By YEONG AH SENG

BLACKBERRY'S first Storm device did not exactly take the market by storm. There were problems with its touchscreen and virtual keyboard and BlackBerry users accustomed to the real Qwerty keypad were not too happy. Storm2 seeks to address the shortcomings of Storm1.

The touchscreen has been enhanced with multi-touch support and a built-in accelerometer.

When the handset is held horizontally, a full Qwerty virtual keyboard appears. A Suretype or full Qwerty keyboard appears when held vertically.

Screen size is 3.25-inch half-VGA. Other features include Wi-Fi, a 3.2-MP camera, GPS, 2GB onboard memory and a pre-loaded 16GB microSD card plus an enhanced media player for watching videos, viewing pictures and listening to music.

Hands-on experience with the new Storm confirms that many of the bugs of the previous Storm have been ironed out.

There is minimal processor lag and things work more smoothly than before. The virtual keyboard is responsive and the overall touch functions perform without a hitch.

One thing is still puzzling though - why is the phone's developer, Research In Motion, still sticking to the push-down touchscreen used in the Storm?

There is certainly no lack of better touchscreens in the marketplace.

How much: Depends largely on the telco plan subscribed to.

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