Laptops would be so much easier for novices to use if they weren't developed to do so much!

As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, I have a Blackberry Storm, and I love it — this little device can do so many things that I’m finding myself using my laptop less and less for routine tasks like checking email or goofing off on Facebook, and finding myself anchoring my laptop to a desk more frequently.

Aside from those two devices, I have a PSP that I’ve loaded custom firmware onto, giving me a dedicated entertainment platform that can play so many games that I really have no need for the vast array of video game equipment I have. That means that between three pieces of hardware, I can have more functions than I know what to do with — and every week, I’m finding a new and novel use for one of them.

In the tech industry, one of the big buzzwords over the last ten years has been “convergence” — the idea that as technology evolves, there’s going to be less of a need for multiple devices and that more and more emphasis will be placed on using a single device for all of our technological needs. Right now, it appears that that device is going to be the cellular phone, though it’s possible that once long-distance wi-fi towers are a standard, VOIP will replace cellular technology entirely. In another decade, wireless networking will probably be everywhere, at a price that puts today’s rates to shame. And we’ll all be using a small portable device to take advantage of it instead of the bulky notebook computers we lug around today.

But there’s a downside to technology — the tendency to add new features to products that are already doing a pretty good job. It’s not enough to put out a nice product and leave it alone anymore — every new model has to include some improvement over the past model, even if it doesn’t make sense. We’re rapidly approaching a time when the cry of the consumer is not going to be for more, but for less. And it could happen sooner than you’d think…

Personal computers have always been a “one-size-fits-all” sort of device — they’re designed to be customizable so that users can install software, change settings, and make the computers do the sorts of tasks that they want them to do. Never mind that most people would never need to use a computer to, say, run CAD software, render 3D objects, or write code; if you have a PC, you can do all of those things if the need arises.

But there’s sort of a weird tradeoff for all that customizability — the operating system has to be powerful enough to handle all of those advanced tasks while still being user-friendly enough to catch all of the other folks who just use their computers to download music, read the news, play fantasy football, write a couple of documents here and there and goof around on Myspace.  Those people could actually use a much simpler machine to do those things, but they wind up getting a personal computer because that’s what’s available. They don’t know or care about things like hard drive capacity, available RAM or processor speed – they just care that when they turn it on, it does what they want it to do.

Think about all of the problems caused by these casual users for a moment. Most of them aren’t very careful about the software that they install or the websites they visit, so they’re very prone to viruses and phishing scams. Many of them don’t know how to solve simple problems, which has led to a rip-off industry of computer repair businesses that do little more than re-install Windows whenever they’re faced with a major problem. Casual users also clog up bandwidth by jumping on P2P clients like Kazaa or Limewire and allowing people to download all their music without even realizing what they’re doing.

So, why doesn’t a tech company develop a PC that’s not so much a swiss army knife as an actual, personal computer that’s geared at just doing simple things, like running a web browser, running MS Office and a few other essential programs, playing media files, and allowing for video chatting? Such a piece of technology could be locked down a lot easier than a normal PC to be protected against viruses and other malware, and it could be mass-produced and sold at such a low price that everyone would want one. Power needs would be less, which would mean batteries would last longer, and the computers would be so idiot-proof that they wouldn’t need adjustments to their software when things went wrong.

For whatever reason, this idea hasn’t caught on in the PC industry, since the perception is that PC users want to have a lot of features that they don’t really need. But this idea has caught on in the cell phone industry, and it’s the driving force behind the PDA smartphone, which is really just a personal computer with very limited functions.

But the gap is closing quickly. Take a look at the iPhone or the Blackberry Storm and you’ll see a lot of applications that already handle most of what the PC can do. Word processing? Check. Spreadsheets? Check. Powerpoint? Check. Media creation? Check. Media playback? Check. Web browsing? Check. Internet chatting? Check. Gaming? Check. Calendars? Check. E-mail? Check. And the list goes on. What’s more, you can extend the functionality of these devices further with third-party software and bluetooth accessories.

