Top 5 BlackBerry Storm Touch Screen Tips

The lack of the physical keyboard on the blackberry storm From Verizon was intimidating at first. Since my previous phone was a palm treo, I was used to the QWERTY Keyboard to navigate my device. However upon using the The BlackBerry Storm I found out that it has three types of on-screen, virtual keyboards:

1) RIM's SureType keyboard, which is a QWERTY keyboard with more than one letter/number on each key (available only in portrait mode).
2) Multitap keyboard that resembles the keys on a traditional cell phone (portrait mode).
3) QWERTY like the one found on your computer keyboard (landscape mode only).

To switch back and forth between keyboards in portrait mode, simply click the BlackBerry Menu key whenever a keyboard is displayed, and click "Enable Multitap" or "Enable SureType."



The followings are 5 handy tips for using the touch screen on the blackberry storm smartphone from Verizon. It takes a while to get used to these features, especially if you are a previous QWERTY Keyboard user.

1) To quickly bring up the Storm's onscreen keyboard, swipe your finger upward from the very bottom of the screen to the middle.
2) To quickly hide the Storm's keyboard, swipe your finger downward from the top of the keyboard to the very bottom of the device's screen.
3) Special characters can be typed via Storm in both portrait (vertical) and landscape (horizontal) views. To enter in a special character while in portrait or landscape mode, bring up the on-screen keyboard, touch "any character " key, but don't click it, a number of options appear on screen. To choose that character, simply click it on screen.
4) To activate number lock, bring up the onscreen keyboard and then hold down the "123" key for about two seconds until a lock appears on that button. The number pad will then stay on screen until you either hide it or tap the "123" key again to return to the normal keyboard layout.
5) To activate capital lock, bring up the onscreen keyboard and then hold down the "Shift/Arrow Up" key for about two seconds until a lock appears on that button. The number pad will then stay on screen until you either hide it or tap the "Shift/Arrow Up" key again to return to the normal keyboard layout.
Stay tuned for more tips and tricks on using your Blackberry storm. In my next blogs I will explore the Web browser and give you my top 5 Tips & Tricks.