I'm sure many have already said this, but you can change how many icons appear on the home screen of the Storm 2 if you go to the options menu. You may select one row (4), two rows (8) or three rows (12). You may even select "Today" which gives you a full screen readout for messages, phone calls, and calendar.
I didn't have time to go through all 400+ comments but the storm 2 is NOT limited to 8 icons on the home screen in portrait mode. You can choose, 1, 2, or 3 rows of 4 icons for a total of 4, 8 or 12 icons.
Yes, it is supposed to have multi touch enabled in the default browser, and photo gallery. From what I understand it is already available with the newest version of Google Maps. Multi touch is currently available using the Dolphin web browser with the Droid.
I want this Droid so much. Still waiting to hear if this is coming to the UK. Please Motorola, release this in the UK so I can review and KEEP it as my main phone.
For those of you saying the droid doesn't have multitouch, yes it does.. it just doesn't have pinch and zoom, those two things are not synonymous. The onscreen keyboard for example, supports multitouch.
Don't know if it's been stated already, but he is INCORRECT that you can't adjust the number of icons viewable on the Storm2. You can adjust it from one giant icon up to 16 (four rows of four icons.)
Jon, you're wrong when you say you can't choose how many icons show up on the short home screen. If you're on the short home screen, press the Blackberry button twice, or if you're on the full menu already, press it once. Then select Options, you'll see an option that says Layout, select it and you can choose how many rows of icons you'd like to display. You have the choice of one, two, or three rows, as well as a "today" option. Which will show your messages, calender, etc.
I don't know if anyone has said it or not but you can actually change how many icons you put on the home screen on the front page of the BlackBerry. You can have 1, 2 or 3 rows of 4.
This is a pretty cool video, but one thing to keep in mind is that the virtual qwerty on the Droid does work in landscape too, and it's a lot more spacious that way than in portrait.
You can change the icons from 8 to 4 or even to 12. All you have to do is click the blackberry button twice and an options menu will show up. When you click on the options you can change how many icons you have on the home screen. The other way is to highlight an icon or click the blackberry button and the options will come up.
I think something that should be said in these reviews is that while by default there is no multi touch zoom for the browser on the droid, the device IS multi touch capable. I don't know why it wasn't put in to begin with (license issue?) but apps can take advantage of it and perhaps an updated browser can add that functionality.
one thing that you have seemed to not to have noticed (correct me if i'm wrong, it's just my impression) is that the droid has a landscape touchscreen keyboard as well as the portrait touchscreen and the slide out physical keyboard.
actually the droid does have full multitouch including pinch gestures but that is not the droid which will be on the verizone network. the european droid (gsm version called milestone for no apparent reason) will have pinch gestures as well.
Hey Jon I always liked your reviews both of these phones are great. I have to ask what apps were running in the background on the storm 2? I think a fair comparison is to show that only the core apps were loaded on each to have the fairest comparison. the Storm like the Storm 2 has a problem with not fully closing apps after being loaded. to fully close apps and increase speed hold down the blackberry button and close each app. Its a pretty natural thing for us crackberry users to do.
there is one thing i caught and that was on the storm 2, you can in fact change how many icons are on the short menu. all you have to do is go to the main menu and click the blackberry button again then click layout then which set of rows you perfer :)
OMG!!!! I'm so glad I saw this video! The comparison could have not been done any better. I been trying to decide on whether I wanted the DROID or the STORM 2, and I couldn' t decide. But now I have decided on the DROID! I'm so gonna go get it today!
Well, from using it, I can tell you that there is no shakiness of the slide. It's a much more solid phone than my old blackberry was. The slide is a very nice solid smooth movement with an extremely delightful click-into-place sound :)
people are talking about how the Droids browser is faster than Storm2's but all you have to do is switch of javascript and download a new browser like Opera mini or something and the Storm 2 's browser speed is going to be just as fast as Droids if not faster
There's an app called "Fresh Face" that you can use to get a Sense-like skin on a standard Android phone. Good luck finding something ported, but if you do let me know.
Stop at 12:43 fix that. you can control how many icons you want on the home screen of the black berry storm. you have an option of 3 rows, 2 rows, or 1 row of icons. even what icons u want on ur home screen.
