The second generation of RIM’s all-touch smart phone, the Blackberry Storm 2, will be available before Christmas through Vodafone Ireland, and if it has the same release date as Vodafone UK we could be getting it before October is out.
The Storm 2 smart phone will also be available in six other European countries, as well as South Africa, within a similar timeframe.
The difference between the Storm 2 and its predecessor, on the surface, is not a high amount, but is sure to be a great improvement.
Most importantly, the Storm now has Wi-Fi (inexplicably it wasn’t thought necessary to include it in the first iteration), but the annoying physical click it made every time you used the touchscreen is now gone, as is the tiny virtual keyboard in vertical mode: it now had a full QWERTY version.
One measure for how the Storm 2 compares with the original is how Walt Mossberg is finding it. According to his post on Allthingsd.com, though it tests well enough “the browser is still inferior to Apple’s, Google’s and Palm’s. And the traditional BlackBerry interface cries out for a major overhaul in a touch device like this, especially when you add a lot of apps.”
The Storm 2, it seems, is heading for the market just in time to jostle with all the other smart phones out there: the Palm Pre is hitting shelves tomorrow (16 October) via O2 and the iPhone 3GS is spreading its wings as it soon arrives through Vodafone.
All we’re left waiting for now is an Android phone, but if an administrator on the Meteor online message board is to be believed, we will be seeing an Android handset through this mobile network before the year is out.
By Marie Boran, via Gadgetrepublic.com
Photo: The Blackberry Storm 2.