First Shot

The first picture I’ve taken with my brand spankin’ new Blackberry Storm, which arrived while I was in California. Please note this is not my house, which thankfully was still standing after a week of our absence. This was on the road to Greenville, where I was going to pick up Kodi, who was being boarded at a kennel. It’s not a bad shot from a cell phone, I would say.

Some folks here have been clamoring for my thoughts on the Storm. Well, I’ve been playing with it for only a couple of hours, so I can’t say all that much about it yet. My initial impressions are that it’s fairly nifty, but also that you can tell the software for it isn’t fully baked yet; the auto-reframing from portrait to landscape mode is clearly laggy. But the e-mail is very nicely integrated and the camera is nice, and the network seems fast. Also, phone itself is pretty good. Which is, you know, why I have the thing in the first place. So, overall, I’m happy with it so far. I’ll be happier when they update the software. I’ll probably have more to say about it later, I’m sure.

And now, off to catch up on everything.

26 Comments on “First Shot”

  1. Caption: That was where they held the last con where they didn’t get me double doubles on demand.

  2. That is one cool photo, John. I like the framing, the house, the washed-out colours… everything. And it’s not about the Storm; I would have said the same if it were taken with a potato-powered pinhole camera.

    That being said, enjoy your new crackberry! Have you booked a place in rehab yet? I hear they have a loooong waiting list ;)

  3. That’s a great photo – ‘storm damage’ by a Storm.

    I like the new header image too, classy yet Christmasy.

  4. How is the keypad on the Storm? I’ve heard and have read various critical reviews that touch typing on the Storm is ponderous and slow.

  5. Gosh darn that’s pretty. So’s your blog today too.

    Are you going to be putting out a coffee table book of your photos soon? “Bacon on Cats and Other Objects de Artes” or something like that?

  6. Is the ‘water on a burning beach’ quote in your header from Crowded House? What song is it from? Driving me crazy, I know the tune and a lot of the lyrics but can’t remember the name.
    You’ve infected me with an earworm, curse you.

  7. I’m getting used to text entry on my Storm, though the process has taken more time than I expected.

    While the call quality comes through very clearly, I don’t like the interface for finding a contact and calling him. Maybe I have missed something key?

  8. Thanks, Mr Scalzi, I found the CD and I’m in nostalgia mode now.
    The song begins; “My life is a house….” hopefully not as wrecked the house in the picture.

  9. I’m getting my Storm hopefully in a couple days. Good to see the camera works fairly well. (BTW I wouldn’t trust any firmware upgrades unless they come direct from Verizon, made that mistake with my last phone.)

  10. YMMV but as far as blackberry firmware upgrades go, I’ve loaded several on my t-mobile blackberry with no issues. You just have to remember to remove the vendor specific config file.

    With Verizon specifically you may actually pick up functionality they’ve dropped in their own custom firmware. They’re sort of famous for removing features and then charging you to add them back through their own services.

  11. What an amazing picture- it does seem to be missing the obligatory witches’ feet (sans silver/ruby slippers), however.

  12. So was it the big bad wolf that blew the house down or did Subodeon and Xopher have another discussion close by?

    Keep us updated on the Storm. I’m AT&T but am lusting after the equivalent for my network. I’m trying to convince the CFO of our little corporation, (my wife, obviously) that I don’t really need to wait until March when we renew to get the new phone. She ain’t buying my logic at the moment though. 8D

  13. It looked at first like your photo was shot with infrared film. Then I thought, “Maybe the grass is white because they have snow there.” Do you have snow there?

  14. Here’s hoping you’re warm and toasty and that all of the snow is picturesque (and not on the roads).

  15. My phone contract is up in January so I’m getting non-stop calls and texts from from my service provider and the shop where I bought it to get me to sign up for a new phone/longer contract/whatever. When I got the all singing, all dancing multimedia text advertising the Storm I laughed so loudly my boss came to see what was going on. He laughed at it too.

    You see, if Stephen Fry doesn’t like it, neither do we ;-)

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/technology/2008/11/can_stephen_fry_kill_a_gadget.html

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