The Storm is, as you’d expect from the guys at Research in Motion, a pretty sleek phone. As a direct competitor to the iPhone, it has its pros and cons. Those will be noted in the review, but first, for those of you that aren’t really all that knowledgeable in smartphones, let me break it down for you.

A smartphone is probably what you’d think it is, a phone that serves multiple purposes. Your typical phone stuff, as well as media player, web browser, instant messaging, and generally all the necessities. Many of these come standard and already on the phone, but some are downloaded, many of which are free of charge. Instant messenger programs, such as AIM, Windows Live, and Yahoo IM, are all downloadable free of charge, as well as mobile apps for social networks like Myspace and Facebook. Service apps such as the Weather Channel app and Verizon’s own Visual Voice Mail app are available with subscription fees, as well.

The Verizon network is very reliable, expectedly so as it’s one of Verizon’s key advertising points. The phone itself serves as a GPS; as long as you stay within the network of service, it’ll work. Check out Verizon’s website for a map of the Network; while most of the places are covered, there are some parts where there is very little to no coverage. The Storm has a 3.2 megapixel camera, as well, and comes packed with a light that’ll have your subjects of photography complaining about the brightness (if that’s a good or bad thing, that’s for you to decide). It can also record videos at a reasonable framerate, as well.

Unlike the iPhone, the Storm lacks the dreaded battery issue of “once it runs out, give us (Apple) money and your phone so we can fix it at your inconvenience”, and also comes with memory card (micro SD) compatibility, allowing for expandable memory whereas the iPhone is limited to internal memory. So, if you need a lot of power with the lack of charging ability where you are, you can replace batteries on the go, and if you need the extra memory, you can replace memory cards the same way.

The main selling point of the Storm, though, is the Clickthrough. The entire screen is basically a button. It has sensors throughout that detect where you’re touching it, and, by pressing the screen down, you can “click” it. This serves its purpose, and is good for people with shaky hands who tend to press down too often on normal touch screens, therefore doing more than wanted (myself being one of those people). It also allows for more accurate typing on its QWERTY keyboard (only accessible in Landscape; in Portrait, there’s the QWERTY keyboard, but most of the letter keys are shared twofold, and relies too much on a less-than-qualified predictive typing system).

The Storm comes with a disc to install the BlackBerry Desktop Manager (which only works for PCs at this time – Macs will have compatibility later this year) on your computer to manage media, apps, and other such files for the phone. It’s pretty simple and straightforward, though a necessity for the less tech-savvy users. All in all, it’s a very nice phone. For the less tech minded, it might have a steep learning curve, but it’s pretty easy to handle once you’ve got it down.