Stephen Fry slates the Storm

28 November 2008 9:50 GMT / By Amy-Mae Elliott

Stephen Fry, no stranger to speaking his arguably brilliant mind on the subject of gadgets and technology, has turned his sights to the BlackBerry Storm.

The gadget-loving entertainer has had a play with RIM's new touchscreen smartphone and, while we liked it here at Pocket-lint, he is unimpressed with the new device.

On Twitter, where Fry has more than 20,000 followers, he published the following series of messages about the phone:

"Been playing with the BB Storm. Shockingly bad. I mean embarrassingly awful. Such a disappointment. Rushed out unfinished. What a pity".

"Yes, I blame n'works more than RIM. Problems are terrible lag: inaccurate t'screen, awful, slow and fiddly text input. I SO wanted to like it".

"Plus the GPS maps won't work - issue with BIS connections. I see from forums postings this is widespread in the UK. iPhone killer? Ha!"

BBC reporter Rory Cellan-Jones has raised the issue of what influence this might have on Britain's phone buying public to Fry, who responded with:

"If I really thought my influence was that great it might make me a little wary of being quite so definite and it would probably force me to be more specific about all the features/pricing/services, as a responsible tech journalist should be".

"As it is, I hope people know I am no more than an enthusiastic, passionate amateur (I'm including the French sense of the word amateur - lover). It gives me no pleasure to be negative about the BB Storm and I know that many people have been looking forward to receipt of theirs and were very disheartened to hear my loud disappointment".

"But, honestly: play with the Storm for two days as I have and you will admire my patience at not throwing it out of the window..."

Full tags

Phones, BlackBerry, RIM, Stephen Fry, Twitter