BlackBerry Storm 9500 User Reviews

Worst fone i'hv ever had... The worse phone for me in the last 10 years...
Company bought them for us instead of old palm Treo's. I tried to get used to it for a few weeeks, but I can't. Every time I have to use it, my words were something like "what a f..ng idiot designed that piece of cr..p".
Extremely slow.
Horrible microphones. Speech is not clear, every time my colleagues call me I have to ask what they just said.
You need both of your hands to use it. Keyboard is not precise, I always press the wrong button, even when my fingers do not look like sausages.
You cannot talk and put it bettwen your cheek and shoulder, it is falling down or your ear press something on keyboard.
And so on... Please do not get me wrong, I'm a tech, I deal with different equipment all the time, but this monster is beyond my abilities...
Finally I get my old Treo connected and I'm so happy :)

After having this phone for one year I'd have to say it is the worst.  Slow connections.  80% of the time you have to click a button twice to three times to get it to respond.Browser is the worst, just use Opera.  Much easier to use then BB browser.Battery pulls are constant thing you have to do.Software Version 5.0 update screwed up more than it cured.  Had to reload older version to get it all working again.Leaving this phone this month for the new Nokia N900.

 This is by far the worst phone i have ever had. In the first 3 weeks of owning the phone i already went through 2 of them. The first one kept shutting off every 10 seconds and all of the buttons stopped working properly. The second storms touchpad got stuck making it useless. Now on my third one after having it for 6 months the touchpad cracked from me pressing the talk button making the talk button stuck. Also at least once a day i have to take the battery out of the phone due to the phone freezing. Every conversation i have on the phone, the person i talk to complains saying that they cannot hear what i am saying. The battery life sucks. it is overall a bad phone.

I gave this a try for the 30 days and returned it on the last day possible as I could not get used to it.  It was my 4th Blackberry in about 8 years as I use them so much they give out.  Screen quality is good but the typing aspect of it for business users is too hard to get used to.  It really slows down your productivity and good luck trying to correct a mistake within an email.  
Previous comments were correct about the camera - it takes forever.  Further the sound quality is no where near as good as what I had on AT&T despite limited coverage areas.  

The worse phone for me in the last 10 years...
Company bought them for us instead of old palm Treo's. I tried to get used to it for a few weeeks, but I can't. Every time I have to use it, my words were something like "what a f..ng idiot designed that piece of cr..p".
Extremely slow.
Horrible microphones. Speech is not clear, every time my colleagues call me I have to ask what they just said.
You need both of your hands to use it. Keyboard is not precise, I always press the wrong button, even when my fingers do not look like sausages.
You cannot talk and put it bettwen your cheek and shoulder, it is falling down or your ear press something on keyboard.
And so on... Please do not get me wrong, I'm a tech, I deal with different equipment all the time, but this monster is beyond my abilities...
Finally I get my old Treo connected and I'm so happy :)

The service for verizon is great!! The storm is a great phone and emial device but its just super slow. The click screen is hard to get use to they shoulve just stuck with the normal touch. I use to have the curve and i think i like that a little better :) its just hard to switch over i might take it back.

Not having a Blackberry before and hating the nipple fondlers like the bold, curve, etc... I went through two phone to get to the Storm.. the iPhone which was more of a iTouch since the phone lost connections more than it made calls. It needed applications to substitute for the lack of phone connectivity.  The Samsung OMNIA which had a screen for 5 year old fingers.. Finally after $100 of return charges between carriers - I finally got the Storm.  It works all the time and has been great.  My contacts downloaded from google over the air along with my calendar.  The Maps are sharp and right on target.
The push to click is a little frustrating since I find myself inadvertinetly pushing when I was not ready.  Typically touch pad issues.. Overall this is a great phone, camera, mp3 player and PDA.  The more you use it - the more intelligent it is as it learns your data entry points.   Again unlike the iPhone you can actually get to the battery and the memory card for future upgrades.  

Wow, where to start? Yes, there are problems with this phone, but overall I like it. The screen is easily seen in bright daylight. I like the fact that you light a key before pressing it to type as I tried the iphone and went nuts trying to type on it. With the storm you know ahead of time if you're going to press the right key. The battery life is in serious need and there are times I charge my phone twice a day. At first that was blamed on too many applications being open at once, but when most are closed, there's no excuse left other than PLEASE get that problem fixed RIM. Redialing a call isn't a snap. At times the phone locks up without you knowing it and your calls go to voicemail without you knowing someone is trying to call you and you find that out when you try to make a call and can't. That is what bothers me the most about this phone. This seems more of a computer than a phone to me. I get notified instantly that I have email yet forget the notification that I missed a call. Since the screen can jump around, answering a call can be a challenge. Oops, sorry, I just hung up on you seems to be words that I say a lot. I'm told by Verizon that getting the bluetooth solves 90% of the problems with the phone. They are probably 50% right about that. The camera gives you pictures that are from the stone ages and working the camera is a challenge unto itself. How many times should you need to press the button to take ONE picture? As many times as the camera decides has been my experience. If I'm on low battery my phone keeps switching back and forth between handset and speaker. Friends have gotten used to it since the battery goes low so quickly.

I called Verizon today and asked to exercise my "worry free guarentee."  This phone is a flop (in my opinion).  The clickable keyboard is not bad, but it's not good.  That's not my big problem though. 
1)  Camera is worse than a 19th century camera.  First, when you turn the camera on, it can take anywhere from 1 to 25 seconds to load.  Then, when you click the button, the screen goes black (no more looking through the viewfinder), count one thousand one, one thousand two, one thousand three, and then you hear a click.  Then one thousand one and the picture is back.  Let's see!  I have a 3 year old and a 18 month old.  Can you imagine me saying "Hold still for 3 seconds?"  Give me a break.
2)  Battery life is super weak.  One reviewer said he had power until 5 PM.   Really?  I made it to 2 PM and didn't start until 9 AM. 
3)  I have had the phone 4 days and it has frozen/rebooted 6 times. 
4)  I hate the dialing system.  You can't redial without activating the call log.  HUH?
On the good side, the screen is amazing quality.  The internet browser is good and the media player is nice.  The RIM email push is always a nice touch.  I would say that this is a nice prototype that should have never made it to market in 2008.

I've had this phone for almost a week now.  I have to say I was a little worried when I first started using it because the transitions were slow and it would freeze up from time to time.  After a bit of tweaking (read: deleting VZ Navigator and a few other memory hogs) the phone is running 110% better.  The accelerometer is more responsive, although still not perfect, and the transitions are much more rapid.  PhoneArena's review said that the clickable screen made the device feel cheap, but I have to say that I like the fact that I can highlight an icon with a soft touch and then only execute it with a click.  That being said, you will never be able to type as fast on this virtual QWERTY keyboard (the horizontal one) as you could with the older physical keyboards, because the entire screen has to rebound instead of only one key.  I think that the future of this device is in the SureType entry mode, where after a bit of practice, your typing speed greatly improves.  The clarity of the screen is amazing and watching videos on it is very pleasant.  Overall I think that the Storm is reasonably solid, although a tad underwhelming with the software glitches.  Currently, BlackBerry is in the process of finalizing build 4.8 which will (hopefully) fix many of the software glitches that the Storm is having today.

I have had this phone for 4 days, it does everything right but it is in desperate need of a key pad. The software has frozen up a couple of times and the battery only gets me till 5pm. I am thinking Curve with an extended battery....