There’s a Storm on the horizon…

Engadget review team, you’re my heroes.  They got their hands on a new Blackberry Storm by Verizon for a full scale review.  And boy, did they goto town.  Hit the jump for the highlights of the review…

Engadget covered everything from the color scheme of the phone to the new clickable keyboard that is expected to be all the rage with kids and business professionals alike. They gave particular consideration to the “clickable” touchscreen, since that is the aspect of the phone that Blackberry is hyping to the nines in all of their advertisements. Engadget found that while interesting and useful, ultimately the onscreen keyboard is slow to react and ultimately not a huge upgrade.

The lack of third party software for the software is also a problem. Not to say that phone makers don’t provide users with the best applications for their products, but developers have proven that they can usually come up with new and interesting ways to use your mobile device that the manufacturers don’t always think of.

As a phone, the reviews are all positive – the Blackberry/Verizon combination appears to be ready to jump back to the head of the class when it comes to smartphones & convergence devices. The biggest omission was the lack of any Wi-Fi connectivity (something that won’t be a big deal as long as you’re inside Verizon’s coverage zone) and the fact that the 3.2 mega-pixel camera takes eons to load, focus and snap a photo.

The overall review from Engadget gave Blackberry the proper chiding for RIM’s shortcomings in the design and software, but also is quick to mention that with a handful of software updates and the next hardware revision, the Storm could be at the top of the ever-expanding cell phone heap.