A Review and Some Other Junk

Ang has reminded me that I haven't yet posted a blog about my beloved new toy. Yes...I finally got my Blackberry Storm. More on that in a minute.

First I want to say that I am just having such a hard time getting into the Christmas spirit. Joe and I drove all the way to Nashville to go shopping and we came home with only stuff for ourselves. Pretty sad. And I put up my tree last night, but it's buggin' me because it sits where my chair normally sits and I'm having a heck of a time getting used to this. (sigh)

OK...so on November 21, I did something I have never in my life done before. I got up early and went and stood in line for my Storm. I've never been one to stand in line for anything...concert tickets, video games, black Friday sales...nothing. If I couldn't get it when *I* wanted to get it, it wasn't worth it to me. Not this time. My clock woke me (yuck) at 6:30, I got up and washed my face and brushed my teeth, got dressed and off I went.

It was EXTREMELY cold out that morning too, and I HATE cold weather. I had commandeered one of Joe's warmest jackets. OK...so my torso was cozy...but my face, hands and feet were extremely cold. I got there around 7am, and the store was scheduled to open at 8. There were 7 people in front of me, one of whom spent the night outside the store in a tent. Apparently he's a hunter...and was prepared. He had little propane heaters with him and everything. He actually let us use them to warm our hands.

Some other folks got there after me. We started to notice at about 7:20 that the employees in the store were looking out at us (and probablly thinking/saying we were crazy). Finally at 7:30, they came and took our names and phone numbers in order and said they were going to put us all in the queue. We were free to sit in our cars at least. I took the opportunity to go next door to Sonic and get a large (nope...nothing that would actually WARM me) Diet Pepsi.

When I got back, they were letting us in the store and by 8:30, I was getting back into my car and heading home. At 8:45, I was unboxing.

My first impressions? Well....as with ANY new smartphone, it had a few bugs, but it's a nice looking phone. One of the first things I noticed was that the accelerometer needs an update. The screen didn't rotate like it was expected to. The next thing I noticed was that the ability to really customize the ringers and vibrations and such is not there. It SHOWS that it's there, but it doesn't work like I want it to work, and after reading some of the "tech" blogs, apparently I'm not the only one.

Typing on it has taken some getting used to. I'm no where near as fast on it as I was on my Pearl or Curve, but as with anything, it will come with practice. HOWEVER, I found yet another problem. When typing on it in landscape mode, I was having a hard time getting the "a" and "q" keys to press. After reading about it on the blogs, I found once again I wasn't the only one with this problem and that it's actually a HARDWARE issue. A couple phone calls later and I will be getting a new Storm any day now.

Knowing that I was having these few minor things to pop up, I haven't completely loaded up my phone with all my stuff yet, nor have I covered it with it's protective skin. I'll do that when I know I have a good working phone.

I did download a software update that's been released and it's taken care of alot of the reported problems, including the lag when turning the phone from landscape to portait and vice versa. The phone runs a lot smoother with the update, so I'm happy with that, and I'm looking forward to the next software update as well, hoping it might fix my ringer profile issue.

I did try the GPS in it this week. LOL...Thanksgiving morning I set it to take us to Joe's mom's house to see how accurate it was. It wanted me to go a different way than I wanted to go, and when I ignored it, she hollered at me quite a bit. I named her Dora...and Joe calls her Dum-Dum Dora because she was yelling at me. Tested Dora again when we went Christmas shopping to Nashville. I wanted to hit a mall I have never been to before, and I punched it up on Dora, set her to get me there and she did a great job...including getting me out of a HUGE traffic jam on interstate 440. The audible turn by turn directions will cost an additional 9.99 a month from Verizon...so I don't know if I will be keeping that. If I need it in the future, I can get it for one day at a time, or I can have them turn it on for a month when I know I need it. Without that service, I can get directions from where I am through google maps for free, but I would have to have a co-pilot to read the screen.

Overall I am extremely happy with my purchase. Blackberry did not let me down, but I really am looking forward to the updates they are going to push, as well as the launch of the app store so I can get really cool stuff for it.