Why I Chose BlackBerry Storm Over the Iphone 3G

Yes, some of you knew that I've purchased the new Blackberry Storm and got it on my Celcom plan (I'm fucking back!). My journey into deciding of purchasing of this phone has been a weird but awesome and educational experience for me, and I wanna share with you guys the reasons of why I chose this phone in comparison to Apple's Iphone 3G.

Trust me, I've been wondering around and had sleepless nights just thinking about this. Comparing, studying for bugs and defects, complaints etc. With no qualms, this has to be the most powerful handheld device I've ever own. It was a weird time for me when I was looking for this phone(for comparison and a hands on try out, I was still uncertain at the time) because all the ah beng's shops didn't have stock for this phone. Then on one fine day while walking in Sunway Pyramid, they(Celcom's distributor Blue Cube) displayed this phone on a demo shelf where you could play around with it. And man, the phone just got me there and there. It was love at first sight, the clickable touch screen wasn't awkward to me not one bit, and after a few hours meddling with it while talking to the sales person, I went for it. And damn...with this I think I can conclude that I think I'm a crackberry (almost anyways).

This post I'm writing might not justify under your personal perception but seriously...this is all subjective. So here we go..

Reason #1:
You can run multiple programs & instant messengers at one time
Yes, you can do this on the BB but not on the Iphone. This was a big minus, coz I have multiple messenger IDs and I wanna juggle 'em messenger y'know.

Reason #2:
BB Storm's Bluetooth has A2DP
I love the A2DP on a bluetooth. Who wouldn't? I mean, you just dump all (Ok, not all for now) into the media card . When you get into your car, you just turn on your bluetooth (oh ya, I got myself a new car radio with also bluetooth capability..gotta have that) and both of them pair up and voila! Your music database of 8GB is at the tip of of your fingers and..NO WIRES. How fuckin' awesome is that?? And the sound quality is soooo much better than those FM transmitter shit that you plug into your cigarrette lighter holes. No distortion, no interfference, no 'fighting over the same transmission frequency with other people's FM transmitter that you plug into your cigarrette lighter hole shit'.

Yes, I sensed some bug in the A2DP configuration between the hardware and the phone's firmware but its bearable because it doesn't disconnect when the phone goes into idle after a phone call like my previous phone. Arrghh, it was frustrating for me then. But now, it doesn't happen on my BB. Happiness.weeee.

Reason #3:
Gotta love the clickable touch screen
Yes, I love the clickable touch screen. Less mess. You literally have to push the screen in order to confirm your selection on screen. How does this become an advantage you say? You'd be doing less mistakes. That's why. Even though you've highlighted some items you don't wanna choose but as long you don't push, the phone doesn't select. Awesome. Its very helpful for the sms, especially in the landscape QWERTY keyboard mode.

Reason #4:
Autofocus 3.2MP camera with flash
Its not the best camera on a handheld device, but if you compare to Iphone 3G's 2MP with no flash, no autofocus and no video recording capability..aisay. Point, BB Storm.

Reason #5:
BIS (Blackberry Internet Service)
With this, I could message to all BB users for free. Yeap, free. As long they have the signal. Brilliant. What does Iphone has on this?nothing.

Reason #6:
Reasonable price
Yeaa..retail from Blue Cube was RM1690. With 12months contract agreement with Celcom. Which to me, is so much different from the packages offered by Maxis. I do not wish to post Maxis's Iphone packages here. Buwekk.

Reason #7:
Great Browser
Yea..the browser is fast if you compare to the Iphone 3G. Its been proven on Youtube, and actually come to think of it the interface itself is not bad. If you want to zoom, just tap twice. If you want to unzoom, just tap once and click unzoom. No biggie.


So based on the reasons listed, after all those heavy consideration with sleepless nights that come with it, I got myself the Blackberry 9500 Storm. Awesome phone. Love it, love it, love it.

But I will list out the problems that I'm currently facing as I'm kinda concerned (and sometimes stressed about) after 2 months using this phone:
i) Battery - short span after heavy usage i.e. email, facebook, web browsing,chat, chat and more chat.
ii) Compatibility of our network with Blackberry - I still sometimes couldn't get incoming phone calls sometimes. There's a reason why I say network compatibility coz once in a while, even though with minimum usage the battery drains sometimes in the middle of the night. Strange.

But this made me realize, there is no perfect phone out there. Maybe there never will be. Unless somebody come up with the perfect hardware, perfect firmware programming. Hmm. But in the sense of practicality and usability, this phone blew me away. Awesome. Awesome.

Here's the video of a review.