[Paula_ke]

Hi,

I got the Storm just before Christmas and left on a 14 day trip. 2K miles driving and 6K miles flying. I'm an ex win mobile user (i730).

Here are some observations:

1) Slows down after use. I've had to pull the battery twice so far as the storm will become unbearably slow. It reaches the point where a little clock timer shows up when ever I push a button or rotate from portrait to landscape. I've even missed phone calls due to this. When hard reset by removing the battery the BB returns to an 'acceptable' speed but still sluggish. The BB does not give me a view of how memory is being used (even my old i730 did this) so I don't know if there are lots of apps open that I should close.

2) Doesn't know where my thumbs are. I've gotten used to the qwerty keyboard with its left and right biased thumb positions, however, I find my thumbs must be a bit higher then where I feel I am touching. Non qwerty controls on may apps just simply do not know where my thumb is and I end up pressing options that I dont' want (example is the drop downs. I will highlight and press to click and the bb will register the line below what I originally highlighted. I end up with lots of other clicks to undo mistakes.

3) Almost un usable browser. There does not seem to be a pattern of usage for scrolling and zooming. The browser seems to do what it pleases. As mentioned in 2) trying to press a link is very frustrating as the browser doesn't seem to to settle on where my thumb or finger is.

4) apps cost. The word processing and spread sheet apps are crippled and require you to 'upgrade' in order to fully use them. These should be standard

5) I miss wifi. Lots of time the EVDO connection is very slow but I could have access to wifi

6) Quaint but old style music player. Not eve close to what is out there

7) Jumpy scroll, no scroll glide. Not very pleasing or comfortable. And as noted in 1) above, gets slower and un-responsive over time, requiring a hard battery reset.

I'm still not sure I'm going to keep the storm. Email is nice, phone quality is reasonable, Don't like the app support (extra bucks to get what should already be on the phone) I have 15 more days to decide.

[ScooterG]

This might be somewhat of a bandage for issue #1: Free app QuickPull offers daily scheduled reboot now | BlackBerryNews.com

I'd hope that 2, 3 and 7 will/have been addressed in OS updates/betas.

4 & 6, welcome to BB.

5, never had wifi :(

[jeptmyers]

I have been debating whether to take back my omnia, I have 3 more days. I have went to the store to use the storm and was disappointed. The internet is slower than the omnia, when you turn the storm it's slower than the omnia, and the emails were even slower. I HATE using the stylus but I can get by without it. I had every intention of returning my omnia but after using the storm I decided to keep it, however, I seem to be in the minority. Maybe I should return it for the storm

[ArgonNJ]

Anything that runs Win Mobile will NEVER be an iphone killer. The underlying OS is simply too old and too M$. Win Mobile 7 may be a different story, but we will have to wait until 2010 to find out.

[WALLST]

I am looking to buy a new phone. I like the storm but i am from Trinidad and listen to a lot of d Trinidad radio stations online, therefore, can i listen to those radio stations with the Storm, i know i can do it with the Omnia. Thanks 4 any feedback.

[THier]

Hello everyone, I've been lurking and trying to decide between the Storm and Omnia. VZ sales man had a Storm,, but after a lot of back and forth recommended the Omnia.
So I picked up an Omnia, one thing I can verify, it comes with an adapter that will let you use headphones and charge at the same time.

Tom

[Rowdie]

Storm... best storm "fix" is the T6 fix.

I don't get this batterypull fixation. You can go into the devices setting and enable a memory clean feature. I have to assume this is what is doing the work battery pulls do for other people.

As far as not knowing where your fingers are, that' just getting use to your new device. Also pass on the qwerty kb and use the trutype or suretype whatever they call it. Between that, the t6 fix and a little use and you'll be texting as fast as ever.

Lack of apps would be my issue. All these fancy guys with their iphones and that one guy in mailing some some kind of linux? running crazy thing are kicking the storm's arse when it comes to cool and useful apps.

Where's my barcode reader?!