When comparing the typing in portrait, perhaps you should press the right keys when typing "This is a test"; you pressed [TY] [GH] [UI] [DF] [Space] [UI] [AS] [Space] [AS] [Space] [TY] [AS] [TY] [AS]. With those keypresses, you should end up with "Thud is a tats" AND you CAN change the number of icons on the homescreen from the 8 default. Options include 4, 8, 16, and a 'Today' layout. (Limited, yes, but not as limited as you state). Learn your products before reviewing them.
i dont know exactly when or with which carrier but it is supposed to be coming out in europe as the motorola milestone. also, the euro version WILL have pinch zoom enabled.
OK One he missed on Droid is that you can also use the soft keys in landscape mode too. which makes the keyboad a lot bigger and easier to use than in portrait. I don't know how in the hell he missed that one...
@cashxx thats because Apple's store has had just a wee bit more time to expand, but the Android Market is growing exponentially. 9000+ new apps last month. How is the OS incomplete? Seems pretty damn complete to me.
This droid is running on Android 2.0, my Milestone is running on Android 2.1 and has a built-in multitouch support. It performs way faster than the Storm 2 and kick iPhone 3Gs the hell out of the scene
I will admit that the open source aspect of the Droid is a huge downfall for the Blackberry Storm2 as well as the Blackberry OS in general. Customization these days is key to success as a phone.
droid also has virtual keyboard in landscape mode as well, it's obviously bigger than normal onscreen. lol. and yeah, you get very used to the physical qwerty if you use it. had droid since day one, and i love it!
Why is everyone saying that it's a biased comparison? It can't be biased if one phone is clearly better than the other. He prefers the Droid better because its obviously the better of the two
On the black berry 2 phone you can have a full qwerty in portrait as well so I don't know why you don't have it configured like that for a fair comparison. I had the bb strorm 1 and now I have the Motorola droid, and there is no way I would go back.
I loaded up TechnoBuffalo on my Black Berry Tour along with your video and mine took about 10-15 secs with signal at 1 to 2 bars, that's way faster then the storm you show even when it's on wifi. Is there an issue with your phone or the storm 2 in general or something that would cause such a difference because they are both running the same OS/Browser
A fatal flaw with this comparison, anybody that knows Blackberrys knows nobody uses the default BB browser, almost everybody uses Opera or Bolt. And both of them load way faster than the BB browser.
I don't know what's worse, Blackberry vs Android or the iOS vs Android fanboy-wars. Aside from the Storm, Blackberrys are a totally different kinds of phones compared to the ones running iOS or Android.
Try it with Opera 2 or Bolt. The default browser doesnt work well on the BB. The Storm has a new OS out which is great. Very fast and has a lot of great features.
On the virtual keyboard test you forgot to mention just how awesome the landscape keyboard on the Droid is (using the acceloremeter you can have a giant virtual keyboard). You can turn on that "nice haptic feedback" in the virtual keyboard under the settings. Droid definitely wins!!!
i recently got the droid in january and i have to say its ridiculous. havent had any problems with it yet.. and you get used to the keyboard and i can type as fast as i did on my voyager with the droid. not to mention the countless updates for it and also can be hacked to have multitouch for the browser and also have 5 or 7 home screens.. best phone ive had so far
dear god. another video without ridiculous comparisons to apple products... Jon4lakers, your gaining my respect back! Cant wait till friday. I pre ordered my Droid through Best buy... Im antsy like a little kid before christmas.
There is a lot more to Blackberry's OS than the eye could see. I agree the usability of BB's are def. out dated. However, the backbone of a Blackberry is designed for an enterprise use. Those who need a phone thats synced to an enterprise server, is why most people use a Blackberry in the business world. That's where you're wrong. Comparing BB's security is like comparing SL to DOS. For every day use though (ie multi-media use, normal non-enterprise server users), Android is great.
ive got the original BB Storm and its very nice honestly, you get used to typing on it and my accuracy + speed are very good. the 2 devices (storm and storm 2) use the same interface (more or less) just they added wifi, more touch screen sensors, etc... so honestly the storm is great but the storm 2 must be awesome
you can add another row of icons on the homescreen of the BBS2. I have the Storm 9530 and I have 12 icons on my homescreen...you are not restricted to 8 you also clearly typed "this is a test" wrong on the Storm 2 but I appreciate the review
kinda unfair on the BB Storm typing section when he's typing "This is a test." You can clearly see @ 10:18 he didn't even try to move his thumb to press the E for tEst. Instead, he presses on the A resulting in tats
This information is incorrect. On the SureType Keyboard, you pressed the wrong key. On the main menu, you can extend the amount of icons on the desktop. You just didn't know how to do it, which in all fairness, you did mention at the beginning that you do not regularly use either of these devices. I am merely identifying a few inaccuracies.
