Two topics in today’s BlackBerry Storm post.  First, Verizon should be paying me commission since I have convinced three individual Storm sales this week alone. Second, I have some more features that I’m loving about the Storm which had not mentioned in earlier posts.

This past weekend, I inadvertently convinced my 18 year old brother to get a Storm.  He is due for the Verizon “New Every Two” upgrade, and the Samsung Glyde was in his scopes.  While he and I were out Christmas shopping, I let him check out my Storm (and of course, I kept talking about it’s features).  After telling him the data plan on the Glyde would be higher, he’d get less included memory, and not a “real” smartphone OS, he walked over to the Verizon store at the Natick Collection and ordered a Storm.  I didn’t intend to sell him on it, in fact I tried to talk him out of a smartphone all together…c’mon he’s only 18.  Does he really need to get obsessed like us, at that age?

The second sale came from one of America’s finest.  As I was leaving the gym yesterday, listening to music on my Motorola S9′s and Storm, a young Air Force captain (dressed in his camo) stopped me and asked if I was using a Storm.  He told me he was on his second Motorola Q (had the original, now rocking the Q9c) and looking to break contract if the Storm was good.  I let him play with my Storm for about five minutes, and we talked about the good and bad.  Good: 9GB of memory & good media player (i.e. no need for an iPod any more), good phone, excellent Bluetooth.  Bad: You will miss the QWERTY keys, no Wifi (you won’t miss that since it’s not on the Q).  He said, he’s going to order one and give it a 30-day try.

The third sale was my employer buying me one.  Yup, I will soon be in possession of not one, but TWO Storms!  My employer will not let personal units connect up to the corporate BES, that’s BlackBerry Enterprise Server for you new guys (me included).  So, they are waiting on three demo units to arrive from Verizon for testing.  Once testing is complete and (hopefully) approved, they will order me a “corporate” Storm.  At that point, I have lovingly offered to sign my personal Storm over to my dear wife.
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Now, on to some more features that I love about the Storm.

• Voice Dialing via Bluetooth. This is something the Palm OS could never figure out.  Some 3rd party apps did ok, but never perfected.  On the Storm voice dialing via Bluetooth is awesome.
  • To you iPhone and Windows Mobile guys, how does Bluetooth voice dialing work for you?  (That’s an honest question, not a dig).
• 3.2 Megapixel camera/video with Flash.  I’ve never had a flash on my mobile phone before, and the flash on the Storm is bright and awesome.  I set it up to ‘always on’ for video, which allows for nighttime video (and photo) shoots. Plus is doubles as an excellent emergency flashlight.
  • I know the iPhone lacks a flash, and has a lower quality camera.  What about the AT&T Tilt?  I’m thinking the Storm wins here too.
• Visual Voice Mail.  So, I sucked it up and tried the $3 a month Verizon Visual Voice Mail feature.  Basically, all your voicemails get downloaded to your phone (like MP3s) and you can play them without dialing into your voicemail.  It allows quick on-screen rewind and fast forward, as well as caller ID, and callback.  It’s quite cool, but not sure it’s worth $36 a year. I like it, but will probably cancel it in a month.
• Standard Headset Jack. I have been stuck with 4 years of Treo’s and their non-standard headset jack, which forced me to buy proprietary headsets or adaptors if I ever wanted to connect.  It was such a pain.  The Storm has a standard 3.5mm jack, and all headsets, cassette adaptors, etc just work and well.