Now, imagine that one of the upcoming versions of these devices includes a set of glasses with LCD screens in them that allow you to experience their interface in a big way. They als0 come equipped with a small bluetooth keyboard that you can pull out whenever you want to do some serious typing, and a sensor you can put on your finger to move your cursor around. Most of the major software developers have created casual versions of their software for the device, and you can even use applications like Adobe Photoshop Elements or Premiere Elements quite easily. There’s no need for a virus scanner, since viruses can’t easily operate on these devices, and even if you get one, you can easily reinstall your firmware and reset everything without worry, because your settings and data are stored seperately from your operating system. What you lose in terms of applications you can easily download again. Would you even need a personal computer anymore?

That’s where things are headed, and personally, I think it’s a good thing. What’s going to be really interesting, though, is the fact that consumers are going to be less interested in new features and more interested in simply being able to use those that are already built in. After all, what good is a powerful piece of software if no one can figure out how to easily use it? The future of software development and hardware design lie not in adding features, but in making the features that already exist easier to use.

It will be a sad day when we have to set aside our many portable devices to embrace those which are smaller, simpler, and easier to use, and the PC as we know it will probably continue to exist in the workplace and in fields where it is needed (like graphic design, engineering, and computer science).  But on the other hand, it will be interesting to see technology reach a point where it is so ubiquitous that everyone has access to it, all of the time. The future may seem a strange and frightening place to those of us who were raised on computers with two-color monitors, floppy disks and 640k of RAM… but the technology should at least be a lot less focused on features… and more focused on being useful.

I don't think I'd want a tiger staring back at me on MY Blackberry...

I don’t get excited about gadgets too often these days – they come out far too frequently, and they’re often too expensive to be worth my while. But as I began to experience some frustration with my Palm Treo 650 smartphone, I also found myself growing enamored with the Blackberry Storm – a Blackberry device with a touchscreen. And somehow, that excitement translated into my standing in line to get one on the day it came out.

I got my Treo 650 four years ago when I decided I needed an e-mail-capable phone. At the time, I wasn’t too impressed with the Blackberry devices – they had just recently started coming with color screens, and they seemed light years behind some of the other phones on the market in terms of features. The Palm Treo, on the other hand, was easy to customize and to modify, and it could function as an all-in-one media player to boot. I could even turn it into a cellular modem for my laptop with little fuss. That seemed like a good enough reason to me to make it my smartphone of choice.

But the Treo and I developed something of a love/hate relationship as the years went by, mostly due to an inconvenient glitch in the design of the headphone jack, which broke very easily and forced me to always use a headset in order to use the phone. I also hated the Treo’s web browser and its default email clients. I was getting annoyed with the stylus pen, too, since it was constantly slipping out of the phone and nearly getting lost for good.

So, I was ready for a change. There were lots of new smartphones on the market, but there was an obstacle in the way….

My mother-in-law works for Verizon, and one of the unspoken conditions of marrying into the family was to switch to Verizon Wireless exclusively. In a way, this was good – Verizon has always had wonderful service, and I’d never had a problem with them. But in a way, this was bad – Verizon didn’t have a lot of cool smartphones available, and the most highly hyped smartphone out there, the Apple iPhone, required a switch to AT&T. My best option was to get a Blackberry, but I still didn’t like the device’s interface or its scroll wheel.

That’s why I got excited when the Blackberry Storm was announced – it looked like everything I could want in a smartphone, and it was something I could get through Verizon. What’s more, the phone was priced at much less than I’d spent on my Treo, and it had a cheaper data plan available as well. It was exactly what I wanted in a phone. The only qualm I had was that I hadn’t had a chance to play with one yet (since I got it on release day), but Verizon reps assured me that I’d have a two-week “worry free guarantee” to ensure I was happy with the phone.