[technotrader]

I've had my Storm for about a week now, and the main problem I have with it is there is a bug where when you use speed dial while using a Bluetooth headset, the phone sends the call to the handset. This is very annoying, especially when driving, and makes you think the call is dropped even though you may be connected. I've tried it with several different Bluetooth headsets, and it still has the same problem.

Also, the Storm only has 9 speed dial slots, unlike earlier BB's. Not nearly enough.

All said though, I think I'll wait for an upgrade to fix, as after reading this thread I don't think I really would be happy with the Omnia.

[Blackberry_Stormer]

I have had my Storm since the debut and thanks to another thread in here that showed me some cool settings such as swiped sensitivity, key rate, etc. I like it even more. I am an ex iPhone user cause as other have stated coverage was not well, battery life poor (because that phone makes you want to play with it a lot) and the fact that I have to have it unlocked to actually do simple things like edit sms tones and themes is ridiculous....I always give smart phones the 90 day test because you cant just go to a store, play wit a phone for 5 to 10min and say its crap....if that's the case you don't need a smart phone. But for the most part i am very happy with the Storm and I have grown used to the "sure press" keyboard cause I just like the feeling of pressing a button vs on iPhone I would touch it and make the selection.

Thats my 2 cents

P.S I never tested the Omnia just cause I HATE WINDOWS MOBILE PHONES WITH ALL MY HEART AND SOUL!!

[Skins72]

Originally Posted by jeptmyers

when you turn the storm it's slower than the omnia, and the emails were even slower.

I have to say I'm surprised to see you say this....I too am somewhat disappointed in the STORM...but for different reasons. The STORM seems to lag if it has been sitting but the accelerometer works better side to side against the Omnia when they are both in regular use. The Omnia's has to do all kinds of various twist and fade in and outs on its portrait to landscape mode no matter what setting you have it on it appears (at least the Verizon rep and I could not figure it out).

Back to the faults of the BB.

1) It has bugs...no doubt (I'm sure the Omnia does too)
2) Slow shutter on Camera with image stabilization on
3) No wifi
and
4) The major one no one is talking about is NO flash player available in browser on the horizon.

No one seems to care about this? The Omnia can support Skyfire which plays streaming vid in the browser. Skyfire MAY be working on a BB version (they have job posting for a BB developer..but I have heard that flash on a BB is nearly impossible. That may be in the OS... while flash in the browser may possibly work on top pf the OS...I don't know?)

Now...I can live with the bugs...b/c I'm confident that BB will continue to fix and update. But the 'flashlessness' (player that is) of the Storm bothers me a bit. The wifi is not that huge as the 3G works pretty well if you keep you cache clean and use the FIREFOX browser.

The Omnia on the other hand looks really cheap to me...the build quality of the BB is unmatched in material and look. WinMO apps looks low res and cheap and quite frankly juvenile. But with that said I'm considering the Omnia switch out for two reasons...better internet and better camera. Otherwise I like the BB better as a phone/PDA....just not as a multimedia device.

Thoughts?

[AW09]

I stumbled onto this site,I love it.Heres my problem,I am very new to the high tec pda windows phones.just had the plain jane v750 untill I seen what these others could do I had to have one.So I gave Verizon a call for an upgrade I told her I would like to be able to open attachments in my email and forward them,browse the web and such,so she said the new DARE phone would be good for me,so I got it at a 1 year contract price.And having this phone about a dayand called them back to ask why,and they said the Dare cant do that.So pretty disappointed,they then told me I could got to any Verizon corporate store and change it out for one that would meet my needs,that led me to th BB storm or the Omnia I was on my lunch hour so I was kinda rushed but ended up with the omnia because the salesman couldnt get the demo storm to work right.I also forgot to mention when I called the store to get their hours with the DARE he said my phone has issues he couldnt hardly hear me so when I got there finally they said the phone was a D.O.A so no 35$ charge.So I got the Omnia home Played around with it and found the text on it was way to small for and the settings would not make it any bigger.The way I see it the Omnia system is about 20% touch and 80% squint and use that little TINY mouse feature.Sorry for going on and on just had to tell someone.This all happened in two days.I went back to the store less than 24 hrs later to trade for the storm for the main reason It was much easier to move around in and I did not need my glasses on, enough for me,Storm it is!Untill I got waited on and they said sorry we cant exchange the Omni for the BB storm we can only exchange once,so we argued for a bit and I finally said just keep the phone and credit back my visa and I will go back to my old V750,then she said nope we cant do that either.So any ideas out there? I would really like a Storm.Can Verizon do this?

