The Tale of the Scale: BlackBerry Storm 9550 Weighs In Against Siblings and Competition

BlackBerry Storm 9550 Weighs in Same (or slightly more??) than 9530

One of the topics of interest that has popped up more than a few times in the Storm II forum and which I came across again today is in regards to the weight of RIM's next-generation touchscreen BlackBerry. One of these days RIM will acknowledge the existence of the next-generation BlackBerry Storm and when they do we'll get to see its official features and specifications sheet, but since we're all tired of waiting for that to happen I figured it was time to bust out the good 'ole crack(berry) scale and see how the new Storm weighs in against its BlackBerry siblings and the competition (iPhone 3GS).

The original BlackBerry Storm 9530/9500 is a hefty device, so many have been hoping that the Storm 9550/9520 would weigh (a lot) less. The scale doesn't lie though, and by the looks of things the new Storm is just as heavy -- maybe even heavier by a gram or two, at least according to the 9550 in the photo above (very new hardware, unit has WiFi) -- tipping in at just over 6 ounces, or ~170 grams. This shouldn't come as a total surprise though. As we've seen already, the components under the screen are more heavy duty in the 9550 compared to the 9530, and the 9550 does contain WiFi (which I'm assuming may add some heft). Ahh well, RIM can always market the new Storm as good for weight loss. Between pressing in on the SurePress screen and carrying around the extra mass, you can burn more calories in a day using the Storm than another smartphone. I can already see the late-night infomercial. I'll take two please! Joking aside, despite the 9550's weight it feels better than the 9530 in hand.

There are more images of other devices below, which you can click on to zoom in and read the weight measurement. All devices contain their OEM battery as well as a 16GB microSD card. Keep in mind the scale may not be 100% precise down to the nanogram, but should be more than accurate in comparing the devices in sequence as done here for the purpose of this post.