Phone sequels only advance the plot

Published online on Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2009

"Try, try again" is definitely what Motorola, HTC and the BlackBerry folks are up to.

One year ago -- one year into the iPhone era -- each of these companies stumbled publicly.

The BlackBerry Storm, the first touch-screen phone from Research in Motion, was a buggy, sluggish, counterintuitive mess. The T-Mobile G1, made by HTC, was the first phone that ran Google's new Android operating system, but the phone itself was chunky and clunky. And Motorola, well, it's been looking for a hit ever since the Razr phone.

All three are back with much more impressive, much more refined new phones. Here's how they shake out.

BlackBerry Storm 2

If there was one thing last year's Storm made clear, it's this: You don't rush a product to market just because it's the holiday season. That's what RIM did last year, and Storm was a mess.

You'd tap one menu item, and a different one would highlight. You'd flick a list of phone numbers, and it'd stop scrolling the instant your finger stopped (i.e., no momentum).The Storm 2 fixes all of that ($180 from Verizon, with contract, after rebate).

The original Storm's big gimmick was that the entire screen was clickable, like a mouse button -- but it wound up requiring way too much effort to press the on-screen keys. The Storm 2's redesigned clickable screen requires far less effort.

The Storm 2 can now exploit the speed of Wi-Fi wireless Internet hot spots, and boasts an impeccable checklist of goodies: autofocus camera, voice dialing, memory-card slot (a 16-gigabyte card is included), and so on.

I still don't get the point of the clicky screen, though. Every time you swipe to scroll a list, your finger highlights whatever list item it first touched, alarmingly.

The Storm 2 will make more people happy than the original, but try it in a Verizon store before you buy; the clicky-screen bit isn't for everyone.

Motorola Cliq

Social networkers, you may have just found your phone.

Motorola's big-deal new phone ($200 from T-Mobile with contract) is the only one here with a slide-out keyboard.

But atop Google's Android phone software, Motorola has built an archipelago of social-networking "widgets" (little floating windows). Each reports the latest updates from Twitter, Facebook and MySpace, along with incoming text messages and e-mail notes -- all on the Home screen.

Similarly, the address book fills itself with information and headshots from those online worlds, and the awesomely powerful History tab shows you a complete list of recent communications with each person.

And when someone calls -- your brother, say -- you see not only his photo, but also his latest status broadcasts from Twitter and Facebook.

But there's the reliance on the T-Mobile network, whose tiny call coverage area and even tinier 3G (high-speed) Internet coverage area are recipes for disappointment.

HTC Hero

If RIM got sick of hearing how buggy the first Storm was, then HTC must have gotten sick of hearing how homely and bulky its first Google Android phone was (the T-Mobile G1).

The HTC Hero ($180 from Sprint with contract) is thin, sleek and a pleasure to hold. At 4.5 by 2.2 by 0.5 inches, it's far narrower than the Storm 2 and far thinner than the Motorola Cliq.

The sharp, bright multitouch-screen lets you perform all the usual iPhone gestures for zooming in, panning and zooming out.

Navigation is simple, and dedicated Home, Back and Menu buttons are always there to guide you.

The on-screen keyboard, with pop-up autocomplete suggestions, is as good as on-screen keyboards get. And while the Android store offers only a fraction as many apps as the iPhone store, there are still 10,000 apps to choose from. (They work on the Motorola Cliq, too.)

If Sprint has decent coverage where you live, and if you don't need physical keys, you may really love this phone.