[ashley152719]

hi. in response to StuartV of 12-5-2008 i just purchased the omnia. although i am still debating on rather to trade it for the storm(my brother and boyfriend have it) most of the things you wrote about it are false. i thought the same things you did until i played with my phone for a couple days. for the address book you can enter he name and search that way like every other phone. you just have to change the settings at the top to the magnifying glass. but yes when you rotate the screen and the keyboard disappears is very true and very annoying. and the messages all have certain folders inside the mailbox, so no they all dont go into one main list. yes the mouse is nice and i agree on the storm i noticed i do not need to click on things so tiny to need one. the internet on the storm in much easier and nicer to use though. i also think its because the screen is a little bit wider. also there is a back button for the internet you have the click a little gray area with an arrow at the bottom right. as far as the radio and pretty much everything else i have no clue on. there is just way to much with this phone and for me that is the one thing i dont like. the storm is simple and less complicated to use. for example i downloaded ring tones and i can only get on into my ringtones because i saved it differently then the others. and as far as i can tell there is no way for me to change where it is being stored which i dont like. with the storm that is much easier to do. so i am very torn between the two. because everyone has the storm so i like to be different but i like the simplicity of the storm much better. because honestly i dont need all the other things that the omnia has.

[thunder33cat]

Originally Posted by StuartV

- typing using the SureType-style kb sucks, compared to SureType on a BB. It takes 3 screen presses to type a period (or any other punctuation) and be back in text typing mode.

- calling people from the address book sucks (compared to a BB). Particularly if you have a lot of contacts. I have over 1200 contacts in my address book and the WinMo way of working would be a big handicap compared to a BB. Example: the finest WinMo granularity for finding a contact is to scroll to a specific letter. So, if I want to call Joe Smith, I can scroll to the S's, then I have to scroll individual entries to find the one I want. If I have 50 contacts with a last name that starts with S, it could take me a while to find the one I want. Example 2: if I want to call somebody, but I can only remember their first name. On my BB, I can just type their first name into the dialer and it will show me all matching contacts. On WinMo, I'm not sure how you could do that. I suppose there may be a Search function you could invoke. But, it would definitely not be as easy as just starting to type their name. Example 3: on the BB, I can type part of the first name and part of the last name, and the list will quickly filter to all Contacts that match. Very handy, especially if you can't remember exactly how their name is spelled. I don't think there's a way to do this in WinMo.

- If you're typing on the Omnia and you rotate the screen, the kb disappears and you have to tap the icon at the bottom to bring it back up.

- it *appears* that you can't have it automatically use SureType in Portrait mode and QWERTY in Landscape. That is how the Storm works and seems preferable. The Omnia QWERTY kb is too small in Portrait, so I'd rather use SureType if I'm in Portrait. But the Landscape QWERTY is big enough so I'd rather have that, then. Of course, as I already pointed out, the SureType kb on the Omnia is seriously flawed, so I probably would not want to use it at all. Which means typing on the Omnia, for me, is really only effective in Landscape mode - which I would not like.

- the Omnia GPS is locked (and the Storm GPS is not).

- the Omnia WiFi really only adds a marginal improvement over Verizon's EVDO service.

- I did not like the Omnia's haptic feedback. It "clicked" every time I touched the screen - even if I was just doing a touch-and-drag operation.

- the low screen res on the Omnia. It appears that there are things in map data and in the browser that would be legible at the same size on a Storm, that aren't legible on the Omnia. That is really lame.

