HoodaThunk?

The company phone I’m issued is a PDA phone allowing us to have access to our full company directory, our e-mail (in real time), and to access parts of our company’s intranet. Oh, yes – it also actually makes phone calls. The IT department eased carefully into providing this capability, at first supporting exactly 1 model of phone. When it became obvious that the only people impressed with their choice of the model was the IT staff, they ran a project to identify a number of new models and that’s the series of devices available now. When I blog on-the-go (HoodaThunk? Mobile™), I’m using my company-issued Motorola Q to get the job done. It’s way better than the 1st project’s device, to say the least, but it’s sure not as good as what we’d like. The largest problem is the company’s use of GoodLink, a software suite that allows connections from PDA’s to company e-mail assets in a secure and supposedly consistent fashion.

It’s a resource hog. It locks up the PDA. It slows it waaaaaaay down.

For some time we’ve been poking IT to start offering the capability to use Blackberry devices with the company resources. Well, just in time for Thanksgiving, they just announced that they’re going to do so. The Blackberry devices they’re going to support include the Pearl, the Curve, (another one I can’t recall just now), and – get this – the new Blackberry Storm on Verizon.

Well, based on this review, I’m not sure I’m going to go with the cutting edge:

Well, there’s a new one, just out ($200 after rebate, with two-year Verizon contract), officially called the BlackBerry Storm.

But I’ve got a better name for it: the BlackBerry Dud.

And so begins a litany of complaints about the device. Some are just whining, that’s clear. But many are not, specifically the complaints about the performance:

To scroll a list, you’re supposed to flick your finger across the screen, just as on the iPhone. But even this simple act is head-bangingly frustrating; the phone takes far too long to figure out that you’re swiping and not just tapping. It inevitably highlights some random list item when you began to swipe, and then there’s a disorienting delay before the scrolling begins.

There’s no momentum to the scrolling, either, as on the iPhone or a Google phone; you can’t flick faster to scroll farther. Scrolling through a long list of phone numbers or messages, therefore, is exhausting.

Nor is that the Storm’s only delayed reaction. It can take two full seconds for the screen image to change when you turn it 90 degrees, three seconds for a program to appear, five seconds for a button-tap to register. (Remember: To convert seconds into BlackBerry time, multiply by seven.)

A PDA that performs worse than the one I’ve already got is something I don’t need, that’s for certain. Until I start seeing other information out here – aside from RIM advertising material – that says differently I think I’ll be going with one of the more mature Blackberry devices instead.