BlackBerry Storm 9530 User Reviews

ok i hear everyones complaints but the reason your storm is running slow is because number one you probably have multiple apps running in the background go to switch applications and close out all of them there will be a couple of apps that dont turn off i am pretty sure its five but any way turn those off and then you should see the storm running alot faster as for the turn and flip with out moving the phone there will be another software update on the first week of december. also keep in mind this is a blackberry NOT an i phone blackberry is a device for business not multimedia like the i phone so to clear it up what i am seeing here is a bunch of att fanboys that love there i phone who have no business using a blackberry because they are not business use customers.
 

you know when this phone first came out everyone was saying how bad it was and to be honest i was affraid to order it. In the long run i did order the phone any way and WOW am i glad. I had the iphone before this phone and it was ok but this phone is just truly amazing. The screen is great and very vivid. Also the camera is very very good it takes the best of pictures i have ever seen on a phone. Lets get down to the phones features and by all comparisons it is way better then what the iphone had. I am so very happy i got this phone you dont even understand my excitment. It is a very stylish and user friendly phone and did i talk to you about the enternet. WOW once again cause the browser is simply the best out there. I am not here to fool anyone this phone is a must have and is a great phone to get if you are looking for a phone. The vivid screen, camera, features, enternet and over stylish sleek look all make this very phone the BLACKBERRY STORM great.

The storm is a very unique phone which makes it great. For all the people out there who say that it isnt good and it is wayyy too slow well thats not true. I have had min for about 4 days now and i think is is amazing with great call quality and an excellent i repeat and this is no lie EXCELLENT screen that is very vibrant and colorful. Give the company a few weeks at least 3 or 4 to fix those SMALL software glitches. I recomend this phone to anyone who has verizon and to those customers on other carriers also its just a great phone that does need some fices i am not going to lie to but those fixes will come soon i talked to customer service and once the new software comes it this phone it will A) be better then the IPHOn and B) this phone the storm will be nearly flawless. I love this new phone and am so happy i got it especially over the IPHONE. This phone is way more customizable too.
 

so far the phone has been great!!! for all the bad reviewers out there they are being to harsh on the phone.. it just launched!! of course its going to have a few glitches... and it will take some time to fix it, but that doesnt make it a bad phone. even the iphone had alot of glitches when first launch.

let me say I am a Verizon customer..But people quit trying to compare this phone to IPhone..The IPhone is better by far. The storm has so many problems that Verizon should be ashamed to have released it just to get christmas sales. The one I have is freeze city. It is so slow that there is no way a update can fix that. I have stayed with Verizon because all my friends and family are with them. I also have an IPhone so I can tell you they arent perfect but they are so much better than storm..Mine is going back I'll just use my old razer til verison decides to give customers what they deserve a phone that works that doesnt have all the problems of this storm.

This is the best phone VZW has come out with so far.  It is the first Blackberry phone that I have seen where non corporate types are buying.  That alone says something about the phone.  Navigation and some issues but that will be corrected by an upgrade shortly.  The bottom line is this is the best smartphone out.  Before the elite Apple people attack, the iPhone is not a smartphone.  It's a pretty phone with a lot of icons.

Its got everything!
Okay so no wifi? Who needs it?! use the fast 3g  internet on the largest network! Im sorry, but if you're anywhere with verizon, you pretty much have service, unless your in the middle of nowhere. in which case they wouldn't even have wifi there... the click screen (sure press) i was iffy on i must say. After a few days with it, i absolutely love it. great phone!

Unfortunately, my storm was a defect.  I need a decent camera camera for job site work on my phone, and had one with my Samsung flipshot.  But the standard keypad was too irritating to text with, so I upgraded to the Storm as it touts itself as an "all in one" device with a similar camera.  When I took sample images using the camera's best settings (3MP size, ultra-fine quality), they looked like digital mush.  No detail, blurry - very bad.  I'm attaching a sample image to the review, but a sample from my copy of the Storm can be found at:  http://www.pbase.com/powdersprings/image/106214069.jpg .  For the record, there are other comments on the web about people having problems with their Storm cameras as well - while others work fine, so there's apparently a sizeable defective batch out there but not all of them are bad.
Please - no "it's a phone, not a camera" comments.  People use phones of this level for *everything*, and it's being advertised by RIM and Verizion as a multimedia device with a 3MP autofocus camera.  No one expects a digital SLR quality camera on such a device - you do not however, expect pics that look like watercolor paintings.
I took it back to my local Verizon store (Hiram, GA) and unfortuantely, the employee I had to deal with was extremely rude about my bringing one back.  She refused to discuss the camera issue at all and thought I was making it up because I must have had second thoughts about my purchase - even though I brought printouts from the Storm's camera with me.  Long story short, due to her attitude I didn't sign up to wait for a replacement, or even switch to another model - I just got a refund and switched back to my old phone.  I'm either going to switch to the next generation of iPhone when it comes out, or wait maybe for the Samsung Omnia and see what people think about it.
I wasn't bothered by the click screen.  The slow O.S. was a bit irritating at times, but overall it wasn't a deal breaker.  My emails came in fine and call quality was ok on the listening part, but those I talked to said it sounded like I was in a tunnel.  I would have kept it had it not been for the defective camera, but again, I need this for a job site and it just didn't work out.  My advice:  Thoroughly check out ALL of your Storm's features before your return period expires.