- the Omnia optical mouse was pretty cool, but it lacked some pretty obvious (to me) functionality. Like, if it's in mouse mode, and you're in the browser, and you scroll the mouse to the bottom of the screen and try to keep going down, it ought to scroll the browser page up, but it doesn't. And, since I learned about how you can touch, hold and then move the cursor on the Storm screen, the Omnia mouse is no longer really an advantage. Call 'em equal on that score.

- I read somewhere, but didn't get to verify, that on the Omnia, you can't make text (SMS) messages and email show in different mailboxes. I definitely would not want my text msgs and emails all showing in one combined list.

- The Omnia has no Back button. There were several places where I got to and thought it really need one. Maybe I was just missing something here.

- The Omnia could not play the streaming Internet radio station that I normally listen to. I paid $20 for BerryTunes for my BB and it streams my favorite Internet radio station perfectly. Windows Media Player on the Omnia always returned "Parameter incorrect" or something like that, and wouldn't play it.

I feel compelled to add that I have used both extensively, and IMO, both are great and involve a series of trade-offs in either direction. My wife and I both have Omnias right now and are pleased with them.

Most, if not all, of Stuart's concerns outlined above can be addressed with straightforward tweaks and system adjustments. There is an entire very active forum dedicated to the Omnia at PPCGeeks as well as a lot of support at XDA-Dev for the Omnia, so the support for the device is out there.

WM 6.1 has proven more stable for me than prior iterations of the WM OS. I'm curious as to whether WM 6.5 will continue this trend. We shall see (if Verizon ever let's the upgrade occur).

My biggest gripes:

- The locked GPS, although I use a bluetooth GPS to circumvent it, I shouldn't have to do so.
- I wish this was a "world phone." The Storm wins here, and for me, this might become an additional differentiating factor for my business. (Thus my interest in possibly converting one of our Omnias back to a Storm.)

What I see as the "plusses" for the Omnia:
- Memory (lots and lots!)
- Camera
- Multiple forms of input, including writing on the screen in a notepad
- WIFI
- Overall "customizability"
- With Exchange Server, it functions comparably to my prior Blackberries in a corporate setting (and I'm not subject to outages or having to route through RIMs servers...)

I like both phones, and simply want to give the Omnia a fair shake, too...

[ashley152719]

You keep brining up the address or contacts feature and saying that you are unable to type a name and find that particular contact. You can type only two letters and it will bring up contacts with that. I dont know why you think it doesnt allow you to do this on the omnia? Yes the omnia also has a back button like i said before. And the keyboard disappearing when you rotate the screen is very annoying i will not say its not. But on the blackberry which i now have i find it extremely irritating that if i accidentally hit the keyboard i have to go to the menu scroll all the way down to hide keyboard on the omnia all i had to do was hit the little icon at the bottom of the screen. But yes the screen on the blackberry is much bigger so the buttons are easier to type with, but i have found that when i type the blackberry is to slow and i have typed three other words by the time it shows up on the screen. As for the radio i didnt have the phone long enough to get into all the other applications. And i have noticed the camera on the omnia was much better then the storm. But for me the storm is a much better fit. i loved my omnia but if you dont need all the applications it comes with i found it just made the phone much more complicated then the storm is. so i am very happy with my storm but both have pluses and minuses. I also would like to add that i do love the blackberry messenger that is available to blackberry users also. My borther, my cousin, my uncle, and my boyfriend all have the storm so it is nice to be able to use that to talk to them too.

[alangston81]

I think the biggest killer for the iphone is the fact that you can't picture or video message, you can only use email if your message has any type of attachment, now I love my BB but not everyone of my friends has a smart phone or email push so if I want to send a vid or pic to them I need to be able to do it in a msg who wants to wait hours or even days for your friend to check thier email, obviously we love to have things instantly or we wouldn't be BB users. As far as the Omnia goes, it's a really great phone but I don;t think it will ever have the popularity of a BB! And to whoever threw the LG Dare in the the mix, IT'S NOT EVEN A SMARTPHONE, it's for teenagers, music, videos, and messaging, entertainment only!!

