[Handust]

Hi there. I've been waiting for the day when I could finally get my hands on a Storm, and I FINALLY got one last Friday from Best Buy (Verizon stores still didn't have them in stock). Moving from my trusty but less flashy 8703e, I was nervous but excited. I've read just about everything I could find on the Storm for months and knew both the good and the bad, so I was prepared for the possibility that it might not work for me. Needless to say, I was thrilled that the phone is everything I hoped it would be and more. Not that there aren't a few rough edges here and there, but unlike some NYT columnists, I fully expected that as an early-ish adopter and am more than willing to ride things out as each new update rolls out. I absolutely LOVE this phone.

That said, there are a couple of issues that, despite the fact that I'm reading the forums here as fast as I can, I'm not sure if these are things I should be concerned enough to get an exchange for or not. I updated to the .85 beta a couple of days ago without incident and it didn't cause any new issues for me; however, it didn't really fix the couple of issues in question, either.

I've heard mention of a media card inserted issue, as well as a stuck Verizon splash screen, and I'm assuming the issue I am having is one and the same. Every so often, the phone will just restart itself -- maybe 2-5 times a day. At first it would just go dead and I'd have to do a battery pull, but now (I think since the update), it at least reboots on its own without the pull. I also had an issue, when typing in landscape, that if I typed an "e" and my finger lingered around that key too long, the alternate set of "e" characters would pop up which would cause a bug of turning on the camera, but only in part of the screen. Absolutely nothing would close it except a hard reset with the battery pull. I *believe* that this hasn't happened since I updated to .85, but I'm still having the the self-rebooting issue.

My question is, is this a hardware issue or a software issue? In every other possible way I love this phone, so I am very hesitant to exchange it for another phone that doesn't "feel" right to me, after hearing so many other people talk about how much the clicking feel can vary from phone to phone. On the other hand, I don't want to get stuck with something that should be exchanged because I was afraid of a change. If this is something that would eventually be solved by a newer OS update, I'm more than willing to ride it out.

I feel compelled to say, too, that I just don't know how people could not love this phone. I understand how it might not be the RIGHT phone for everyone, but having used it for several days -- and even in spite of the couple of issues -- I think it is one of the best phones ever made, if not THE best. I got an iPod Touch 32g 2 days after I got the Storm and have had the opportunity to play with both. I can absolutely see the appeal that an iPhone must have, but I know that it's not currently the phone for me. If the Storm isn't for them, that's great. I can't imagine anyone calling it a "dud", though. It's really a piece of art, in my opinion.

Handust