Category: Product Reviews
The new Blackberry Storm
After many years of using a regular cell phone and adding a cellular modem about 18 months ago for my laptop, I decided recently to simplify my travelling gear a little and upgrade to a smartphone that could cover mobile web and e-mail while also doing double duty as a cellular modem for the lappy.
My wife and I decided recently to get our 12 year old daughter a cell phone (I travel and work away from home for months at a time), so I began looking at how to simplify our cell plan, get a phone for our daughter, and if possible reduce our monthly expenditure.
When it comes to smartphones that could fill my basic requirements (mobile email, mobile web, and cell modem duty) there are a few choices. I have been very pleased with Verizon over the years and decided to check out their selection.
In my review, I considered the Palm Centro, the new Samsung Omnia and the new Blackberry Storm.
After a quick review I found the Centro basically had the functionality I desired but I found the screen and keyboard to be a bit smallish.
Next I looked at the Samsung Omnia and was really impressed. If you are a Windows purist this is the device for you. It comes preloaded with Office Mobile and is a real powerhouse in terms of capability. There are a couple reasons I did not go with it, first is the screen size is small compared to the Storm, the second is the keyboard while normal Blackberry size, seemed small to me, and lastly, the setup and management seemed to favor the geeky side, and while I love tech I was concerned about my ability to set it up, synch it, and just manage the technology.
And that left the Blackberry Storm. OK, so here are my thoughts after about a day.
The screen is beautiful, fantastic, truly gorgeous. There are not enough adjectives to praise it enough, it is the best feature of the phone. Backlight brightness is of course adjustable, and I have it set to dim to just 10% when not active. Color and image quality is amazing.
The user interface took a little getting used to, the touch screen is one that requires skin contact, a stylus will not work. The screen highlights the subject you are hovering over so you can be sure you are on what you want before ‘clicking’ it – with a little practice I am used to it but it was frustrating for about the first hour or two while I adjusted my typing speed to ensure I could see the highlight and know I was going to get what I expected.
One neat feature of the full size touchscreen is there is an internal accelerometer that detects how the unit is oriented and if you hold it sideways (either direction) it switches to a landscape mode which offers a full QWERTY keyboard. In portrait mode you get a standard phone pad keyboard and can choose between multi-tap or what they call ‘true-type’ which tries to guess what word you are typing. I prefer the multi-tap in portrait but find that I only use the landscape mode with the full keyboard.
The Blackberry browser is not quite IE but is definitely functional, it will navigate to most of my favorites but it looks like chat feature (like here on B-Prime) is not readily available. It keeps a favorite list, and a good history. Some sites render in very small font, in order to zoom in you just click on an area of the screen with no active text – this is surprisingly intuitive.
Because it is a Blackberry of course, standard IM platforms are preloaded (Windows Live, Yahoo, Google, AIM and Blackberry Messenger) and they function extremely well. The keyboard works well for that in either mode (portrait or landscape).
The phone works fine as handset, speaker or handsfree with bluetooth. Sound quality is good in all uses.
Available applications are decent, it is preloaded with MSWord, MSExcel and MSPowerPoint viewers, the ‘premium’ software to create/manipulate those files is extra but is not believed to be highly priced (~$20-30). I am not sure yet if I will invest in that only because the keyboard makes me slow compared to using the lappy. That said, it would be great to be able to keep a generic project response template in the Storm and fill it in with key data and reply immediately for Guru.com project notifications and the like. I am still noodling on this.
The data modem function works great. Seems slightly faster than the old cell modem I had (18 months old). When functioning as a modem incoming calls go straight to voicemail, when browsing using the phone itself, you can choose to interrupt the session and answer the call, or ignore the call – pretty cool.
E-mail setup was a snap, I set it up to check my aol, yahoo and business POP accounts, only took about a minute each. The Blackberry email application learns your incoming email pattern and will adjust its’ timing for checking your various email servers based on that. In other words, the more emails you get, the more often it checks.
I am not sure about the VZ Navigator function – it seems cool, for finding cheap gas, etc., but I am not sure I am willing to spend an extra $10/mo for it. I am trying it out for a month free. I might be able to get much of the same functionality via the Yahoo maps function. The GPS function is neat, I am just not sure it is neat enough to pay for if yahoo maps will do what I need.
I installed the Blackberry desktop software, it lets me sync contacts, calendar and media files – it works very well and asks for confirmation before changing settings on either the Blackberry device or the lappy – I like that.
The Storm can function as a Napster to Go or i-Tunes device and is apparently, the only Verizon smartphone that can function with all i-tunes media for those who want to watch movies on the beautiful little screen.
