Wow. What a fun few days for all the BlackBerry Storm 2 chasers out there. Since our CrackBerry Podcast last Thursday where we first dropped the notion that some Piezo technology potentially may be implemented within the device, the forums and blogs and youtube have been working overtime to pump out theories of what's actually in there and how it works. Over the weekend, Salomondrin posted up his hands-on video of the Storm where he fully touted the device's use of piezo tech, though the sponge analogy he gave (while easy to grasp) didn't seem quite accurate in terms of actual device usage observations (the glass is still hard). On Sunday I made a post in the forums to try and go back and clarify/layout all of the things that were for sure known/still unknown about the Storm 2's display and yesterday an image popped up to verify that under display are what appear to look like four "buttons" upon which the LCD is attached. Very cool stuff, but we were still at a point of not really knowing what kind of technology was being used (was it actually piezo, something more basic like Storm 1 just executed better, or something altogether different?).
That brings us to today where the fine folks at Engadget just posted several images of a completely ripped apart BlackBerry Storm 9550 to unveil everything that's inside. Their take on it:
... we've got a handful of new pictures showing off that piezoelectronic technology doing its thing. Basically, as we understand it, those four "buttons" which are pictured are more like sensors than buttons. When the device is on, they communicate with the screen and presses on the screen can simulate that familiar "click" that Storm users know all too well. However, when the device is powered off, the screen stays put, as there isn't an actual mechanism to move the screen like there was in the original Storm.
It'll be interesting to get the official low-down on how all this is working one day, but one thing is for sure, it definitely looks to be taking RIM's SurePress technology to a whole new level. Be sure to jump over to Engadget to see plenty more pics and then continue the Storm 2 display discussion in the CrackBerry Forums.
