This is a detailed comparision of the Blackberry Storm 9500 vs Apple iPhone 3G . The iPhone 3G has been a best seller and the Blackberry Storm 9500 is touted to be its toughest competitor yet. I will try to list all their features and compare them.
Let’s have a look at their features:
Blackberry Storm 9500
- Dimensions: 112.5 x 62.2 x 14 mm
- Weight: 155 gms
- Display: Touchscreen, 65K colors, 360 x 480 pixels, 3.25 inches
- Memory: 1 GB internal memory + upto 8 GB MicroSD
- Connectivity: GPRS, EDGE, 3G
- OS: Blackberry OS
- Camera: 3.15 MP, 2048×1536 pixels
- GPS: GPS with A-GPS, Blackberry Maps
- Applications: Blackberry Application Centre
Apple iPhone 3G
- Dimensions: 115.5 x 62.1 x 12.3 mm
- Weight: 133 gms
- Display: Touchscreen, 16M colors, 320 x 480 pixels, 3.5 inches
- Memory: 8 / 16 GB shared memory
- Connectivity: GPRS, EDGE, 3G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth v2.0
- OS: OS X software v2.2
- Camera: 2 MP, 1600×1200 pixels
- GPS: GPS with A-GPS, Google Maps
- Applications: Apple iPhone Appstore
Detailed Comparision:
Design, Dimensions and Weight:
Both the Blackberry Storm and the iPhone have similar dimensions as you can see in the table above. While the Storm is wider, the iPhone is a bit longer. The iPhone 3G weighs about 133 gms while the Storm is bulkier at 155 gms. However 20 gms isn’t much of an increase, anyone can live with that.
The iPhone has won kudos around the world for its excellent design and build quality, but the Blackberry Storm is no cheapskate either. One look at the phone and you know that the designers at RIM must have invested a lot of time on it. The design is very similar to the iPhone with a large touchscreen display dominating the body, but with four keys below the display – Call, Menu, Back and End as compared to the iPhone’s super minimalistic one – Home key. The Storm mostly made of brushed aluminium and plastic, has superb build quality and looks very durable.
Display and Interface:
The Blackberry Storm sports a 3.25 inch, 65K color TFT touchscreen display with a wide resolution 360 x 480 pixels, compared to the bigger 3.5 inch, 16M color touchscreen display with a standard resolution of 320 x 480 pixels on the iPhone. The iPhone has a tried and tested, excellent display which is ideal for movie watching. The Storm’s display is bright with nice contrast and almost matches up with the iPhone. It is wider and has nice pixel density due to the wider resolution.
The interface was the main highlight of the iPhone – its fabulous touchscreen with the revolutionary Multi Touch interface. The Blackberry Storm isn’t very bad at it either, it comes with a ‘clickable’ touchscreen using a new tech called SurePress. It allows you to actually click stuff using the touchscreen and provides feedback, it tries to emulate a mouse and does well at that.
OS:
The iPhone is powered by OS X v2.2 while the Storm is powered by the Blackberry OS v4.7. The newer 4.7 version offers a lot of improvements over the older versions and the interface is a lot similar to the iPhone’s. The interface is not as refined as the iPhone’s – it doesn’t feel suited for touchscreen control. The iPhone’s interface is much easier to navigate through. The virtual QWERTY keyboard on the Storm is nice but the click feedback doesn’t help much when typing. The predictive capabilities aren’t as good as the iPhone’s too and it takes relatively more time to type using the Storm’s keyboard, but atleast you can copy paste text using the Storm. Most of the problems should be sorted with an update. The interface of the Storm is also a bit sluggish compared to the iPhone though more functional.
The Storm sports a nice new browser which has improved greatly over previous iterations and now loads pages faster, but the iPhone’s Safari is still ahead. Email is the best, as expected of all RIM products. Corporate email is RIM’s forte and the Storm doesn’t let us down on that part.
Camera and Multimedia:
The Storm sports a 3.2 MP camera which is much better than iPhone’s 2 MP. Heh, It can also record video. It also has a nice Music Player interface and nice sound quality but the iPhone obviously wins in this aspect. The video playback is also pretty nice and supports more formats natively than the iPhone but the display quality while nice, is not as good as the iPhone.
Talking of storage, the iPhone 3G comes in 8 / 16 GB versions while the The Storm has a meagre 1 GB internal memory and supports upto 8 GB external memory through MicroSD.
