Hundreds of people lined up at some Verizon Wireless stores on Friday to buy the BlackBerry Storm, the first touch-screen phone from Research In Motion that aims to compete with Apple’s iPhone.

More than 200 people had waited at a Verizon store in mid-town Manhattan early in the morning, many of whom were turned away after it ran out of the new phones less than an hour after opening at 8 a.m. The angry customers caused a ruckus and police came to restore order.

Verizon said hundreds of others were in lines outside its stores up and down the U.S. east coast, but added that it had "plenty of phones" and would keep getting more shipments. It declined to give specifics on inventory levels.

Read more @ Reuters

Testfreaks.com, the website that publishes reviews of all new technology products, with prices, blog posts, forum threads, news, rumors, manufacturers descriptions and specifications, manuals, videos and more.

Recently, testfreaks.com published a review about the new Blackberry Storm 9500.

The BlackBerry Storm 9500 is the latest incarnation in a long line of BlackBerry models, it is the flagship of the RIM phone line now, but this one is a bit different, and it’s a very highly anticipated version of this popular style of phone among business users and consumers alike.

The 9500 is very different than all of the previous generations of BlackBerries, it marks a large step forward in the thinking and design of the RIM line of phones. All of RIMs phones to date have had either full or half keyboards on them, the 9500 though has none at all, at least in the form of hardware, the 9500 does have a full touchscreen QWERTY keyboard in landscape mode and what RIM is calling Suretype in portrait mode, where the keys each have three letters, similar to a standard phone. Suretype is supposed to anticipate what the user is going to type and is supposedly very accurate.

The touchscreen feature of the 9500 is a bit late to the BlackBerry line of phones, as most other phone makers have introduced touchscreen phones quite a while ago, especially to the smartphone crowd. One has to wonder how well the BlackBerry OS and style of navigation can be transferred over to the touchscreen. Preliminary results, or testings, have shown though that RIM did a very good job with the interface, and even those accustomed to their BlackBerries should have no problem picking up and utilizing the new interface quickly.

Continue reading @ TestFreaks.com

Boy, oh boy. The bunch who brought you the BlackBerry sure has been a band of busy beavers.

With do-everything wonderphones like the iPhone and the G1 “Google phone” breathing down its neck, the BlackBerry’s status as the best-selling smartphone isn’t guaranteed forever. So this fall, Research in Motion is introducing three radically different BlackBerry models, running all of them up the flagpole at once to see who salutes.

First, there’s the BlackBerry Pearl Flip 8220 ($150 with a two-year T-Mobile contract), the first folding clamshell BlackBerry. Second, there’s the BlackBerry Bold 9000 ($300 with a two-year AT&T contract), a luxury-tinged design statement that screams, “Apple isn’t the only one who can do gorgeous!” Finally, there’s the BlackBerry Storm (coming soon from Verizon), the first BlackBerry with a touch screen.

That last phone isn’t ready for review yet; evidently, that Storm is still brewing. But the Flip and the Bold are here — and they’re very, very nice indeed.

Both phones feature new software, loaded with useful programs (like a slick Clock/Stopwatch app) and white line-drawing icons against a jet-black background. As on the BlackBerry Pearl and the Curve, you navigate by turning a tiny, clickable trackball.

Read more @ NY Times

Having followed activity in the BlackBerry ecosystem over the past few weeks, I have come to the conclusion that BlackBerry Storm should be called BlackBerry Stealth. Why? With little media coverage, its forthcoming launch is the sleeper play in the smartphone market; it is poised to make major market penetration on its launch later this fall. Let’s look at the reasons:

The carriers: BlackBerry Storm was designed for two major carriers, with proven 3G network performance, who aren’t able to carry the iPhone: Verizon and Vodafone (also coming to Canada on Telus and Bell). This opens up access to several large existing customer bases (70 million at Verizon) with strong presence in both consumer and enterprise markets. For roaming outside North America, the Storm for Verizon/Bell/Telus includes the appropriate European/Asian-supported GSM bands.

A smarter touch screen: It employs new “haptic” touch keyboard technology with three keyboard options: QWERTY in landscape mode, SureType and Traditional 12-key in Portrait mode. Kevin Michaluk’s “First Impressions” review talks about his user experience with the keyboard and its unique features. One example: Hover on a letter and you’ll get other language options for the letter such as “é”. This YouTube video demonstrates the dynamic nature of the Storm’s keyboard.

Enterprise ready: IT managers already supporting BlackBerry within their IT infrastructure will readily accept the Storm as simply one more BlackBerry device. There is a legion of stories building about IT managers’ refusal of employee requests for iPhone support. With its multimedia features, including syncing to iTunes, Storm presents an opportunity to have a touchscreen smartphone that easily meets both business and personal needs.

Read more @ Gigaom