The latest on smartphones (and other gadgets)

Strangely enough I am looking forward to getting the Blackberry Storm 2 in a few days. Unlike most of my mobile phone acquisitions, this one is coming my way courtesy of a network contract renewal. Blackberry is the preferred, actually the only officially sanctioned, push email mechanism provided by my employer, so I have had my fair share of Blackberries – Pearls, 8800, Bold, etc. The Bold is very good and I still use it from time to time. It sucks in a few areas though, specifically web browsing, youtubing and doing my gmails in html. Overall the BB experience is somewhat boring and falls short of the user experience on the iPhone, Android, WebOS and even Symbian I think. I considered the Storm when it was released but decided against it as it had no wifi – what was RIM thinking. And then everyone complained about the SurePress clickable touch screen. The Storm 2 looks quite a bit better though with an improved screen (read somewhere that this screen is the closest you will get to a physical keyboard with a touch screen one), wifi, and 2GB ram. And the web browsing is better than on the Bold. Maybe this will be the phone that converts me to a virtual keyboard. Will see.