5 Reasons RIM's Blackberry Storm 2 Is Underwhelming

RIM has finally announced its Blackberry Storm 2 smartphone on Vodafone from only £35 per month, albeit on a 24-month contract and nearly one year after the original storm was unveiled to the world.

But the second version of the Storm left us positively lingering for something more exceptional and 12 months after having written "10 Things We Really Love About RIM's Blackberry Storm", we found ourselves pondering on reasons why the Storm 2 is leaving us cold.

(1) The Screen

Last year, Surepress was a novelty, one which provide haptic feedback and "feels and sounds" like a true keyboard. But the experiment proved to be an embarrassing episode and was criticised by many users.

For months, the Storm remains the only touchscreen smartphone that that provide with tactile feedback and one year on, RIM says that the new Surepress will be better. We still remain to be convinced.

(2) The Platform

RIM has apparently decided to stick to the same one year old hardware. So it still sticks to the same 528MHz Qualcomm processor together with the twice amount of memory (256MB) and the same screen size/resolution (3.25-inch, 480x360 pixels).

While competition was scarce back then, it is no longer the case now. The Acer Liquid for example has a 3.8-inch screen capable of showing 800x480 pixel and comes with a 1GHz Snapdragon processor, making the Storm look positively antiquated.