I bought this device to allow me access to my personal and personal business e-mails without having to keep a window open on my machine at work – I don’t know what kind of internet cops they have but I figured it would be good to just not do that – add the browser ability to keep up with my favorite sites and it is a no-brainer.
This completes the ‘tools’ aspects of getting my ‘chit’ together, now it is up to me to put the grey matter behind my intent. Desire is to be able to respond quickly to e-mail requests for proposals, answer client questions right away for my own consulting practice.
Battery life seems very good so far but it requires a complete charge to last a long time.
All in all, I am very pleased. Full up monthly cost for 3 lines, basic shared family plan, and unlimited broadband access for the Blackberry is $159/mo, about the same as before only now our daughter gets a phone too. Our plan is to use the cell as a carrot/stick for her – not giving her texting right away but might add it later.
I was very impressed with the product knowledge of the young man who helped me at the local Verizon store. I spoke with him for about 30 minutes over the phone at first, describing my objectives, he was quick with recommendations and had an answer at hand for every question (smart or dumb), then he gave me a quick rundown and demo on the capabilities of the Omnia and the Storm.
The Magic Jack
If you haven’t heard about these then you need to pay attention to this review. It could save you a lot of money. The Magic jack is a Voice Over Internet Protocol device. I know many people are familiar with VOIP, but for those of you who aren’t; it allows you to use your internet connect to make telephone calls. There are a lot of VOIP products out there, but to my knowledge Magic Jack is the cheapest anywhere.
I was really skeptical when I saw the infomercial on TV, so I started checking the internet to find out what was so special about this device. My initial thought was that it was just a cheap scam to get people to give up their hard earned money. Instead I found out that it was a new concept in VOIP that allowed for a good quality call for a few pennies a day.
What makes magic Jack different than competitive services is that it uses its own telephone network which allows it to generate income from other phone companies that use its transmission lines to make calls. What this means is that they don’t need to charge Magic Jack customers as much because they don’t just live off the revenue from selling Magic Jacks and its service. In the end it means you are going to get phone service cheap.
The low cost was enough for me to break down and try the product. I purchased mine early on in the promotion and paid $49.99 for one Magic Jack. It arrived within a few days and I was ready to try it out. The Magic Jack is actually a small USB device that contains some programming that allows audio information to be transferred over the internet to other phone lines. I first tried out the Magic Jack on an older laptop with mixed results. The calls were clear but I did at times get some distortion. At first I was ready to say that my experiment was a failure, but I got to thinking that my laptop runs off a wireless G network connection and with the amount of information my computer sends and receives it was possible I wasn’t getting enough band width for the Magic Jack to work properly.
So I hooked it up to a desktop that stays connected directly to my internet connection. With that the calls improved dramatically. No more distortions, or other static and noises I had noticed when it was hooked up to my laptop. The calls were clearer than making a call from a cell phone. I was really astonished because I couldn’t tell that there was any difference between the Magic Jack connection and a regular land line. I even called cell phones and the reception on both ends was fantastic. Finally an inexpensive device that worked as advertised. The only frustration I have had with it is the occasional automated system that appears not to like long series of button pushes, such as an account number. However I must note that it has not been all automated systems, all of my credit card companies for instance work just fine, but my local bank’s system is another story.
The really great thing about the Magic Jack is that you can use regular phones with it. I happen to have a Uniden 5Ghz cordless phone system, so I hooked it up directly to the Magic Jack and I then had 5 extension phones working throughout the house. That was great. The unique thing about the Magic Jack is that it must be plugged into a USB port on a computer to be used. While I was concerned with this at first, I have discovered that I can split the line and I now have a wireless transmitter that creates an extension jack for my Dish network STB (say goodbye to those pesky tack on fees), and I have my cordless and corded phones all working just fine. I have even been able to send faxes from my fax machine over the VOIP connection.
A view of the magic Jack software
So you are thinking great you just did what Vonage or Skype can do, and I would say your right. The difference is the cost. My land line ran me about $60 a month, and the other VOIP services run anywhere from $30-$50 a month. The Magic Jack beats them hands down. After purchasing the Jack for $49.99 I was given 1 year of service free with the purchase. After I connected and picked my phone number I was given the option to get up to five extra years for $10 a year. I jumped on it. I just got 6 years of unlimited local and long distance phone calls for a grand total of $100.
I cancelled my landline phone and with it one less irritating bill each month. Some other cool features are I can forward my calls to my cell phone or any landline phone; I have free voicemail with email notification. And the Magic Jack is completely portable. If you want to take it with you while traveling all you need is a computer and an internet connection and calls will go right to your location and you can make calls for free right from your hotel room.
As long as you have a good high speed internet connection and a modern computer I recommend getting a Magic Jack and ditching the phone company.