Software:
The iPhone has a huge collection of excellent software, thanks to the Appstore. The Storm also supports and comes with an application manager but 3rd party software for the Storm is rare to find yet. RIM has announced a Appstore like Application Centre for the Storm soon and applications and games for the Storm should be flowing in. You can view and edit your Word, Excel and Powerpoint documents on the Storm whereas you can just view them as email attachments on the iPhone. You can also send files using Bluetooth on the Storm.
Both the iPhone and the Storm comes with EDGE and 3G and GPS with A-GPS functionality but the Storm surprisingly misses out on Wi-Fi. Both of them have superb call reception and nice battery life.
Finally…
The Storm is an excellent smartphone with nice features but doesn’t actually outperform the iPhone in most aspects. It has its list of shortcomings but does offer a promising alternative to the iPhone and the G1. It will definitely appeal to RIM’s large user base who want an upgrade, but I doubt it will be able to entice any iPhone users.
November 23rd, 2008 at 1:37 am
This review is extremely biased and was obviously done by a Crapple Lover.
November 23rd, 2008 at 7:05 am
Any chance you could discuss the differences in the phone functions?
November 23rd, 2008 at 9:40 am
Excellent review. This helped me make my decision to go with iPhone.
November 23rd, 2008 at 1:41 pm
John, you’re an idiot. You took this review to determine whether you were going to get the iphone or storm? wow. The storm can take up to 16gb NOT 8gb. Biased review.
November 23rd, 2008 at 1:51 pm
John, most of the problems with the Storm can easily be sorted out with a software update. It has more features than the iPhone and also will possibly have better apps. We will know that after the Storm App Center launch. You should wait for some time and read more detailed reviews before you make your decision.
November 23rd, 2008 at 10:11 pm
No WiFi..??? How is that even competitive w/iPhone?
November 23rd, 2008 at 11:52 pm
Well, yea that’s a major shortcoming.
December 7th, 2008 at 8:45 am
Am I the only poor(financially) one left? Why does everyone talk only about these phones and never talk about the terrible cost for service? How can people spend $80 or more a month for service? Over a forced two year contract, this could cost in the neighborhood of $2400. I love this iPhone which is, of course, a minicomputer with a phone but does the cost make it a logical choice? In Europe, the service gives sooo much more for less cost.
December 29th, 2008 at 11:04 am
I have an iPod touch and had a BB. recently “upgraded” to a Storm, and am very disappointed. No Wi-FI is a kick in the shins. How could they forgo this feature? Why? Compared to the iPod, the Storm is so poly designed. A classic example is when you call voicemail and have to click to make the number pad appear. There are so many user interface design features that miss the mark with the Storm. They had so much time to borrow the functionality from the iPhone, why didn’t they?
December 29th, 2008 at 9:37 pm
^ Try the new Nokia 5800.
August 1st, 2009 at 8:18 pm
Down with fascism! Down with Apple!
October 11th, 2009 at 12:12 am
One thing I think everyone has failed to mention is that the storm is a first gen phone. Of course blackberry is working out the bugs. Also I’ve used both and I have found that it is easier to type on the storms virtual keyboard than the phone.
November 13th, 2009 at 10:56 am
I like the blackberry most, i know there are many iphone lovers out there but the iphone does not fulfill my needs as a professional i have also found another comparison you can check
http://www.doanalyze.com/best-difference-comparison-between-apple-iphone-3gs-blackberry-storm-9500/
December 6th, 2009 at 9:35 am
My wife has the iphone and I have the storm. At first it was in need of software update, after that it has been great. Both phones have their differences and I would say its a case of horses for courses.
The storm gives me upto 10 email accounts (push) and has been faultless. My wifes iphone gives more of a media look and feel, the storm more of a profestionals tool..
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June 14th, 2010 at 2:12 am
I’m looking to get the iPad. Does anyone have any recommendations on which memory would best suit me if I wanted to watch a few movies?
June 14th, 2010 at 11:28 pm
I’m looking to get the iPad. Does anyone have any recommendations on which memory would best suit me if I wanted to watch a few movies?
July 25th, 2010 at 4:12 pm
fuck u all
October 6th, 2010 at 5:51 am
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October 13th, 2010 at 6:18 pm
The big screen, a sleek look, an elegant curve, and a compact form enhance the feel and functionality of iPhones. These cool features supplement its contact technology very well.
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November 14th, 2011 at 5:07 pm
Iam having an bb storm 9500..but after this review i would go with iphone 3gs..either storm is not bad but iphone wins..!! thanks for helping us out!!.