[alangston81]

I happen to work for a verizon wireless premium retailer, yes it is true that you are limited to one exchange during your first 30 days, however you also have 15 to cancel your upgrade, in which case you would be eligible to upgrade again the day after you do this, hope this message gets to in time!

[alangston81]

On the storm you can download an application called Slacker from crackberry.com it's free internet radio, except you can forward or reverse up to six songs, but the Omnia has FM radio so you get local stations, you decide which you prefer!

[loteer]

My girlfriend and i just upgraded our phones. She got a Storm and i picked up an Omnia. We figure we could play with eachothers phones and if we really like the other we could switch.

So far it looks like we are sticking with our original choices. I text message alot (maybe 9k a month) and i like how the Omnia lists text messages like an IM window. If the Storm does that also i just haven't figured it out yet.

And yes you can search through your contacts on an Omnia just like any other phone. Also the x in the top right acts as a back button on an Omnia. That also applies if your using internet explorer. If your using the Opera browser simply click the arrow on the botom to bring up the controls for the back button.

We have only been playing with the 2 for a day now so we'll see where we land.

[NewStormRocksx3]

Thanks so much for this thread, it really helped my decision! I did want the Omnia, mostly for the 5 MP camera... I love taking pics (1500 currently on eNv). We wanted a smart phone, and obviously it was between Omnia and Storm.

Just got back from the store with the Storms, and am already rocking to the free Slacker!!!! Which is way better than Sirius (*note to cancel).

I really didn't want the Storm, until I stumbled across this thread and read the arguments/experiences today (in fact I hated the Storm). Well, I did just check them both out at the store, it literally took me 10 seconds to hold the Omnia and see that it was nothing compared to the Storm. It's so hard to "touch" the aps, you really need a stylus to use this "Phone".

I use to hate the Storm because the wife and I are huge texters. And well I heard that the keyboard was horrible to use on the Storm... But after reading this, I decided to give it a second chance. Really, it took me all of 5 minutes to get use to it, the wife took 15....

I've only owned it for 2 hours, but this thing is amazing! Especially with the optional chrome hard case! Nice!

BTW, you get a free 8GB Micro card and headphones with it!!! I was going to go out and buy two $40 8GB cards for them and two sets of headphones, that almost pays for both of them (with $50 off and buy one get one free).

3.2 MP is really good anyway. Sry Samsung, better luck next 2 years.

***Oh BTW, they're currently buy one get one free, go get TWO!!!

[Drillbit]

Just the fact that the Storm's screen is capacitive tells you it will own one over the Omnia. Or any other WM phone for that matter, because WM currently does not support capacitive screens, only resistive screens which are less precise. Heck if you really want to go Samsung, go with the Instinct instead. It feels a lot faster and responsive, and with a proprietary OS, Samsung can do anything it wants including capacitive screens. The browser on the Instinct is flash enabled. Or you might want to wait for the Omnia HD, which is the same phone as the Omnia but has the Symbian OS. Symbian feels nimbler, faster, already has support for capacitive screens, and seems to have an edge on multimedia support aka video conferencing and flash enabled browsers over WiMo.

I feel the part where the Omnia has the edge over the Storm is the fact it can run the Opera 9.5 browser, which I feel is the arguably the best mobile browser after Safari (others might argue for the S60 browser). Or the fact it has Skype now, though the Storm gets Skype next month.

WiMo is lacking on native Yahoo, Facebook and Myspace apps, which is already on the BB. But hoping, with work on the say, to get such apps native on WiMo.

That and the Omnia has Wifi too.

But since this is Verizon's Omnia, not the GSM Omnia, if you're going to travel and roam, the 9530 Storm's optional GSM capability comes into place.

Also the Storm has a more brilliant and sharper screen and display. The "ooh" factor has to go with the Storm as well.

I don't actually own a Storm, but my wife owns one and I bought one for my daughter.