So everyone is saying that this phone is no good and that it is slow. Well sure it may be slow now but they sayu that in a few months those GLITCHES will be fixed! But as for now i love this phone. The camera is excellent and i have never seen or felt such a great touch screen that of the storms. It is so much fun to use and works GREAT and will only get better with the upcoming software updates. Also the brower is very smooth and is way faster than the iphones. I am glad i switched from AT&T and went to VERIZON to get this phone because it is way better then my old iphone. Do yourself a favor and go get this phone ASAP haha! good job RIM and BLACKBERRY!!!!!!

with all my respect to a blackberry, this phone is nightmare. I was waiting for that phone for the last two mouths, and all I could say is just a lot of bad words. I wait online for 20 minutes to get a chance to BUY IT but as soon as I got this and press browser button, trying to type an address of nytimes.com, wow...: 1st that short keyboard is useless, when you rotate a phone it takes like 15 sec to see a keyboard in vertical position, it's okay, but, when you start typing, here is "PERFECT" part: if you made a mistake in typing, there is no lens, nothing that could HELP to go back and fix that typing error, second than you click on that screen for example on A, somehow it clicks on other letter, maybe its a calibration or something, but i tried couple times, third: zoom it's like zoom it when i touch the screen but no zoom, you have to use the actual button to do that, and it's SLOW, FORTH, the phone is freezing and you have to reboot it.
WELL I understand it will gonna take time to fix that software problem, but you know what: I DON'T WANNA WAIT. for apple it takes like an year to make the iphone perfect and still it's missing a lot feature, but her I don't like that whole screen click, it's just useless then you typing in two hands: you only have a chance to send a letter by ONE click. 
So, today I RETURN THAT NIGHTMARE AND switch to AT&T to that apple iphone 3G and really really happy with my decision.

 I was hoping that verizo would bring a phone out that would be close to the I Phone. That being said this is about the strom. The screen moves you can see edges of glass. It would be easy for dirt to get into. The phone is somewhat slow. I am having trouble typing even in landscape mode. Maybe it is me but I havent had these problems with other touch screens. Browser freezes up and phone has locked up sever times. Must say I was expecting more than this. Getting very disappointed in Verizon....Hope issues can be fixed but I dont see how.

I am going to be very hard on this phone. Mainly because I have the advantage of having both a VZW plan and an AT&T plan so I know how good this phone could have been.I guess if you looked at this phone with no preconceived notions of what it should be, you would find it to be an amazing device. If VZW was your only option and you wanted as close to an iPhone as possible it would be your best bet. But having experienced both the Blackberry Bold and the Apple iPhone as my personal phones, all I see if the weak spots of the Storm.If you want a Blackberry, this phone is way off the mark. Compared to the Bold it is slow, choppy, and the larger screen is really of little use except for web browsing. Also the plethora of glitches will drive you crazy. I was pulling my hair out after 4 hours. Do yourself a favor and get the amazing Bold.If you want a multimedia mega-device this phone is way off the mark too. The interface is not very intuitive, the rendering of web pages is not what it should be, the software is slow and jerky, and it is nowhere near as smooth and user friendly as it's main rival...the iPhone.The plain and simple of it is that this phone tried to do a little of everything and gave up proficiency at anything. It tries to please two different sets of consumers and ends up letting down both groups.The phone does have it's shiny points (listed in the pros) but then reality sets in (see cons).If you can't have an iPhone and want one get the Storm...but get the iPhone if you can. I would not recommend it otherwise. If you want the best Blackberry, get the Bold.