The reason I offer all this background information is because I want to make it clear that I’m not a tech guru, nor am I a gadget junkie. Almost every review I’ve read for the Blackberry Storm is written by someone who’s comparing the phone to other recent devices like the iPhone. I don’t have that luxury, because I just don’t go through phones that quickly. I’m also, like many folks, locked into my carrier and unable to switch easily. I’m just a normal guy who uses his phone mostly for phone calls, but who would welcome using it for more functions if it’s easy to do so.

So let me offer you a look at the Blackberry Storm from the eyes of a consumer, and not some guy who’s writing a tech blog.

My review

The phone is slightly larger than a deck of cards.

I had three objectives in getting a Blackberry Storm:
1)    I wanted a device that could help me cut down the time I was spending on my laptop doing routine things like checking email and reading the news.
2)    I wanted a device that could allow me to leave the laptop at home or in the office and not feel like I was missing a part of myself.
3)    I wanted a device that could allow me to enjoy media files with minimal fuss and that would not require me to buy a bunch of software to use the files I already had.

The Blackberry Storm was able to meet all three of these goals quite capably. In fact, I’m using it in ways I hadn’t anticipated because it’s so ridiculously versatile.

First of all, this is a beautiful device with a bright, big screen. A lot of people squint when they use their cell phones for texting; they’d never have to do that with a Storm. Since there’s no keypad or keyboard to get in the way, the screen is the size of most of the device, and it looks lovely.

I’ve always hated trying to type with my thumbs on a PDA, and whenever I’ve used an iPhone, I’ve hated the experience of trying to type on a hard surface. The Blackberry Storm has a screen that actually clicks in to the device when you push on it, and it’s very easy to type on with your thumbs. I’d much rather use it for sending text messages or email than any phone I’ve ever used – once you get used to the keyboard, you can type messages pretty rapidly. As a casual user who’s likely to use the device for these purposes, I think it’s awesome.

The web-browsing experience is decent; it’s much more fun to use the web on my Storm than it has been on any other cell phone I’ve ever used. I don’t really know how it stacks up against the iPhone, and to be honest, I don’t really care; as long as I can use the web quickly and easily, I’m happy. It took me awhile to get used to the way you have to browse the web with the Storm, since it has several different ways of displaying web pages and controls that aren’t always self-explanatory. But once I figured everything out, I was happy. The browser doesn’t seem to support Flash, but it does support Javascript and Java, which means that most sites work well. Youtube videos are also supported, but only if you’re viewing them through the actual Youtube site and not embedded in a webpage.

You can view any webpage with the Storm, but let’s be honest – the mobile sites are still the best option if they’re available because they load faster. Overall loading times aren’t too bad for a mobile phone (they’re considerably better than they were on my Treo), and if you set your bookmarks up ahead of time, you can browse the web pretty capably.

E-mail is another big feature of the Blackberry phones, and it works well here. I’ve got all my e-mail accounts routed through my Gmail account; this not only helps kill all my spam, but it also allows me to link my Blackberry to a single e-mail account and easily keep up on my mail. The only downside is that my Blackberry seems to pick up messages that I send through Gmail as well and put them in my inbox. I’m sure there’s a way to fix that, but it’s sort of nice, because I can open up documents I’ve sent to other people on the Blackberry and edit them if need be. I had to do this once already when I sent out a document that had an error in it and needed to make a quick correction – I didn’t even have to touch my laptop!

The Blackberry Storm can play media files, including most video files (though they do have to be converted first with the included Roxio software). I really wish the music portion of the software would let you create playlists by directory instead of trying to limit you to the information contained in the tags (artist, genre, album, etc.), but this is a complaint I’ve had about most portable music players and music software, so I clearly just need to organize my music to fit this paradigm. Since the Blackberry Storm does support stereo headphones without requiring adapters or expensive specialty headsets, it’s easy to use as an all-in-one media player. It also comes with an 8GB micro memory stick (though you can expand up to 16GB if you really want to), which means it’s got as much space as most of the mid-range digital music players out there, and it really doesn’t cost that much more.

