Blackberry Storm

image courtesy ZDNet

Today, I had to go speak with a professor. As I entered his office, I was a tad shocked to find the new Kanye West album (I don't recommend it) playing. I was equally shocked to find a brand new Blackberry Storm sitting on his desk. He noticed me glancing at it, so he encouraged me to play with it a bit. Here are my initial impressions:

1. The click screen takes a lot of getting used to. Not in the good way, either. It just felt slow and rather ungraceful, especially when working on something like typing quickly.
2. The screen is quite nice, actually. Nothing astounding, but it definitely was bright and clear.
3. Apparently there's Rhapsody support planned, which should be great news to any of you who might use the Rhapsody service.
4. I didn't manage to see any sort of app store. I guess the reason I expected it to be obvious was because of the App Store's prominence on the new Apple touchscreen devices.

I would have loved to get a chance to compare it to the iPhone 3G, but I couldn't find one of those lying around. My professor and I chatted a bit, and he made it pretty clear that he thinks the Storm is really more a marketing power play than an actual product, and that the Bold smokes the Storm in terms of usability and utility (he's an entrepreneurship professor, in case you were wondering). Interesting thoughts.