At the moment, only the second beta version of Opera Mini 5 is compatible with the Storm 2. But I gotta tell ya, even for a beta version it runs quickly and smoothly. A huuuuge difference from the Blackberry browser for sure
Not necessarily, they could also be texts. Regardless, wouldn't it have been a little more fair to the phone to delete them or at least read them prior to conducting memory intensive activities...
@Thatguy7531 I have the blackberry tour and am about to switch over to the droid in about a week. The tour is a nice phone but gets old and does not have as many features as the droid. Also i have had service problems with the tour.
how is typing on it. I have the storm as well but i dont use it any more. Beleive it or not my primary phone is the inferior gemini cuz i like the wifi and the physical keys. Can you type pretty fast with it?
i hear you but i do use the BB storm as a media player with some songs on it, but i also do find myself carrying a 2nd media device (ipod) but thats because i havent transfered all my old songs to the storm. The browser isnt that great but i dont have too many problems seeing as i do not browse a crazy ammount it is slow but the interface isnt bad (in my opinion) i like the storm and if i had the chance would buy it again over the droid (not the iphone though but im on vzw not ATT)
i wnted to get rid of my ipod and use the droid (i hav not yet bought it) so i was wondering what it would be like is the droid a good fone for music or does the quality suck
i don't understand when you test the keyboards out... how you just hit where the area of the letter is? i mean you kinda have to pay attention, you can't just put your finger anywhere on it and expect it to hit the letter you want.
@ 12:40 you stay you can't control how many icons on the short home screen for storm 2. Quote: 'Stuck at 8' . Just to let you know you are wrong! There is an option to change that!
Watching this in 2022! I had both phones and loved both of them… but the droid was incredible.
Amazing how far we have come!!!
I'm sure many have already said this, but you can change how many icons appear on the home screen of the Storm 2 if you go to the options menu. You may select one row (4), two rows (8) or three rows (12). You may even select "Today" which gives you a full screen readout for messages, phone calls, and calendar.
What an era
I didn't have time to go through all 400+ comments but the storm 2 is NOT limited to 8 icons on the home screen in portrait mode. You can choose, 1, 2, or 3 rows of 4 icons for a total of 4, 8 or 12 icons.
Yes, it is supposed to have multi touch enabled in the default browser, and photo gallery. From what I understand it is already available with the newest version of Google Maps. Multi touch is currently available using the Dolphin web browser with the Droid.
I want this Droid so much. Still waiting to hear if this is coming to the UK. Please Motorola, release this in the UK so I can review and KEEP it as my main phone.
Another nice review Jon! Can you ask LP to do more reviews and comparisons. They are awesome.
For those of you saying the droid doesn't have multitouch, yes it does.. it just doesn't have pinch and zoom, those two things are not synonymous. The onscreen keyboard for example, supports multitouch.
Don't know if it's been stated already, but he is INCORRECT that you can't adjust the number of icons viewable on the Storm2. You can adjust it from one giant icon up to 16 (four rows of four icons.)
Jon, you're wrong when you say you can't choose how many icons show up on the short home screen.
If you're on the short home screen, press the Blackberry button twice, or if you're on the full menu already, press it once. Then select Options, you'll see an option that says Layout, select it and you can choose how many rows of icons you'd like to display. You have the choice of one, two, or three rows, as well as a "today" option. Which will show your messages, calender, etc.
I don't know if anyone has said it or not but you can actually change how many icons you put on the home screen on the front page of the BlackBerry. You can have 1, 2 or 3 rows of 4.
This is a pretty cool video, but one thing to keep in mind is that the virtual qwerty on the Droid does work in landscape too, and it's a lot more spacious that way than in portrait.
@SterbendesFeuer This is because the Droid has been updated to Android 2.1 since March 30th. This enabled pinch-to-zoom.
