Whipping up a BlackBerry Storm in Hong Kong

The BlackBerry Curve 8900 was launched in Hong Kong earlier this week. So it’s touted as the “thinnest and lightest full-QWERTY BlackBerry”. OK, next. What’s really whipping up a bigger … er .. storm and much more eagerly anticipated is the touchscreen BlackBerry Storm.

While it’s not yet officially launched here, parallel import versions of the Storm (some which are Vodafone labelled) are surfacing at about HK$4,000 or less. Just do a Hong Kong Yahoo Auctions search for it here. Or if you’re here, go check it out at the (in)famous cellphone/computer malls.

I’ve only managed to have a cursory touch and feel of the Storm which belongs to one of my colleagues and my initial immediate impression was that it really had some weight, and it feels kinda chunky. Specs put it at 155g – the iPhone 3G weighs in at 133g so that explains it.

Its much talked about ‘tactile’ touchscreen does indeed seem to work pretty well and the big, bright 3.25 inch screen should make it THE multimedia BlackBerry. And they thoughtfully included a ‘normal’ 3.5mm audio jack.

But since unlimited data here still ain’t cheap, I think its lack of Wi-Fi will leave it in the hands of folks who have their companies pay for their unlimited data BlackBerry lines.