The BlackBerry Storm Party You Missed

There was a lot of noise surrounding the much anticipated and soon-to-be-released BlackBerry Storm Wednesday night but it wasn't thunder. Queens of the Stone Age and Foo Fighters performed at a Storm launch party sponsored by manufacturer RIM and exclusive U.S. carrier Verizon Wireless at the Avalon Hollywood club.



With an assortment of celebrities and a bunch of lucky people who texted their requests to attend on hand it was, by all accounts, a great party. As far as news about the Storm goes...there really doesn't seem to have been much news about the Storm.

Earlier this week there was a good deal of semi-official sounding talk that the Verizon Storm 9530 would debut in Verizon Wireless corporate stores on November 15^th followed by Best Buy on the 16^th and other Verizon Wireless retailers the next day. It also appeared from these reports that Vodaphone would be first to release the Storm 9500 on November 11^th. Though no authoritative information regarding dates was presented at the party, the general feeling seems to be that it will be much later in November. Speculation is that the software is not running smoothly enough to go to market.

Sadly we've been through a lot of turmoil regarding new BlackBerries this year associated with the on-again-off-again release of the Bold on AT&T. Even now with an apparently rock solid release date of November 4^th, it's tempting not to believe it entirely.

Here's what we can say with certainty. The BlackBerry Storm 9530 will be launched in the U.S. by Verizon Wireless on November 15^th, or a date much later in November, or some other date as yet to be determined. We can also be sure that there is a lot riding on the release of the first touch screen BlackBerry and we'd rather see it live up to quality expectations than to meet a release date imposed by the marketing department.

Check out other Storm contenders in our smartphone reviews. And don't forget the party going on with our other blog posts:

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