"Moves like a tranquilised yak"? Ouch. After a big build up, RIM's BlackBerry Storm has copped, well, a storm of criticism in its first hands-on reviews. Here's a taste:

(The Storm is released today in the US. Its NZ release is slated for December 1; see techs and specs here).

WIRED
Wired.com says the Storm's haptic buzz when you tap its screen is a nice change after the iPhone's total lack of force feedback, and likes the way the entire screen acts as a kind of giant mouse button to confirm each command: the site says the two features combine to "make text messaging amazing" and says the cut-and-paste (not available on the iPhone) works flawlessly. Overall, the new interface is "a revelation".

But Wired.com rates web surfing so-so and says "Battery life  skews towards the pathetic end of the spectrum. While not as atrocious as the iPhone 3G's, it still ran out of juice after a solid day of use." Like others, its reviewer slams the lack of wi-fi and, more worringly, says the Storm's software suffers from lag with an OS that "moves like a tranquilised yak" as the screen at times taking 5 to 10 seconds to auto re-orientate.

Verdict: buy a Bold, or stick with your iPhone.

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
For Journal tech God Walter Mossberg, it's all about the keyboard, or lack of one. "To its fiercest devotees, one of the best things about the BlackBerry is its carefully designed physical keyboard, which the skilled BlackBerry addict can play like a violin." But as a bit of a CrackBerry addict himself, Walt likes the haptic buzz overall, but struggles with the shift to a virtual keyboard

"The idea behind this feature is to make typing on glass feel much more like typing on a real keyboard, and thus to make the virtual keyboard, and the touch interface, more acceptable to people used to physical keyboards and buttons. This push-down screen [called SurePress] also replaces the side-mounted scroll wheel or track ball on other BlackBerrys for activating menu choices and icons.

He says SurePress and the virtual keyboard beat the iPhone's interface, "But neither I, nor any of the several BlackBerry addicts I asked to try it out, considered typing on the Storm's keyboard to be very similar to using the keyboard of a traditional full-sized BlackBerry."

He continues: "The Storm also has a keyboard oddity that I found annoying, and that may put off others. It presents you with a full virtual keyboard only when you are holding it horizontally. When you hold the Storm vertically, you get a mashed-up keyboard, like the one on the narrower BlackBerry Pearl, which has multiple letters on each key." Given it's all software, why not give users a choice of keyboards at any orientation?, asks Walt.

Like Wired, he likes the 3.2mp camera and the screen, but grouses about th lack of wi-fi - a glaring deficit.

He says call quality is crisp, and a noise-cancelling microphone makes for better speakerphone calls than the iPhone and he also like its global roaming capability.

The web browser is better than previous BlackBerries, but slow to pan and zoom.

PC WORLD
The US edition of PC World finds the Storm "awkward and disappointing" calling the SurePress screen a failed experiment.

Reviewer Yardena Arar "Though RIM generally produces first-rate hardware (especially the QWERTY keyboards that it pioneered on handhelds), I found the Storm awkward to use for everyday data entry tasks. RIM's stated intention in developing its Click-Through technology was to enable users to navigate with the touch screen and to make menu selections (most of which appear in blue when highlighted) with a fingertip; depressing the screen would confirm a selection and initiate the selected action.

"But in my tests, things sometimes didn't work out that way. I'd tap a menu item, for example, but then when I depressed the screen, the selection would somehow shift and a different item would execute."

Arar says at times she was confused what was required of her. She also complains that scrolling is slow. that the web browser lacks onscreen back and forward arrows and that there's no obvious way to get rid of the virtual keyboard when its obscurring something else she wants to see onscreen.

She wraps up: "People who were hoping for a credible iPhone alternative fortified with BlackBerry's strengths as a mobile tool for corporate travelers will likely find the Storm a disappointment. When it comes to touch interfaces, Apple still has no peer."