[StuartV]

A friend at work got a Storm 9530 today. I just finished playing with it for 15 or 20 minutes.

It came with OS 4.7.0.65 installed and an 8GB MicroSD card.

I did not notice it being laggy. Transition from portrait to landscape is consistently quick. Transition from landscape back to portrait is consistently a bit slower. Maybe 1 to 1.5 seconds.

I like the typing pretty well. I like using SureType on my Pearl, and I didn't have any real trouble with speed or accuracy on the Storm. The first time I opened a new message, I was in Portrait mode, and it came up with the Multitap keyboard displayed (and I verified that it worked as Multitap). I hit the menu key to change to SureType and the menu had "Enable Multitap", but no "Enable SureType". I finally went ahead and chose Enable Multitap, and the multitap keyboard stayed on the display and still worked as multitap. Then I hit the menu key again and it had "Enable SureType". I chose that and the SureType keyboard was displayed and worked just fine.

Somewhere along the way, I read a review that said that, when using the QWERTY keyboard (obviously, in Landscape mode) to type an email, all you could see of the message was the headers and one line of the actual text you are typing. Well, that is incorrect. I could see the headers and three (or 4?) lines of my text. And as I typed enough to cause the text to scroll, the headers scrolled up and out of view, so I could see even more lines of my text.

My biggest problem was selecting text for cut-and-paste operations. I do that quite a bit in messages on my Pearl. Selecting text to cut or copy, using the track ball, is easy on the Pearl. Selecting precisely what you want, in a text message or email, on the Storm seemed very difficult. The letters are so small and you're trying to position the cursor with your finger. You use two fingers to initially set the selection, and then you can use one finger to adjust the ends of the selection. But, if you are trying to select just 2 or 3 letters, it is really difficult.

And the complaint is about the same if you were trying to position the cursor in a specific spot to be able to use Backspace to delete one or more letters. Getting the cursor positioned exactly right to start hitting Backspace is really hard.

Similar for the browser. I went to Weather.com. Navigating the links was hard. You can touch where you want and it will highlight the selected link. If it's the link you want, you just press to click. But, if the text of the link is small, your finger covers the whole link and you can't tell what's highlighted. This is especially a problem if there are two links close together. Your finger covers them both and you can't tell which one you're clicking. That part is much easier if you toggle from Pan mode to Cursor mode. The cursor does not position directly under your fingertip. I positions just slightly abover and to the left, so you can see the whole cursor and whatever it is over. In Cursor mode you can still move your finger to the top or bottom and the screen will scroll. That is okay and I would probably rather have it just work that way by default. But, if I toggled into Cursor mode and then clicked a link, when the new page loaded, it went back into Pan mode. Hopefully, that's an option that can be changed. I didn't have time to check.

I downloaded Google Maps onto the Storm. GM worked, but it did not appear to be getting a signal from the GPS - only tower triangulation. It said my location was within 2300 meters, same as my Pearl. Maybe that was because I was indoors. I don't know. I did go into Options/Advanced Options and make sure the GPS was on.

Also, the Voice Search that works great on my Pearl did not appear to be available as an option when running on the Storm. The app did appear to have Storm-specific stuff, though. The lower left corner has + and - icons for zooming in and out. And the lower right has a purple dot icon that you can click to reposition to your current location.

Also, after I exited out of Google Maps, I couldn't find the GM icon anywhere, to be able to get back into it. I looked in the Applications folder, the Downloads folder, and every single other folder there was. I checked the Menu key to click the Show All option and it wasn't listed. Maybe because there were no icons hidden at that time? Don't know. I could choose Switch Application and pick GM to get back into it, but that was it. I was going to try a battery pull, to see if the GM icon showed up after that, but I didn't have time.

If this thing just had a trackball at the bottom, between the buttons, like the other BBs, I think it would be awesome. As it is, the difficulty in selecting text has me very ambivalent about upgrading from my Pearl. I use my Pearl all day every day as a modem tethered to my laptop. The speed of Rev A in the Storm would be really nice to have. But, when I'm not tethered, I do a lot of emailing directly from my Pearl, which often involves copy-and-paste.

[Mikef1182]

Verizon locked down GPS to only work with VZ Navigator, thats why Google maps only used triangulation.

[StuartV]

The rumor has been that the GPS would not be locked on the Storm. That's what I was trying to verify.

Are you saying that because you have seen confirmation that specifically refutes the rumor? Or just basing it on the fact that the GPS is locked on all other VZW BBs?


And how do I Fillow you?

[Mikef1182]

Originally Posted by StuartV

The rumor has been that the GPS would not be locked on the Storm. That's what I was trying to verify.

Are you saying that because you have seen confirmation that specifically refutes the rumor? Or just basing it on the fact that the GPS is locked on all other VZW BBs?


And how do I Fillow you?

The only confirmation I have seen are from other reviews and comments from people having the same issue you stated you had. I do not have the phone so I can not give you a first hand experience. I am hoping it is just a rumor, but I have not seen anyone prove it false yet. Has anyone had success using GPS and google maps on the storm?

[Mikef1182]

After doing a few searches on here and on google, looks like some people have had luck using google maps and GPS. Hopefully these reports are true. I wonder why we are seeing conflicting info on this subject.

[John Clark]

I would put a little more stock in the GPS issue if the reviewer was actually outside. Since he was inside, it doesn't really shed any light.

[flenn]

I got the GPS to work fine in BB Maps. Go to Options>Advanced Options>GPS and set "GPS Services" to "Location On". Now go to Applications>Maps and hit the blackberry button. Select "Start GPS Navigation" and give it a minute to lock on to sats. This works great and gives turn by turn directions from your current location to any contact/address/map destination.

[jnyost]

GPS works with BBMaps but I couldn't get it to work with Google Maps yet. I'll keep playing. Might just be a google maps problem.

Fyi... The google maps icon is at the top of the list in the applications folder. You have to scroll up. Took me a while to find it too.

[DawnGP143]

GPS Working fine in Google Maps, not working so far in BB Maps.

[jnyost]

Originally Posted by DawnGP143

GPS Working fine in Google Maps, not working so far in BB Maps.

Damn.... Exact opposite of mine.

[Arcangel]

the GPS is not locked although it does seem like it works more fluidly with BBmaps over GMaps the only thing u get on navigator is voice, and traffic with you dont get on others