After David Pogue’s acid review of BlackBerry Storm, readers around the world confirmed that their experience with the new device was disappointing and nevertheless frustrating.  Many customers complained about the phone’s software glitches and overall questionable functionality.

Negative feedback on the matter came even on BlackBerry’s own support forums. People criticized the lack of a hardware keyboard and functionality issues of the clickable touchscreen. Even though the touchscreen click feature is a true novelty in the matter, users say that the combination between this and the emulated keyboard is cumbersome. Considering that all BlackBerry phones are primarily marketed as email devices, this issue is hard to live with.

People also complained about the automatic screen orientation feature which, they say, lags and also about the lack of functionality in key application (such as the address book) and often hang-ups of the entire phone. “Everything's slow: Scrolling, screen rotating, selecting apps, search... everything,” a reader said.

Considering that the Storm was more criticized than praised, it is somewhat a surprise when you look at the sales figures: at the moment, the Storm is the star in the smartphone world, as a huge number of phones were sold around the world. "In the UK, we've been selling a Vodafone Storm every 13 seconds. …We're expecting demand to be just as hot here in Australia," Vodafone Australia CEO Russell Hewitt said.

Here are the specs of the BlackBerry Storm: Quad-band GSM, UMTS and HSDPA support, 480x360 pixel touchscreen, Bluetooth, GPS, 3.5mm audio jack, 1GB onboard memory and microSD card slot, full email support, 1400mAh battery and 3.2 Megapixel camera with autofocus. The phone’s size is 4.4”x2.4”x0.55” and it weighs 5.46oz (155g).