You can change the icons from 8 to 4 or even to 12. All you have to do is click the blackberry button twice and an options menu will show up. When you click on the options you can change how many icons you have on the home screen. The other way is to highlight an icon or click the blackberry button and the options will come up.
I think something that should be said in these reviews is that while by default there is no multi touch zoom for the browser on the droid, the device IS multi touch capable.
I don't know why it wasn't put in to begin with (license issue?) but apps can take advantage of it and perhaps an updated browser can add that functionality.
I don't care if the storm 2 is that slow i'm still getting it and its quite stylish too
one thing that you have seemed to not to have noticed (correct me if i'm wrong, it's just my impression) is that the droid has a landscape touchscreen keyboard as well as the portrait touchscreen and the slide out physical keyboard.
actually the droid does have full multitouch including pinch gestures but that is not the droid which will be on the verizone network. the european droid (gsm version called milestone for no apparent reason) will have pinch gestures as well.
Hey Jon I always liked your reviews both of these phones are great.
I have to ask what apps were running in the background on the storm 2?
I think a fair comparison is to show that only the core apps were loaded on each to have the fairest comparison.
the Storm like the Storm 2 has a problem with not fully closing apps after being loaded.
to fully close apps and increase speed hold down the blackberry button and close each app.
Its a pretty natural thing for us crackberry users to do.
Don't forget that there is also a SOFT KEYBOARD on the DROID in LANDSCAPE MODE. And in another video it shows that it works very well.
you can also choose a "today" menu, which shows appointments and such on the home screen.
there is one thing i caught and that was on the storm 2, you can in fact change how many icons are on the short menu. all you have to do is go to the main menu and click the blackberry button again then click layout then which set of rows you perfer :)
Correction: You're not stuck at 8 icons on the Storm's home screen. You can have 4, 8, or 12.
OMG!!!! I'm so glad I saw this video! The comparison could have not been done any better. I been trying to decide on whether I wanted the DROID or the STORM 2, and I couldn' t decide. But now I have decided on the DROID! I'm so gonna go get it today!
Yes, you can change the amount of icons on the home screen. I have mine set to 3 rows.
there are also many options for customizations for the storm through themes as well
Well, from using it, I can tell you that there is no shakiness of the slide. It's a much more solid phone than my old blackberry was.
The slide is a very nice solid smooth movement with an extremely delightful click-into-place sound :)
LOL "MegaPickles"
Oh man, Jon you're the best
people are talking about how the Droids browser is faster than Storm2's but all you have to do is switch of javascript and download a new browser like Opera mini or something and the Storm 2 's browser speed is going to be just as fast as Droids if not faster
Thanks much for this excellent comparison! Just what I was looking for.
12:40 you can control how many rows to put on the blackberry home scree from the options menu you can choose from 1, 2, or 3 rows.
There's an app called "Fresh Face" that you can use to get a Sense-like skin on a standard Android phone.
Good luck finding something ported, but if you do let me know.
You can change the icons on your home screen. you can have 8 icons down to 4 or down to nothing. Just thought I add that in
If you read this, John, I have a request. Demo the read aloud menus please (I'm curious as to how deep the levels go).
on the home screen you can choose more icons then 8 like 12 or 16 you just have to find it in the settings or something for the black berry storm
Stop at 12:43 fix that. you can control how many icons you want on the home screen of the black berry storm. you have an option of 3 rows, 2 rows, or 1 row of icons. even what icons u want on ur home screen.
thank you for this review...these were 2 of the phones i am considering to get and it was very helpful to see this
When comparing the typing in portrait, perhaps you should press the right keys when typing "This is a test"; you pressed [TY] [GH] [UI] [DF] [Space] [UI] [AS] [Space] [AS] [Space] [TY] [AS] [TY] [AS]. With those keypresses, you should end up with "Thud is a tats"
AND you CAN change the number of icons on the homescreen from the 8 default. Options include 4, 8, 16, and a 'Today' layout. (Limited, yes, but not as limited as you state). Learn your products before reviewing them.
+1. The landscape virtual keyboard on the Droid is probably my favorite to use most of the time...
If you download the dolphin browser app for the droid you can use multi-touch for browsing!
