.

Today I was also finding myself becoming annoyed with the auto screen rotation. Quite often, when I would click the display to ‘wake up’ the phone, it would be rotated in the landscape mode even when I was holding the phone in portrait mode. I kept feeling like I needed to shake the phone like an Etch-a-Sketch to get it to rotate.

Overall today, I felt sluggish while using the Storm. Everything felt slower than ummm… sorry… the iPhone. I know people don’t want me to compare the Storm to the iPhone, but it is pretty hard given that I’ve been using the iPhone lately. I could also compare it to the Centro if that would make people feel better Either way, the Storm just felt more ‘painful’ for me to use today and I was missing my other phones.

We’ll see if I start liking this phone more during this weekend. I’ll be back on Monday with another installment. I’ll be using the Storm to view Word, Excel and PowerPoint files. I’ll also check out the email client and some of the other stock applications.

Filed in categories: Wireless

Tagged: Blackberry, RIM, Smartphone

A Week with the BlackBerry Storm Smartphone Day 3 originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on January 9, 2009 at 9:42 pm.