So I listened to all the good advice, read reviews, and then went and plopped down in the Verizon store and messed around on a Storm for an hour. Total road hog. Bought it after deciding I could learn how to use a touchscreen if I worked at it.
I'm slow and imprecise at text entry. But friends with iPhones seem to get it right away, their thumbs hovering above the glass like egrets hunting fish, darting down and back up again quickly. And even they are Yugos compared to my Ferrari son on a Blackberry Curve sending out texts in an endless blur, fastest thumbs in the west. But I can plod along and have noticed steady improvement. Must be a skill. There are some gestures I've attempted, so far unsuccessfully, to master. There's supposed to be a little flick thing you can do to make the keyboard appear or go away. I can do it by accident, but not apurpose. Selecting multiple rows with a "chord" (touching two fingers at once) is dicey. Positioning a cursor at a certain point in a field of text is awkward; sometimes I succeed after the fourth or fifth try. My friends with iPhones all want to compare. They are dumbstruck by browser and network speed. They are underwhelmed (to say the least) by applications. They are jealous for bluetooth headsets. They are (often) a bit wistful for a carrier, any carrier, other than AT&T. I'm able to keep track of all my different email accounts, including Microsoft Lookout for work, and my calendar and contacts. Twitter via Twitterberry works well enough, although I could suggest improvements. The browser is ok, but I'm waiting patiently for workable competition in a production state. The GPS is meh, mostly inoperable in a building or car or hotel room in a strange city or whenever I really need it, but working pretty well at home in my back yard. The still camera takes good pictures. Taking video seems to sieze the thing up, so I don't try that anymore. The overall device performance is sometimes a bit, well, let's say distracted. Like it's thinking about something else and not really paying me complete attention. Not quite haunted, and certainly not _possessed_ in the way of Windows Mobile phones, but... elsewhere, sometimes. Perhaps this will change as software is updated and I learn patience. The audio quality is the best of any mobile device I have ever used, better than many landline phones. Insanely, unbelievably _clean_. In fact, some callers ask "are you still there?" it's so quiet. A case could be made for "comfort noise" as they call it in the telephony world. I have a few episodes of Aria (favorite anime) loaded on it to watch in airports, and they look and sound great. No problem reading the subtitles. Is it an iPhone-killer? I doubt it. But, for me, it is an AT&T-killer. I have good Verizon coverage, and they've treated me pretty well when I've called for support. Neither is true for the Deathstar. Thanks again for the advice, reviews, recommendations, Michael Micheletti On Thu, Feb 19, 2009 at 4:55 AM, John M. Morse <john.mo...@eduserv.org.uk>wrote: > Had a storm for over month now, my colleagues, on the other had have > Iphones > <snip> > ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