I've been using a work Blackberry for over a year, (AT&T 8800), and really wanted one of my own so I didn't have to mix personal contacts etc.  The Storm 9530 is extremely easy to transition to for experienced BlackBerry users, but I am not certain it's for everybody.  BlackBerry devices are very complex, and while easy to use once you get used to them, they aren't for everybody.  If you're looking for a capable, all-around phone/do-everything device, I'm convinced that BlackBerries are the way to go.
Having said all that, if you're a Berry enthusiast, you're going to like this device, even with the bugs (which every high-profile rollout has, just ask Apple, AT&T and RIM about the Bold and iPhone).
About the bugs...there aren't as many as I thought there could have been.  At first glance, I'd say there will be many observations about battery life, application launches and screen transitions.  Also, it's known that this is BB OS with a touch navigation features added, so the biggest bug I've seen so far is the screen sometimes doesn't respond to inputs on the first attempt.
In the first 36 hours I've had the phone, it locked up, I did a battery pull.
About everything else...the screen is vivid, beautiful.  On the whole, the basic RIM apps work flawlessly (BB Messenger, etc).  The other rich content features seem to work well enough, I've not tried to do anything with Flickr or Facebook apps yet. The browser is RIM's best yet I think.  However, I may download others to compare as they become available.  As for the touch/click, I love it, and I'm surprised that calibration isn't required to really jump into it.  Pretty good stuff.  The camera takes outstanding pictures, and the flash is way brighter than any I've seen on a mobile device.
Activation process was seamless, and I was in a hurry, so I did my own email activation later, no problems what-so-ever.
One personal gripe, VZW come on, how about a screen-cleaning sleeve or micro-fiber cleaner included.  I know you make money with the accessories, but that's a fairly essential item I think.
On the whole, in my experience, this is one impressive device.  Really impressive.  If you're new to complex BlackBerry devices and are fairly savvy with tech stuff, get into it, once you're proficient, it's second nature.  BB fans, I think you'll like it.  Those that need a nudge to get into new things, this may not be your ticket.

It was a long time coming but the Storm was worth the wait. I was using an 8830 and going from a push button phone to touch screen took a little getting used to but after a very few minutes I was able to navigate around and type as easily as I did with my 8830. Its obvious to me that the storm was well planned and thought out, it will appeal to the average consumer up to and including bussiness people. You can access V-Cast, and get it now until now unheard of in a blackberry available from Verizon. The clarity and color of the photos taken, and the videos either recorded or downloaded is incredible. The sound clear and can be set as loud as you like.You can personalize the device with a lot more detail and ease which is a nice. Going from portrait mode to landscape is a bit slow, booting up the phone is a bit slow which can be annoying, but nothing that cant be fixed with software upgrades.

I just bought this phone and its truely one of the best i've ever had. First of all, since when do you click a touchscreen? This genius idea works out in all ways.
I was surprised that PowerPoint was installed. I need that for many things. On other hand, all of the Blackberry OS needs to be improved, but the phone has great features.
If any of you are wondering, the Qwerty Keyboard works fine in land scape mode. this phone company, verizon, and blackberry (RIM) have made a genius phone.
Design is sleek, cool, and great battery life. Hey, 3.2 megapixel camera! nice! LOVE ITTTTTTTT
 

I've waited for this phone for months. Kept using my falling-apart 8703e, just so I would be eligible for an upgrade when the Storm came. After waiting in line in 20 degree tempatures and snow showers, the Verizon store opened. I went in, and immediatly bought one. After using it all day, I'm going to have to return it because there are so many things that make this phone a pain to use.
First off is the touchscreen. It sounded like an innovative idea. But the reality of having to press a touchscreen takes away the ease of use. I've used an iPhone, and an Instinct, and the touchscreens are easy to use. With the Storm, you have to press down, and it really slows down navigation. It's also annoying when typing, and it too is slowed down by the SurePress screen. The screen auto-rotation is also annoying. Even when the phone's locked, it will switch to landscape. Switching between portrait and landscape is slow, too.
The software. The Storm's OS is nothing but the 4.6 software modified to be used on a touchscreen phone. Opeing programs is slow. Scrolling is not smooth at all, like the iPhone. The icons are nice and big, which is something I liked about the phone. The software features are great. Hopefully, RIM will release an update that speeds up the software, because it's the slowest BlackBerry I've ever used.
Lack of WiFi. I've never been able to get Verizon service in my office, and I was really hoping the Storm would have WiFi. I bought it knowing it didn't, but I've lived without a WiFi enabled phone for 2 years and it wasn't a dealbreaker for me.
The reception with the Storm is so-so. At my house where I got 4-5 bars with my 8703e, even after 2 years of use and numerous drops. With the Storm, I never saw anything above 3 bars, with it usually at 2. The call quality also sounded washed out at times, but it's not a big deal to me.
I think Verizon and RIM had a grand opportunity to put a rock-solid device out on the market, and give Apple a formidible competitor. The Storm, overall, is a decent phone. But compared to the iPhone, the iPhone wins hands down. The iPhone OS was built to be run on a touchscreen phone, the Storm's OS is a modified BB 4.6 OS. RIM has a lot of work to do, and that includes creating a new OS from the ground up that is made for a touchscreen phone only.