I strolled into my local Verizon store this week to play with the Storm, the new Blackberry phone and latest touch-screen device to hit the marketplace. I am a huge fan of touch-screen devices, and love that all the top OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) are pumping these devices into the marketplace to compete with Apple. The Sprint Instinct (by Samsung, home brewed operating system), T-Mobile G1 (hardware by HTC / operating system by Google, an Android phone), The Voyager from Verizon (made by LG, homegrown operating system) have all entered the marketplace in the last year to compete with the iPhone. They are all decent attempts to capture some marketshare, but they all fall short in terms of living up to the iPhone.


If the iPhone is a 9 out 10, the Storm is a 7. That is an overall score. Its touch-screen usability gets a 5, and here is why: when using the keyboard, the whole screen acts as a button, and each keystroke must be accompanied by not only a touch, but a push as well. It could be that I am way to calibrated to the iPhone, but I have already read of others feeling the same way. When you touch a letter, it only highlights the key; you then need to press the screen to confirm. It was very difficult to type, as I had to constantly look at the screen to see what letter I am pressing, and of course my fat fingers are covering that part which I need to see. Please, drop in to the local Verizon store yourself and you will understand how this is not that cool.

I had a few goals in mind, one was to review the typing on the keyboard, another to simply navigate the device and get a feel for the usability. Here, the device gets higher marks. One of my complaints about Blackberrys in general is the poor way in which you navigate around to perfrom any function. I loathe the little menus you must use to save, edit, etc. With this new device, the interface is way better, and its far easier to navigate around.

Lastly, though, one item that surprised me was lack of WiFi. Hello? Enough said.

More to come...

Bottom line: Of all the touch screen devices / smart phones out there, iPhone is the champ by a big margin. I would rate them thus:

1. iPhone (9/10)
   
2. G1 (7/10)
   
3. Storm (7/10)
   
4. Instinct (6/10)
5. Voyager (5/10)