@trujilloking I KNOW RIGHT also if you want the friggen BB storm 2 to be a fun phone you can because it can be used either way
he's probably working on those videos?
i like how the motorola droid plays youtube videos straight from the browser
i dont know exactly when or with which carrier but it is supposed to be coming out in europe as the motorola milestone. also, the euro version WILL have pinch zoom enabled.
you also can use the onscreen keyboard in landscape mode to
OK One he missed on Droid is that you can also use the soft keys in landscape mode too. which makes the keyboad a lot bigger and easier to use than in portrait.
I don't know how in the hell he missed that one...
@cashxx thats because Apple's store has had just a wee bit more time to expand, but the Android Market is growing exponentially. 9000+ new apps last month. How is the OS incomplete? Seems pretty damn complete to me.
How would that be a more fair comparison? This is dealing with the default browsers... plus opera mini also works on the Droid..
This droid is running on Android 2.0, my Milestone is running on Android 2.1 and has a built-in multitouch support. It performs way faster than the Storm 2 and kick iPhone 3Gs the hell out of the scene
I will admit that the open source aspect of the Droid is a huge downfall for the Blackberry Storm2 as well as the Blackberry OS in general. Customization these days is key to success as a phone.
droid also has virtual keyboard in landscape mode as well, it's obviously bigger than normal onscreen. lol. and yeah, you get very used to the physical qwerty if you use it. had droid since day one, and i love it!
Why is everyone saying that it's a biased comparison? It can't be biased if one phone is clearly better than the other. He prefers the Droid better because its obviously the better of the two
On the black berry 2 phone you can have a full qwerty in portrait as well so I don't know why you don't have it configured like that for a fair comparison.
I had the bb strorm 1 and now I have the Motorola droid, and there is no way I would go back.
No, at 12:57 he is wrong. If you go to the themes options, you can change the number of apps on the front screen. You can have 1, 2, or 3 rows!!
That droid is running on a very old firmware, now it supports multitouch and a lot more features.
So how much has the Storm 2 improved with software updates?
I loaded up TechnoBuffalo on my Black Berry Tour along with your video and mine took about 10-15 secs with signal at 1 to 2 bars, that's way faster then the storm you show even when it's on wifi.
Is there an issue with your phone or the storm 2 in general or something that would cause such a difference because they are both running the same OS/Browser
i've heard from a few different sources that the iphone is coming to verizon this june.
A fatal flaw with this comparison, anybody that knows Blackberrys knows nobody uses the default BB browser, almost everybody uses Opera or Bolt. And both of them load way faster than the BB browser.
I don't know what's worse, Blackberry vs Android or the iOS vs Android fanboy-wars. Aside from the Storm, Blackberrys are a totally different kinds of phones compared to the ones running iOS or Android.
He's the only person I know that calls a magnifying glass an "hour glass".
*smacks forehead*
there are multi touch apps for droid such as picsay for photos and dolphin browser for web. u also didn't use the droid's landscape soft keyboard
considering all the money you have to pay for data plans (the same on both) is the $50 difference that much of a big deal?
Try it with Opera 2 or Bolt. The default browser doesnt work well on the BB.
The Storm has a new OS out which is great. Very fast and has a lot of great features.
On the virtual keyboard test you forgot to mention just how awesome the landscape keyboard on the Droid is (using the acceloremeter you can have a giant virtual keyboard). You can turn on that "nice haptic feedback" in the virtual keyboard under the settings. Droid definitely wins!!!
i recently got the droid in january and i have to say its ridiculous. havent had any problems with it yet.. and you get used to the keyboard and i can type as fast as i did on my voyager with the droid. not to mention the countless updates for it and also can be hacked to have multitouch for the browser and also have 5 or 7 home screens.. best phone ive had so far
dear god. another video without ridiculous comparisons to apple products... Jon4lakers, your gaining my respect back!
Cant wait till friday. I pre ordered my Droid through Best buy... Im antsy like a little kid before christmas.
Haha I like how he was reviewing the droid's browser, and the storm was still loadin =D
Nice review
THX. JON, question-
how does the droid fare regarding
e-mail ? no one talks about it much.
im switching from blackberry to droid.
thx, joe...
Thanks for that info.
I had a Storm 2, and after a few months, wanted to throw it through the wall. I currently have a droid and love it.
In comparison to the iPhone's touchscreen, how sensitive is the touchscreen on the Droid?
There is a lot more to Blackberry's OS than the eye could see. I agree the usability of BB's are def. out dated. However, the backbone of a Blackberry is designed for an enterprise use.
