I am in the market for a new Blackberry and have been holding off a making a purchase because I wanted to wait for the new Verizon Wireless BB Storm.  This weekend I had the opportunity to try out the Storm and Bold in rapid succession.  As a reminder, the Storm is Verizon's new touchscreen Blackberry that looks like the iPhone.  The Bold is a traditional BB device that includes a complete keyboard.

I am a frequent Blackberry user and am a huge fan of these products.  I use the device as both my primary cellphone and email device.  For me, email is the killer app and is equally important as phone functionality.  This is the big reason why I am not considering an iPhone because I do not like their email implementation and keyboard.

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The long awaited touchscreen Blackberry Storm was released today to long lines and sold out inventory.  It seems that the launch was a bit botched since a last minute problem was identified which limited the amount of phones available for sale.  As the title says, the reviews of the phone were mediocre.  Crackberry.com has a complete list of reviews.  It is ironic, I was ready to go out and stand in line to get one today and decided to hold off due to the questionable reviews.  In short there are two issues which are holding me back:

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Well, I have posted quite frequently about my interest in Blackberry cellphones in the past.  I often lamented the fact that the Bold was delayed terribly especially since my phone is getting old in the tooth and desperately needs replacement.

As the old adage goes, "When it rains, it pours", I have gone from having no new options to two brand new choices.  AT&T announced the Blackberry Bold which is the newest QWERTY BB.  This phone is essentially the newest version of the traditional BB form factor device.  It has been delayed incessantly and is finally available.  Definitely a good choice although it is simply an enhanced version of the existing platform.

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The Blackberry Bold seems to be one of those products that is perpetually delayed.  The original launch date of the phone was supposed to be June, but due to software glitches, it was delayed.  The most recent launch date specified was October 2, but yet again, it is delayed.  Ironically, it has been released all over the world and so the launch delays are US specific.

One question that I ponder is whether an element of the delay is due to AT&T purposefully delaying to sell more iPhones.  This could be a conspiracy theory, but I think that it could be possible.

The other issue is that AT&T is now going to launch the phone around the same time that Verizon launches the Storm.  The Storm, if you have forgotten, is RIM's touchscreen Blackberry and is meant to compete with the iPhone.  Had AT&T launched the Bold earlier in the year, they would have had a jump start on the Verizon phone.  That time advantage has now been squandered and it is unclear when the Bold will arrive.

As it stands, I believe that the arrival of the Storm will cause many end users to delay Bold purchases and possibly bypass the phone altogether.  This could be trouble for AT&T and so it will be interesting to see how the sales of the two devices compare.  I am holding off until I can check out both devices.

Crackberry.com recently posted some screenshots of the new Blackberry Storm.  These are the first detailed pictures of the device in action.  Some people have complained that it does not look that good and that the keyboard looks bad.  My opinion is that the device looks great and is a tremendous improvement over previous models.  I am excited about it; however, the question still remains whether the touchscreen keypad will be as functional as the physical keypads of the Bold series of phones.  Regardless, I highly recommend checking out the screen shots,