Another feature in this device is its 3.2 megapixel camera, which can take stills or shoot video. It also has a flash. Accessing the camera is easy; there’s a button on the side for it. There’s a bit of wind-up involved in actually taking a picture, but you can mess with the options to cut that down somewhat. The pictures are pretty nice for a camera on a cell phone, and they’re easy to send to others through MMS or email. You can also install Facebook and Flickr on the phone if you want to quickly upload pictures online.  The video isn’t great, and I’d say it’s on par with a web cam in terms of quality. It really seems to have trouble in dark places, even if the flash is turned on. Still, it’s nice to have the option.

If I do have a gripe about the phone, it’s with the battery; this is a phone you have to charge every day or you’ll quickly run out of juice. You can get a spare battery, but let’s be realistic here – unless you’re a business traveler, you’re not going to carry around a spare battery for your cell phone. Fortunately, the phone comes with a wall charger with an adapter for pretty much every country in the world, and it also comes with a USB charging cable (which doubles as a data transfer cable).

There are lots of other things on the phone I’ll probably never use. Visual voicemail? Not if I have to pay $2.99 a month. Verizon Navigation? It also costs money, and I can use Google Maps (or the Blackberry Maps application) for free. VCast or Rhapsody music store? Both are a waste of money in my opinion, especially since I can use Youtube if I need some mobile media to entertain me. IM/Chat? I’m more likely to text than to chat these days, but it’s nice to have the option to get on AIM, Yahoo!, Google Talk or other chat services. Games? I rarely play games on my phone, because I have a PSP and a Nintendo DS for that. I have to be really bored to load up something as basic as Brickbreaker.

The tough questions

But enough about the specs. Let’s talk about practical use. First of all, it’s important to ask – is this a good phone? I’d say that yes, it is, for the most part. I still have trouble answering the phone sometimes since the software can be a little slow to pause media files and bring up the phone screen, but it’s never prevented me from getting a call. I also like that I can have a standard headset plugged in and still use the phone’s normal mic. My Treo couldn’t handle that, and I’d wind up having to unplug the headset just to answer the phone.

Is it a replacement for my laptop? No, but actually, there’s a pretty compelling case for me to leave the laptop at home a lot more often now. The Blackberry Storm can do a lot of basic things very well, and with a Bluetooth keyboard, I could probably even use it for writing (since it comes with software that allows you to edit Word documents). I can also use it to view and edit Excel and Powerpoint files. So, yeah – I could see myself eschewing the laptop in some situations. It’s really nice when I’m riding the MetroLink into work, or when I get up in the morning and need to check my Outlook calendar, email or Facebook account before I hop in the shower.

Can it handle my media files? Yeah… I’m still a little annoyed that the software is essentially forcing me to retag my older MP3 files so I can actually organize them on the device, but that’s not a deal breaker. I’d have to do the same thing to be able to capably use my wife’s Zune.  Instead, I’ve just been uploading podcasts and video so I have something to listen to when I’m commuting or walking the dogs, and that works just as well. I’ve also discovered that I can create playlists in Winamp on my own instead of using the crummy Roxio software that Blackberry Desktop defaults to.

Is the camera any good? It’s OK, but it takes pretty drab pictures. I can’t figure out how to get the flash to work consistently, and the windup’s a little slow (around 3 seconds, which makes it hard to get action shots). But since it’s just a cell phone camera, I’m not too worried about it. It is nice that I can take pictures and immediately upload them to Facebook or Flickr, but the quality of the uploaded pics is not as nice as it would be if I copied them off the memory stick and uploaded them through the computer. Apparently, the phone is using some strange compression software for mobile uploads.

Is it good for business functions? Yeah. It’s a Blackberry, so business use is its primary purpose. The Documents To Go software works very well (much better than it did on my Treo!), and I can easily read documents, spreadsheets and Powerpoint slides on it. I also like how easy it is for me to jump on Gmail, grab an attachment, and view it. The Storm interacts with Outlook the same way you’d expect any Blackberry to, and it doesn’t annoy me the way my Treo did with constant task reminders.

