It’s a BlackBerry battle royale! We’ve put RIM‘s three new push emailers, the touchscreen Storm, the old school Bold and the clamshell Flip on a desert island and told them only one is getting off alive. It’s a fight to the death – see which one is left standing inside.
BlackBerry Pearl 3G: Everything you need to know. Click here!
Screen size
The Flip and the Bold never stood a chance. The Storm is in another weight category entirely, clocking in at 3.2 inches. The Bold’s not bad (2.75) and the Flip’s fairly run of the mill (2.4 inch), but they’re never going to compete with a touchscreen phone. However, when it comes to BlackBerries, this one’s kind of missing the point.
Winner: BlackBerry Storm
Email wizardry
RIM is famous for powerful push email, combined with a quality keypad for speedy messaging. The Bold continues in the same vein as RIM’s previous models with a full QWERTY keyboard, so you won’t find anything faster, period. The Flip and Storm see RIM branching out, with not quite so much success: the Flip’s shared buttons slow speed down a tad, and while the Storm’s clickable screen makes it easier to type with than any other touchscreen phone, it’s still a long way behind the Bold.
Winner: BlackBerry Bold
Media mobile
BlackBerries aren’t quite as famous for their multimedia talents, but the Storm bucks that trend. Playing videos on its 3.2 inch touchscreen is a joy, and the extra resolution it comes packing at 480×360 certainly shows. That, plus a 3.5mm audio jack means this one wins hands down.
Winner: BlackBerry Storm
Net speed
Emails aside, internet surfing is a useful tool on any CrackBerry. The Storm should have the edge here: a big old touchscreen and HSDPA ought to satisfy anyone, but it also suffers from one crippling absence. Where’s the WiFi? The Bold is the only one with HSDPA and WiFi, letting you avoid those pesky data limits when you’re in a hotspot.
Winner: BlackBerry Bold
Storage space
No BlackBerries are packing anything that would make a Nokia N96 bat an eyelid. microSD slots are included as standard on all three but the Storm and the Bold also tote 1GB of storage onboard. Not great, but it’ll do.
Winner: Tie, BlackBerry Storm and BlackBerry Bold
Heavy handset
The Storm’s big screen unsurprisingly equals a big weight at 155g. The Bold’s a middleweight at 133g but if you want a midget mobile, the Flip is lighter than Cheryl Tweedy on a liquids only diet: just 106g. Not bad for a smartphone.
Winner: BlackBerry Pearl Flip
Super snapper
If you’re thinking of buying a new BlackBerry, you probably know already that cameras aren’t their speciality: if you need a good cameraphone, you need a Samsung Pixon. That said, the Storm does a substantially better job at taking snaps than the Flip or the Bold. A 3.2 megapixel sensor will at least let you distinguish who’s who in a picture, unlike the Flip and Bold’s 2.0 shooter, and the Storm’s touchscreen even acts as autofocus.
Winner: BlackBerry Storm
Network and tariffs
The Bold and the Flip aren’t being touted as internet mobiles, just email, so while their tariffs start from a relatively reasonable £35 a month for minutes, texts and emails, on Vodafone and O2 respectively, there’s no free chunks of download data. The Storm comes free from £40 a month with unlimited surfing on Vodafone, so unless speedy email is the most important feature for you, it’s the best bargain.
Winner: BlackBerry Storm
Overall winner: BlackBerry Storm
