Image courtesy of RIM

The BlackBerry Storm & Verizon didn't quite dethrone the iPhone after its introduction late last year. But, RIM didn't become a smartphone powerhouse by giving up easily. The New York Times takes a look at RIM's second attempt at a touchscreen phone...

BlackBerry, Upgraded, Aims to Suit Every User

So, what's new with the Storm 2? Well, according to its product page...

BlackBerry Storm product page

...it has, appropriately enough, has two highlighted new features...

- A redesigned SurePress technology that is said to give the impression of pressing a physical button (vs. the giant click screen effect) when pressing a virtual key on the touch screen
- WiFi: Yes, the original Storm did not provide wireless LAN connectivity! Who thunk of that?

I noticed that the Storm2 also adds GSM voice support to Verizon's native CMDA.

But, these enhancements apparently come with the price of decreased battery life compard to the original Storm. CDMA (voice) standby time drops from 356 hours to 280 hours. And, talk-time dropped from 6 hours to 5.5 hours.