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Blackberry Storm 9530, Verizon Wireless, very good for streaming!

Inclusion of images and links to accessories on this website are for user-convenience only and do not constitue endorsement of the individual products or vendors by Savannah Radio Online. The information in this document is intended to be informative, but not all-inclusive. There is no one solution that covers everyone's particular situation. Your mileage may vary.

The BlackBerry Storm 9530 is a multi-functional smartphone suitable for many business and personal applications. Although our purpose here is to evaluate its ability to stream audio, it turns-out that the phone is pretty functional on many levels, and the sound quality of phone calls is better than average.

As an internet streaming audio player, it works very well, but only after it gets a little help.

The media player which comes with the unit might be well-suited for MP3 & video playback, but its performance for streaming audio leaves much to be desired.

The built-in media player can only play our MP3 streams, and not the more efficient AAC+ streams. Also, it cannot sustain a consistent playback in a moving vehicle, with maddening drop-outs lasting anywhere from a second or two, to 10, 20, 30 seconds, sometimes never coming back until the user stops the player and restarts the stream, something that we are unwilling to do more than about once per hour-or-so. It seems to work reasonably well in a fixed location, but get in a moving vehicle with it and you'll seek some other form of entertainment within a minute or two.

Fortunately, there are other media players which can be downloaded to the phone, one of which works superbly!

It's called BerryTunes, and you can download it from the Crackberry store (click here for that).

BerryTunes is not an elegant piece of software - it's not going to win any beauty contests. It's basically a list of links that you can click, and has no cool graphics or gizmos or any perks of any kind, other than the fact that it actually does stream internet radio consistently and effectively. It ain't pretty but, unlike the other BlackBerry media players we tested, it does what it says it will do, and does it very well.

BerryTunes comes with a price of about $20~$25, but there is a demo version that you can use for 7 days for evaluation prior to purchase.

The overall evaluation: after driving over hundreds of miles using this phone, carrier, and software combination, the stream only drops out occasionally, especially after disabling all the blips & bings that the phone wants to make whenever a new SMS or email is detected.. I've since consistenty gotten hours of continuous, un-interrupted playback while driving, on road trips, for example, except when the phone rings. The stream stops when the phone rings, then has to be restarted after the call is complete. After a time, I came to know where to expect the stream to drop out, and when to restart it when it does.

BerryTunes can play all of our streams, including the efficient AAC+ streams, which we recommend for cellphone use.

You'll have to manually add our stations to listen to them. Click here for instructions.

Note that the BlackBerry, even using the after-market media players we tested, cannot play Microsoft-encoded streams. There may be a player which can, but none of those which we evaluated can. This will pose no problem listening to our streams, but if there is a Windows Media stream that you'd to receive on your cell, then your search continues.

Our initial road-test route included Veteran's Parkway to Chatham Parkway, over to Highway 80, then to Dean Forrest Road, to Highway 21, back up through Garden City to Montgomery Street, to downtown Savannah out to Wilmington Island via the Islands Expressway, back up to Skidaway Road to LaRoche, down to the Isle of Hope, back up through Sandfly, out to Skidaway Island, then back up Waters Ave. to Eisenhower to Abercorn and back to our office. We've covered a lot of ground, and this phone, with this software (BerryTunes), on the Verizon network, well exceeded our expectations. Drop outs are most common on the Veterans Parkway near Chatham Parkway, on the bridge in Thunderbolt, and about a 1/4 mile circle around the intersection of Islands Expressway and Highway 80 near Wilmington Island.

Coverage will vary based on phone model, player software used, and the network on which the phone is used.

The images at the top of the page are, of course, the phone, a car charger, and a multi-outlet to convert a single power point (or cigarette lighter jack) into, in this case, 3 outlets. You'll need this device if you have to use some FM modulators, described next, but the FM modulator pictured to the left has a USB charging jack, which you can use with the data cable that comes with the BlackBerry for charging. If you use this particular FM modulator (click the pic to the left for more info) along with the data cable, or if you use a cassette adaptor or direct connection (both described below), you won't need the multi-outlet adapter.

You need to have some means of charging the phone while streaming, or you'll use-up your battery's charge pretty quickly.

The three images to the left are all devices which can be used to get audio from the phone into your car stereo system. The upper image is an FM modulator which will allow you to receive your selected stream via the vehicle's FM receiver. The middle image is a cassette adapter. This device plays like a cassette, but has no tape. It takes audio from the headphone jack of the phone and magnetically couples the sound into the cassette deck of your car stereo.

If you have a cassette deck, then this is the preferred method, over the FM modulator.

FM modulators can be susceptible to interference from FM broadcasters, making these devices less optimal than their cassette conterparts. If you, like me, just never listen to FM, then you can pull the antenna off of the car and toss it in the trunk to solve this problem.

The last image is of the ends of a 6' audio patch cord with 1/8" phone plugs on either end. If you are lucky enough to have an auxilliary input on your car stereo, with an accessible 1/8" phone jack, then this is the hands-down best method for connecting your phone to your car stereo.

Note that the volume setting on the phone has a direct impact on the overall sound quality. You'll want to set the car stereo's volume control to a normal setting, then use the volume buttons on the phone to get the appropriate volume level. Once this is done, you can just adjust the car stereo's volume if you need to 'crank-it-up' for a minute. Once you've done this a couple of times, it's a snap.

You can get much more information about the BlackBerry Storm at your nearest Cellular Sales outlet, or you can call (or email) Kii Musgrow at (912) 507-3400.

Happy listening!

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