Is the touchscreen as bad as people say? A lot of people are complaining about the touchscreen online, but honestly, it’s a pretty intuitive system. You move your thumb over what you want to press and you push the screen in, like a button. The keyboards work very well, and web browsing isn’t too bad. I do wish there was a button onscreen you could use to make the keyboard disappear if you don’t want it in your way. I also wish that the device could pick up finger presses as well as it picks up thumbs. But these are things software updates will fix down the road, I’m sure.

Would I recommend it over an iPhone? I would, but I’m not a big fan of Apple products. Don’t get me wrong – they’re designed well and they work, but they’re also designed to be used one way. Both the iPod and the iPhone are intended to be used with iTunes. That’s fine, but I hate iTunes. It’s a clunky program, and I don’t like buying digital music. I just want to listen to the music I already have. Apple products aren’t very good at allowing me to easily do that. They’re also not designed to allow me to run third-party applications or videos that don’t originally come from Apple. And, despite the current marketing blitz trying to tell me I should be using an iPhone as a video gaming platform, I also have no interest in using a smartphone for gaming. Add that to the fact that I’d have to use AT&T Mobile’s crummy service, and I’ve got zero interest in owning an iPhone.

The Blackberry Storm, on the other hand, meets my needs perfectly. It’s a nice phone, it looks cool, and it’s easy to use. I can use it on Verizon’s network with no problems, and it’s able to be used around the world fairly easily. Even my wife, who got very frustrated doing basic things on my Treo, can use the Storm with little trouble. That speaks volumes about how user-friendly it is. I do hope that Research in Motion upgrades the Storm’s firmware regularly (since there are still some glitches that need to be worked out), but overall, the phone’s great.

Too many reviewers have been saying things like “this phone is not an iPhone killer.” But isn’t that obvious? Research in Motion never claimed it would be; the press came up with the moniker. Most of the people who are buying the Blackberry Storm are going to buy it because they’re locked into Verizon and they want a cool phone – not because they’re weighing the alternative of owning an iPhone. Let’s face it – if they want an iPhone, they’ll get one. Many people are buying iPhones just for the status of having one. Apple products are trendy that way.

Who should buy one of these things?

I’d say that anyone who wants a PDA smartphone through Verizon should check this phone out. It’s very well-designed, and it’s a lot of fun to use. I absolutely love mine, and I’ve been showing it to anyone who will look at it. I’m also thrilled that it’s allowing me to break away from my laptop somewhat.

I also have to commend Verizon on the pricing. $199 (with a two year contract and a $50 rebate) is an awesome price point. The Blackberry Storm is actually cheaper than a lot of the phones Verizon is selling, and it can do a lot more. I don’t know many people who need Blackberries, but I do know a lot of folks who’d like phones that let them check the weather and pull up local maps. The Storm can do that better than any phone Verizon’s offering.

I’ll make a case, too, for the Storm towards those who are considering getting a digital music player. Truth be told, in 5 years, digital music players like the iPod and the Zune are going to be as necessary as a portable CD player is today. Every cell phone will be able to hold more music than most people will ever own. As it stands, the Blackberry Storm costs only slightly more than an 8GB iPod Nano, and it can do a lot more. Why have two devices when you can do everything with one just as capably?

The final word

I rarely get excited over gadgets, but I think the Blackberry Storm is one of those rare devices that lives up to a lot of the hype. Granted, it’s not perfect, and many of the reviews of it have been downright disappointing. But like I said – I’m not a tech reviewer who plays with a lot of gadgets. I’m just a consumer who only buys these things occasionally – and this phone does everything I’d hoped it would, and then some. I’d recommend it to almost anyone, provided that they are willing to pay the extra $30 per month for data service… if they’re not doing so already.