I'll keep adding more to this as I use the phone, so keep checking back people ^___^
Ok so i got this like this afternoon from vodafone store. Had a few issues with it, but i'll go over them later. so here goes...(my first keep in mind)
so afer all the unboxing and everything which im sure you all have seen, so i didnt bother doing pics and stuff, you get in the box: the storm, a mains charger with changable heads ( which are hard to fall off mind you), the phone documents, headset (which is okay actually), a usb to mini usb cable, screen wipe, and holster (which is crap i think. its really tight on the phone and it actually presses the buttons along the bottom).
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edit - i just tried to plug it into the laptop actually using my own usb to mini usb cable, discovered its not actually a mini usb socket. Sorry
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so after putting in the battery and turning the phone on, it powers up, but theres like a 2-3 mins startup time. also each time you do a battery pull, this happens also. just normally turning off the phone, this ownt happen. then some setup wizard starts where it asks you for your languages etc, time and all that. can also set up your email here, but can be left till later. <--- mine actually didnt work the first time around for some reason, but after about 20 mins it was okay.
i might add for the first 20 mins or so, the phone seemed laggy for me. everything was just annyoingly slow. but after a while it was fine, very smooth. the touch screen, like everyone says, is just a big button, like on the new macbooks. the clicky sound it make when you press it isnt loud at all. perhaps if you were in a quiet library you could hear it clearly lol scrolling around on it is very good. very fluid and smooth, but not as good as on the iphone 3G. Texting or just general inputting is accurate. only sometimes would i make a mistake. <---- only problems i had often were reallysmall boxes, or list options. kinda hard to select the right one.
sound quality on the storm is loud i must say when on loudspeaker, louder than N95. the quality is a bit echoey or hollow. not really much bass or anything special. just loud. and yes you can do things while listening to music. when using the given headset listening to music was okay i guess, its manageable. but i do recommend getting better ones. i plugged my Audio Technica ATH-ES7s in then sound quality just went up instantly. not much to talk about on the default audio settings, but there is an equaliser which made the tones sound better. Bass Booster for you bass junkies.
watching video on the phone is awesome. quality is just as if you watched the video on your pc/mac. given that, better quality videos will show better on the phone, as it would on a pc/mac. <--- i havent actually taken a video using the camera yet, but it should be similar to other 3.2mp camera phones i guess.
Pictures taken with the camera are decent. not great but decent. i dont actually have a sample to upload, as its dark now, but will get one up tomorrow if you guys want ? theres auto flash which you can turn off....
gps - blackberry maps was preinstalled and worked like a charm, showed my position with 8m difference. went on to install google maps after which is as it is normally.
internet browsing - its probably to do with the coverage of where im sitting, but it could be faster. it is fast though. loads up most pages within 15s havent tried any java ones yet. and flash isnt working is it ?
things to note - battery when on charge get rather hot. the phone is actually quite heavy
but then again im picky. when you place the phone down flat on the table or something, the phone just stops working. like if you were watching a video, and you placed the phone down, it will pause. seems the phone needs to be tilted in some way, or at least in your hand. <--- i need a dock now
anything else you guys wanna know ? im willing to give thoughts on the new storm. but overall im loving it
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Okay, so i just tried using bluetooth. i seem to be able to pair with devices fine. bluetooth headset works great. a good strong signal. what i cant seem to do is send files to my blackberry from any kind of device
i can send from my blackberry though, which is wierd. any thoughts?
video files - i've spent the past however many hours trying to figure this one out, and its got me in a state. the phone ships with the latest desktop manager software, and it come packed with roxio media manager for blackberry. its a decent program i guess, but is slow and i dont like it. but it seems to be the only way (for me) to get videos onto the phone. ive tried using numerous different converters, but still no luck. at first i thought it was a resolution issue, as it was hard finding a converter that could do 480x360 resolution, but after using SUPER, and being able to set the correct resolution, it still doesnt work. tried with the wmv and mp4 formats
no idea whats happening there. but even still, when using the roxio to get videos on, it doesnt always work. some files play, most don't though, and i really have no clue why. deleting the videos afterwards is even more crazy. for videos that do work, deleting them is easy enough (you press the delete button), but for videos that didnt work, i had to press the delete button, and then perform a battery pull before it disaapears from the list. what's up with that?
having constantly been using the phone now for a good, 5-6 hrs i think, which the phone being on charge, the battery is still in the region of 60% that said, i was playing music, playing videos (the ones that worked), surfed the net, tried out gps (very good coverage on google maps and blackberry maps also), made 2 phone calls lasting about 10 mins each, a few texts, tried the bluetooth. so i think its safe to say that the battery life is pretty good. i also did quite a lot of battery pulls due to trying to get rid of deleted videos though. and start up is like 2-3mins after that.
but enough with the bad stuff....on to the good stuff
after more and more messing around with the phone, the touch screen i must say is best ive ever dealt with. AND i have owned the iphone (not 3G) before. it just so much easier to type with because of the through click or whatever its called (i forget now, its late). ive gotten used to the scrolling on this now, and how it wasnt as smooth the iphone before, i can barely notice it. web pages are loading up faster now (i think it because the device needs a warm up) the lag time for when you have the phone in landscape or portrait positions, as other people have said, YES there is a lag time of IMO 2secs, but after a while you won't notice it, seriously, there are times when i tilted it, and it changed and i thought it was imidiate.
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more on the battery, after having slept and had the phone on its 'bedside clock mode' drained about 10% off the phone battery. my battery is now at 30& this afternoon, after having played its two games for a while. I think with normal use (just texting, occasional email and browsing, and occasional calling) this phone will last a little over 2 days on a single charge ? Don't quote me on that though. Just a rough guess. But i'm sure you could squeeze out much much more if you turn the 3G off and keep it 2G. 3G tends to be a battery drainer.
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video playback (when it works) is great like i said before.
music is awesome.
the phone is awesome.
I love it
I'll get some photos taken with the phone later to show its quality, admittedly, its not THAT great, decent enough i guess. gets kinda blurry and noisy if you view at full resolution. recorded Video playback is fine though. i'll get a vid up aswell once i find something to record lol
go here for photo and video footage