Thu Oct 15, 2009 3:06 pm
BlackBerry maker Research In Motion today unveiled the Storm 2, a new version of its touch screen Storm smartphone, marking its latest move in the battle with Apple's iPhone.
The Waterloo, Ontario-based company said the Storm 2 retains the original Storm's clickable touch screen interface, but improves upon it with faster typing and "multi-touch" capabilities, which allows users to type on more than just one part of the screen at a time.
The Storm, RIM's first phone without a physical keyboard, was met with limited success when it launched late last year.
Many users complained about its odd typing mechanism -- where the whole screen moved with each tap on the virtual keyboard -- and claimed that they had to press too hard on the touch screen.
RIM said the new Storm 2 solves that problem with its new SurePress technology -- promising that clicking the display will be "effortless" and that device will even know if a finger is "resting" on the keypad or typing.
The handset uses the same "haptics" technology to respond to "gentle pressure" by vibrating -- so using on its on-screen keyboard is more similar to typing on a real keyboard.
It also retains the Storm's built-in 3.2-megapixel auto-focus camera, music player and access to BlackBerry App World and BlackBerry Maps -- but doubles the memory to 256MB, upgrades to Bluetooth 2.1 and adds Wi-Fi capability.
Verizon, the exclusive U.S. carrier of the Storm 2, hasn't set a launch date or price, but it is likely to appear in November at around $200.
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