Blackberry Storm 9530 Review

One of the reasons I didn’t buy an iPhone: expandable storage.  I find that the more portable my data, the more options I have when and/or if something ever goes wrong with my device.  Send my data-laden iPhone back to Apple for repair?  Right, I’ll just kiss my 32GB of pictures goodbye now.

The Storm supports SDHC, the “HC” standing for High Capacity.  Unfortunately for the SD standard, “HC” is only in comparison to the original SD standard, and tops out at 32GB.  None of this really matters, though, because so far you still can’t install applications to removable storage.  RIM, are you listening?  At least you have 1GB of internal memory to clog up with silly noise-making applications.

With the 8GB SDHC card the phone comes with, you’ve already got a decent amount of starting storage.  I think few users will have a problem with it as you don’t often roll more than a few hundred megabytes onto a new device to start with, at least if you’re anything like me.  With a 3.2MP camera, you’re not going to fill up the card very quickly, and even media hogs should be able to load up an appreciable number of albums or movies onto the card before entering dire straits.  When 16GB SDHC cards emerge in microSD form factor sometime later this year, I think most users will find satisfaction in the amount of storage available to use as a media vault.  The SDHC standard actually tops out at 32GB, though, so we may eventually get some real legroom out of this first edition Storm, assuming the second one supports SDXC with a 2TB ceiling.  So far, rumor is that the Storm supports only Class 2 SDHC cards (2.0MB/s), so even though there are 8GB Class 6 cards (6.0MB/s) they will only perform at Class 2 speeds.  I haven’t tested this, though, so enjoy your grain of salt.