Original Blackberry Storm By Verizon By xshellyx on Jan 18, 2010 - Updated Oct 15, 2011

I bought the Blackberry Storm from Verizon as soon as they came out in November 2008. I was so excited that Verizon finally had a phone that was similar to the iPhone, and was assured by the store rep that this phone was just as functional.

On the positive side, the screen is large and has great clarity and color. The downside is that it occasionally freezes up and requires the battery to be removed to fix it. Sometimes it is hard to get the letters/buttons along the outside edge of the screen to work as well as the others. The touch screen keyboard takes some getting used to.

The camera sounded very nice... even comes with a flash. There is quite a lag time between pushing the button and when the actual picture is taken, and I've had a hard time getting good quality photos. The video function does work pretty good though.

It has been well over a year and the selection of apps available is very minimal in comparison to the iPhone. More apps are available now though and the number is continuing to climb. There have been several updates that have made the phone work more smoothly, but the downside is that you need to take the time to do them yourself. I have had to go to the blackberry site several times and update my information/password because my email stops coming in on the phone.

The battery seems to last a long time. The only downfall in my opinion is that if the battery is completely empty, it takes several minutes of the phone on the charger before it builds up enough power to let you use the phone. Just because it's plugged it, doesn't mean that it is useable.

It's a good phone.... but not equal to it's competitor, the iPhone.