The BlackBerry Storm 2 9550 is a powerful device that features a great touch screen as well as excellent multimedia and messaging support. But does it deliver all the goods? To find out if this is the right phone for you, read on for the full review.
Beautifully And Elegantly Designed Smartphone
The unit looks refined and sleek with its measurements of 4.4 x 2.4 x 0.5 inches (HWD). It weighs about 5.6 ounces, which gives it a hefty yet comfortable feel in your hand. There are touch keys at the top that provide you with easy accessibility to the power, screen lock, and ringer mute functions. The volume buttons, meanwhile, are rubberized. The phone’s color is mostly black with dark chrome accents, and the aluminum back panel gives it a touch of class.
Responsive and Vibrant Touch Screen
The BlackBerry Storm 2 9550 has a 3.3-inch touch screen with 360 x 480 pixels that support 65k colors. Instead of one physical button, there are four actuators under each corner of the screen. So once you touch the glass, these actuators exert an electrical charge, which makes it capable of registering two presses at once. This then provides you with a localized haptic feedback that feels completely natural, making typing more accurate than ever.
It can get a bit stiff at times, though, so you may end up with cramped fingers if you text for long periods. But this is just a minor complaint and, otherwise, the touch screen is very intuitive and easy to use.
Brilliant Voice Call and Sound Quality
Making and receiving calls on this BlackBerry phone is a superb experience. The quality and clarity of the sound is amazing with a bright tone that defines each syllable spoken. There is no presence of any hiss or static whatsoever, and the background noise is so minimal that it might as well be nonexistent. Loudspeaker mode is also excellent, with no muffled sounds even when you place the phone down on a table.
Excellent Connectivity Options
As a device with dual-band, quad-band and single-band capabilities, this phone is guaranteed to perform well in various data networks. It can even function as a modem if you get the appropriate broadband connection plan. It also includes Wi-Fi connectivity. However, one imperfection that popped up is the below par browser performance. Websites load quite slowly and it lacks support for Flash and two-finger zoom.
Scrolling through pages can be a bit bothersome, too. But, stacked up against the phone’s other great features, this is one small wrinkle that can be easily tolerated.
Super Messaging on the Go
One of BlackBerry’s strongest suits has always been messaging, and the BlackBerry Storm 2 9550 does not disappoint in this area. You can connect to ten email accounts, which are capable of pushing messages in full HTML. As for text messages, they are now color-coded and displayed in a thread for easier reading.
The Storm 2 9950 phone is also preloaded with BlackBerry Messenger, the company’s exclusive instant messaging feature. In addition, you can get shortcuts to download clients for MSN, Yahoo, AIM and Google Talk so you can be connected all the time.
Impressive Multimedia Support and Camera
With 2GB of onboard memory that can be supplemented with a microSD card, you can load up your BlackBerry Storm 2 9550 with your favorite media files such as videos and songs. Playback for both music and video is smooth and clear, so you can enjoy your multimedia entertainment wherever you may be.
The camera, though, isn’t as stellar, but as long as you take snapshots in well-lit environments, you should be okay. Photos come out with minimal motion blur and they can be geotagged as well for easy sharing with Flickr and other online services.
The Wrap Up
Research in Motion (RIM), the phone’s manufacturer, may be on shaky ground these days, but there’s no reason to count them out of the game yet. Overall, the BlackBerry Storm 2 9550 is a good smartphone with a solid set of features and specifications. It may not hit all the good points that consumers are looking for, but it does have more hits than misses in its repertoire of accomplishments.
So if you’re searching for an alternative to the iPhone or any one of the numerous Android handsets on the market, you should consider going for this particular BlackBerry unit. With all the features described in this review, are you ready to make a switch to BlackBerry?
Tell us your thoughts about this smartphone and whether you think it’s a good fit for you.