Those who need a phone thats synced to an enterprise server, is why most people use a Blackberry in the business world.
That's where you're wrong. Comparing BB's security is like comparing SL to DOS.
For every day use though (ie multi-media use, normal non-enterprise server users), Android is great.
ive got the original BB Storm and its very nice honestly, you get used to typing on it and my accuracy + speed are very good. the 2 devices (storm and storm 2) use the same interface (more or less) just they added wifi, more touch screen sensors, etc... so honestly the storm is great but the storm 2 must be awesome
you can add another row of icons on the homescreen of the BBS2. I have the Storm 9530 and I have 12 icons on my homescreen...you are not restricted to 8 you also clearly typed "this is a test" wrong on the Storm 2 but I appreciate the review
You are wrong on the eight icons. You can change the amount in the themes menu.
yo jon...messed up. You can customize the amount of icons that show up on the home screen..you are not stuck with 8
Jon, you got the bad Droid. The good one has keys that are slightly raised on the QWERTY keyboard and its much easier
honestly is it really that hard to type on the physical keyboard on the droid? i heard its difficult but it doesnt look too bad..
kinda unfair on the BB Storm typing section when he's typing "This is a test." You can clearly see @ 10:18 he didn't even try to move his thumb to press the E for tEst. Instead, he presses on the A resulting in tats
Will the Sense UI work on this phone? I'll be looking for a skin like the Sense or Touchflo for my Droid. Any recommendations?
This information is incorrect. On the SureType Keyboard, you pressed the wrong key. On the main menu, you can extend the amount of icons on the desktop. You just didn't know how to do it, which in all fairness, you did mention at the beginning that you do not regularly use either of these devices. I am merely identifying a few inaccuracies.
you can change how many icons appear at the home screen YOU ARE NOT STUCK AT 8. JUST PRESS BLACKBERRY KEY 2TIMES AND GO TO OPTIONS
At the moment, only the second beta version of Opera Mini 5 is compatible with the Storm 2. But I gotta tell ya, even for a beta version it runs quickly and smoothly. A huuuuge difference from the Blackberry browser for sure
whats better the droid or the blackberry tour
Not necessarily, they could also be texts. Regardless, wouldn't it have been a little more fair to the phone to delete them or at least read them prior to conducting memory intensive activities...
what is the price of the Motorola Droid? And the BB2 is awesome but I am not a big fan of blackberries
@Thatguy7531 I have the blackberry tour and am about to switch over to the droid in about a week. The tour is a nice phone but gets old and does not have as many features as the droid. Also i have had service problems with the tour.
do u have the blackberry storm2?? can i ask u some questions about it??
No way! Droid looks awesome and only strange next to the BBS2 because it has that enourmous 3.7" display
The droid has a virtual landscape keyboard.
the bb storm can have a different amount of icons on the hoescreen.
I have a storm 1
i want the droid but i heard the battery life is terrible, is that true? i'm decideing between these 2 phones
how is typing on it. I have the storm as well but i dont use it any more. Beleive it or not my primary phone is the inferior gemini cuz i like the wifi and the physical keys. Can you type pretty fast with it?
@00Rebirth00 Is the blackberry storm 2 a good phone to get ?
I think the droid has a landscape soft keyboard, so I would have liked to see that as part of the comparison. Cool vid though.
sorry to correct you, but you can change the amount of icons on the screen, i've done, i have 4 now
i hear you but i do use the BB storm as a media player with some songs on it, but i also do find myself carrying a 2nd media device (ipod) but thats because i havent transfered all my old songs to the storm. The browser isnt that great but i dont have too many problems seeing as i do not browse a crazy ammount it is slow but the interface isnt bad (in my opinion) i like the storm and if i had the chance would buy it again over the droid (not the iphone though but im on vzw not ATT)
i wnted to get rid of my ipod and use the droid (i hav not yet bought it) so i was wondering what it would be like is the droid a good fone for music or does the quality suck
i don't understand when you test the keyboards out... how you just hit where the area of the letter is? i mean you kinda have to pay attention, you can't just put your finger anywhere on it and expect it to hit the letter you want.
@ 12:40 you stay you can't control how many icons on the short home screen for storm 2. Quote: 'Stuck at 8' . Just to let you know you are wrong! There is an option to change that!