BlackBerry Storms the touchscreen market

On Tuesday night, RIM officially introduced the first touchscreen BlackBerry to the world: the RIM BlackBerry Storm.

Also known by its code name, BlackBerry Thunder, the Storm features a touch-sensitive display that's unlike that on any other touchscreen smart phone available today, thanks to RIM's own twist. There are plenty of other highlights as well, including dual-mode functionality; integrated GPS; and BlackBerry OS 4.7.

The device will be available through on Vodafone in the UK and Verizon Wireless in the US.

The touchscreen is unlike any other touchscreen smart phone on the market, including the Apple iPhone, T-Mobile G1, and Samsung Omnia.

RIM has developed something new called ClickThrough, which consists of a suspension system that lies beneath the display, so that when you go to select an application or enter text, you actually push the screen down like you would any other tactile button.

In terms of text entry, the BlackBerry Storm features a SureType keyboard when the smart phone is in portrait mode and then switches to a full Qwerty keyboard in landscape mode. The Storm has a built-in accelerometer so it will automatically rotate the screen depending on if the phone is held vertically or horizontally.

The Storm features a 3.25-inch diagonal display with a 480x360 pixel resolution and support for 65,000 colours. It measures 4.4-inches tall by 2.4-inches wide by half an inch deep. It's equipped with a 3.5mm headphone jack, has four shortcut keys (Talk and End, Back, and BlackBerry menu), and a microSD slot behind the back cover.

As far as phone features, the Storm, like the RIM BlackBerry 8830 World Edition, offers dual-mode functionality. This means the phone switches automatically between CDMA and GSM networks to offer seamless international roaming - all while keeping the same phone number. It also works on Europe's 2100MHz UMTS/HSDPA band as well as Verizon's EV-DO rev A network, plus there's a full HTML web browser.

Other wireless options include Bluetooth 2.0 with support for stereo Bluetooth headsets and dial-up networking and GPS but no wi-fi.

The BlackBerry Storm will run the latest BlackBerry OS (version 4.7), so you finally get an updated interface while still getting support for multiple email accounts with wireless synchronisation. In addition to an attachment viewer, you can also do some light editing on Microsoft Word and PowerPoint files. There's 128MB of flash memory and 1GB of onboard memory, which is all supplemented by the microSD/SDHC expansion slot.

Though the BlackBerry is historically known more as a business device, RIM and its carrier partners hope to attract more consumers with the BlackBerry Storm and it comes with a number of multimedia capabilities. The media player can handle various music and video formats and the included Media Sync software will also help you synchronise your iTunes files with your BlackBerry. The Storm is equipped with a 3.2-megapixel camera with video recording, auto focus and flash.

Finally, it will come preloaded with instant-messaging clients (Yahoo!, Windows Live, AOL and ICQ) and a number of social-networking apps, including Facebook, MySpace and Flickr. You'll also be able to download more programs over the air through the new BlackBerry App Center.

Original article: Verizon officially debuts RIM BlackBerry Storm from CNET News.com