Q: Is the Verizon 9530 identical to the Vodafone 9500?
A: More or less, yes, except for the CDMA chip. According to FCC documents, the CDMA circuitry is actually not in the 9500. That means if you roam in the U.S., you coincidentally will be on either T-Mobile or AT&T and not Verizon. Funny, right? RIM told us that was Vodafone’s request. We also found out that if you travel to another CDMA network in a different country with a 9530, (Canada for instance) you can roam on Telus or Bell’s network since Verizon has those roaming agreements. You’d also be able to manually select Rogers if you wanted to get excited.
Q: Can the 9500/9530 be unlocked?
A: We know for a fact that Vodafone will not be giving out unlock codes, at least in the U.K. as the phone is exclusive to them. We heard people had a ton of trouble getting unlock codes for the BlackBerry 8830 and we’d guess the Storm is in the same boat. That said, the units physically can be unlocked, but you’re better off not going through the respective carriers to get it done since they probably won’t help you all that much. Good luck.
Q: Is there really a “gap” in between the SurePress screen and the housing?
A: Yes, didn’t you read above? It’s definitely there, and while we wish RIM would have minimilized this, we really don’t think this is going to be a major issue. Sure some dust and grizime will get in, but that’s normal and we’d assume thought of during hardware testing. We don’t think it’s a big problem, but it would be nice if the screen didn’t wobble all over the place.
Q: Is the GPS locked down like typical Verizon BlackBerrys?
A: Kind of… The Verizon Storm’s A-GPS is locked to Verizon (the tech that speeds up getting a GPS fix by using the cellular network to triangulate your approximate position) but the actual GPS chip is not. That means you’re free to use any BlackBerry GPS application your hearts desire without any worry of Big Red crippling your dreams.
Q: Is the Storm coming to any other carriers?
A: At this time, no. The full list of carriers is Verizon, Vodafone, Bell, and Telus. That’s it for now. There’s a GSM/HSDPA one in the works which we’d expect to hit AT&T and Rogers with Wi-Fi but that’s a good ways away. Most likely Q2 or Q3 of 2009.
Q: Are you positive that Verizon/Vodafone made RIM remove Wi-Fi at its request?
A. Yes, 100% positive. Verizon’s official statement was something along the lines of, “We’re always looking at additional features and would love to have future devices [BlackBerrys] with Wi-Fi.” If it is any consilation, RIM told us that from the start there was never a Storm with Wi-Fi planned. It was axed from the getgo.
Q. Ok fine, what about the tri-band HSDPA radio? Is there a tri-band UMTS chip in there but the 850MHz/1900MHz bands are software-blocked?
A. Well, software and maybe a little hardware we suppose. The pre-production units all ran 850/1900/2100MHz, and we’ve never seen RIM swap in different chips at the last minute, yet RIM told us there was definitely nothing else in there than the 2100MHz band. Verizon also told us that the Qualcomm chip only supports 2100MHz, but that didn’t make sense to us. We believe them, it just doesn’t make sense…
Q: Honestly guys, why are you so biased? You love the iPhone and secretly call Steve Jobs at his home to talk about plans to conspire against RIM.
A: We’re not and we don’t. We love RIM. They’re our favorite company and we give them a hard time because we expect only the best from them. When they screw up, we give them crap about it. Customers shouldn’t settle for mediocre OS releases riddled with bugs, constant delays and constant push backs from a company that has historically been one of the most solid and reliable. Simple as tha
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