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Blackberry Storm with Vodafone Essar-Unleashed in India

by on 20/01/09 at 2:39 am

Blackberry is starting to get into Indian market. After the Blackberry Pearl Flip 8220, now its Blackberry 9500 a.k.a. Storm a.k.a. Thunder. Blackberry 9500 is Vodafone Essar special edition. It was officially released in India on 15th January at a price tag of Rs.22,990 .

Key Features

• A 3.25″ Transmissive TFT LCD screen
• Display resolution of 480*360
• Latest Blackberry OS - 4.7
• 3.2 MP camera with flash
• Video recording at a resolution of 320*240
• 1GB in-built memory (8Gb comes along with phone) + Expandable
• 528MHz Processor and a 128MB RAM
• 0.55″ Thick and 155gm weight
• 1400 mAhr with Talk-time/Standby-time of 5Hr/15D
• GPS, Bluetooth, A2DP, HSPA
• Unfortunately, no Wi-fi

If touchscreen is what you want, it is the same what BlackBerry gives. Yes, it is RIM’s first Touch screen mobile. Though Blackberry’s popular physical Suretype or QWERTY is missing, you have it here as virtual Suretype and QWERTY. But unlike other touchscreen smartphones, Blackberry introduces a new “Click” technology, called “Surepress”, A feature which i mostly like and which is lacking in all the touch screen smartphones. What this techonolgy does is that, it allows you to click through the screen like mouse. With this ability, you can hover on the icons and menus without selecting or moving the on-screen elements. If you are a touch screen user, you would probably know what i mean.

Looks
The phone looks gorgeous with the full screen display of 480*360 resolution. The phone is covered with a white-silver bezel on the top, bottom and on both sides. With a solid aluminium finish, it looks great. No offence, but the backlight leaks through the sides of the phone. Though it is not a blunder, it makes me feel bad for such a good looking phone. It is 0.55″ thick and weighs 155gm, pretty sleek than Blackberry Bold.

Software
The new Blackberry 4.7 OS looks pretty much the same as the previous 4.6, except that it is meant for touchscreen. But it doesn’t succeed quite good. When switching between applications, it stucks at times. Also, The virtual QWERTY is small that makes us mistype letters when messaging, which is not the blackberry users would like. we can’t complain about the email deliveries, as its the best you can get.
There are 2 levels of application screens, one is the initial landing screen which gives you 8 application icons of your choice and the other one is a deeper level that displays your entire folders and programs. Storm’s implementations are leaps and bounds beyond what the company has offered previously, i mean for other smartphones of RIM. Also, there is not much of a third party application facility yet. But RIM says, it plans to launch an application store of their own. My guess is that it is after the heavy competition from iphone application store and the android application stores.

Hardware and Media
There’s nothing specific or notorious about the hadrware, as it couples well enough with the latest OS version. But the battery performance is not good enough, atleast for me.. RIM says it has 5.5hrs of talktime, but actually, it only around 4-5 hours.. The call receptions are loud and clear. The ear pieces are loud and clear and the speaker phone is good. The phone yields the power of Blackberry, but lacks certain things like the physical QWERTY, essentially, the wi-fi. RIM should probably reconsider to upgrade it with a wi-fi version.

Related posts:

1. Business with Style - Blackberry Pearl Flip 8220