BlackBerry Storm: Top 5 YouTube User Reviews
— -- Upon entering the smart-phone race, the BlackBerry Storm has met with a somewhat stormy reception.
PC World's own Yardena Arar was among the first reviewers to pan the Storm, in a controversial critique posted back on November 19. The New York Times's David Pogue subsequently questioned whether a BlackBerry without a real keyboard really qualifies as a BlackBerry. The Wall Street Journal's Walt Mossberg was lukewarm on the Storm, too, another blow to a device that was supposed to be Verizon's answer to tech's reigning sweetheart, the iPhone.
But those are the pro's opinions, and they are both enhanced and constrained by the need to maintain a certain level of professional decorum. An army of bloggers and amateur tech reviewers took on the Storm vs. iPhone debate with no such rules of engagement, and many of them used YouTube videos to get their message out.
Here are the five most popular, insightful, or otherwise interesting BlackBerry Storm appraisals of the lot--starting with number 5...
Kyle (aka jameskm03) loves the Storm's new touch screen and its camera ("The 3.2-megapixel camera is MONEY!"), but he hates that the phone doesn't support Wi-Fi. This guy knows his stuff on the Blackberry and its operating system, and his review of the new smart phone is pleasantly (and impressively) insightful and balanced. As he says (twice), "I'm not gonna lie to you..."
Here's the counterpoint to #5. Once this guy (college student and YouTuber "mdscinto") finally gets rolling into his rant (just FF to about 1:15 in the video, where he starts hitting his stride), he touches on many of the major criticisms of the Storm that are now making the rounds among tech critics and Apple fanboys/girls: uncomfortable typing motion, slow OS, no Wi-Fi, etc., etc. So here he is on the dorm-room cam, making art not war...
I've watched this video from "gotenkslovesme" about five times now--never mind that the video's oriented sideways for undisclosed reasons. Though this wee slip of a lass is no Walt Mossberg, I just can't get enough of her heavy Scottish brogue, especially when she says: "It's the first ever clickable touch screen..." Wow.
This is the most-watched BlackBerry Storm review on YouTube right now, with 271,301 views (at this writing). The reviewer, Jon Rettinger (aka jon4lakers), pits the Storm side-by-side on a table top against the 3G iPhone to make his comparison more vivid. The matchup includes a download speed test (cool) that Verizon's EvDO network wins handily.
This young guy, "themacfan45", caught a lot of flak in comments on YouTube responding to his review of the BlackBerry Storm. But PC World has his back. Good review, my bespectacled friend, and keep 'em coming. Someday you may grow up to be a highly paid hot-shot tech journalist like me and David Pogue. Just lay off the cough syrup, okay? It might help with your delivery.
Honorable Mention/Editor's Choice:
YouTuber "saifshaya" gives props to the Storm's high-resolution screen and camera, but he thinks that the Storm is still buggy and slow at software version 65. His grammatically well-informed friend yelling in the background seems to disagree, and a third critic limits her contribution to sporadic giggling.
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