The first Blackberry came out onto the market in 1999, heralding the dawn of the convergence device. The Blackberry (before Blackberry Phones was originaly intended as a complicated pager. But its local messaging system was so effective that it quickly earned a cult following of such magnitude that Webster's New World School Compendium recognized "crackberry" as the "New Word of the Year". The BlackBerry Storm, RIM's latest and greatest, is going after the mighty iPhone, which appears to have a hold on being the #1 selling cellphone. The Storm's partner on this is Verizon, as it is being offered as part of Verizon Phones, who is still reeling from its mistake of turning down Steve Jobs' iPhone (Verizon as a carrier). If Verizon is attempting to make amends for missing the iPhone, it's at least heading in the correct direction. The Storm has a wide screen, touchscreen interface that offers lots of the same features as the iPhone, but with some boosted enhancements on the touch screen display. The outcome of these improvements ismixed. Not like the normal keyboard, the onscreen buttons are not able to keep up with terribly fast typing. Thumbing addicts, used to the old Blackberry style may not be in a position to rattle off messages with the same accuracy and speed.

The clickthrough interface needs a good bit of practice if you want to become accustomed to pushing the touch-sensitive screen down until there's a click, in complete contrast to the seamless interactivity offered by the iPhone.

Likewise, since your finger is on it, the blue highlight that displays to ratify that a given button is active is tough to see.

So if it will go down in history as a design miscommunication or an all out error, will still need to be seen. Last and maybe indeed least, this Blackberry also does not feature the predictive spelling aid functions provided by the iPhone. If you are a bad speller, the Blackberry won't supply you with much of a safety net. The browser renders HTML quickly and thoroughly, with context-sensitive page-drag abilities by which you can navigate a given website. The sole gripe here is that form fields are a little troublesome to fill out. Though the browser earned high praise, the absence of Wi-Fi on the telephone is quite the mystery. While Verizon's EV-DO coverage is wonderful, there are many circumstances under which Wi-Fi would have been very useful. As for the robust, commercial design, Blackberry gets the thumbs up.

The benefit of discarding the tactile keyboard and trademarked trackball behind is a faster, flatter, three.25 in. clear glass face. Four familiar Blackberry keys are at the base of the telephone Telephone , Menu, Back, and End / Power. The wireless cell phone also comes ready with a mini USB key and also 3.5mm headset jack. One possible drawback of the design concerns whether metal construction is superior to plastic. The phone is coupled with the even more wonderful Verizon (for cellular service coverage) that ought to keep the Storm well positioned in the race for cell phone king.