I am also a gadget guru, enjoying every cool feature that manufacturers create to make devices even more exciting than their predecessors.  When the iPhone 2.0 device was launched a few months ago, I wrote a contract with AT&T and purchased an iPhone (and, I was one of those people standing in line at the AT&T store in Miami Beach).  I figured that this was the time to make the jump from button-pushing to finger-sliding.  Alas, I hadn’t tried an iPhone prior to that day, so I didn’t know what to expect.

I lasted about a day with the iPhone, before returning it to AT&T (and I was happy that I kept my T-Mobile Blackberry 8800).  While the Microsoft Exchange e-mail feature was a step in the right direction, it didn’t quite seem to have the immediacy of true Blackberry Exchange Server e-mail.  But, my greatest gripe with the iPhone was the disappointing battery life.  For a power use like myself, my iPhone was expiring after a mere four hours.  I quickly realized that while the iPhone was cool and sexy, it wasn’t the business-ready device that I needed.

So, fast-forward a few months and Verizon announces the Blackberry Storm.  The guy with the glasses from the commercial on television was getting the country ready for this mega-launch with a series of compelling ads.  It looked sort-of like an iPhone that clicked when you pressed on it.  In fact, the television ads really enhanced the clicking sound, just so we wouldn’t miss is.  My iPhone experience left me feeling a little un-ambitious about venturing into another touch-screen, so I didn’t give any further thought to the Storm.  I also wasn’t sure about defecting from T-Mobile, as I had a long relationship with them.  Also, their international services (data access while roaming for a fixed fee) were important to me when I travelled to Europe.

But, the day after the Blackberry Storm launched, I couldn’t stand the idea that I didn’t have the latest gadget in-hand.  So, I raced to my local Verizon outlet and picked up a Storm.  From a first glance, I noted that the overall size of the device was smaller than I had imagined it to be.  It was quite a bit heavier, though, than it looked, but I was fine with that.  When I turned the device on, the screen clarity and quality just blew me away.  I clicked over to the media icons and played a pre-loaded movie trailer for an upcoming Vin Diesel movie.  It simply dazzled me with color and sound, unlike anything I had experienced on a hand-held device.  This was like no other Blackberry that I had experienced before.

So, along came the big test.  Reading and writing e-mails.  Gone was the familiar track-ball, but navigation using the touch-screen was very obvious and easy.  The big thrill of this device, however, is that you actually have to push on the screen, so it clicks, for your selection to be acted upon.  This was a very odd technique of interacting with a device, and I wasn’t quite sure if this was something that I would enjoy on an ongoing basis.  But, the real test for me was how the keyboard was going to work for me when typing e-mails, something I do more than anything else on a Blackberry.  Seasoned Blackberry users are, by nature, going to reject anything other than regular, tactile keys.  When I started to type (and click the letters as I typed), I was entirely out of my comfort zone.  Spelling mistakes were rampant, and I often was pressing the wrong keys.  I groaned and moaned and wondered if this device was going to be headed back to its maker, just as my iPhone had been destined to do.  Time would tell.

After day 1, I had decided that perhaps I would not keep the Storm, but instead, would replace it with a Blackberry Bold and enable it for my T-Mobile account.  I also read a scathing review in the New York Times by David Pogue that, essentially, made me feel like a moron for even holding onto this device for more than a few hours.  So, part of me was getting ready to throw in the towel, and the other part of me wanted to give the Storm a few more days in my grasp.

Then, something magical happened.  As I continued to use the Storm that week, I found that my typing improved substantially.  I found that the icons and features that were important to me were easy to find and select.  I found that the speed by which I was typing and navigating around the device was increasing exponentially.  Plus, I now had a device that could take crisp photos, shoot video, organize media, read PDF and WORD documents easily, and, alas, browse the web at super-fast speed and with almost the same functionality as Internet Explorer (not quite, though).  I found that e-mail messages had rich and full HTML displays.  I found that my e-mails were being spell-checked and corrected for me.  All in all, I found that the Blackberry Storm was my new device of choice.  And, I have since turned off my Blackberry 8800 and cancelled my T-Mobile account.  I am a new Verizon customer, and I thank them dearly for bringing the Storm to me.  After all, it was the Storm that allowed me to type this entire review with only a handful of spelling errors, and in about 10 minutes time of typing.

So, to all of those people out there who are panning the Blackberry Storm, I would like to say to them that if they give the device a chance they will fall in love with it as I have.