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The iPad Now Can Take Command of Computers

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 02:03:08 +0000

It has long been possible to control one PC or Mac from another, legally and with permission. Though the process can be tricky to set up, companies often use it as a maintenance and training tool, and some consumers use it to help others solve computer problems, or to reach back to their home or office machines while on the road to access information.

But what about remotely controlling a PC or Mac from the newest category of digital device, a multitouch tablet? Well, it turns out there are apps for that.

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Such apps have been around on super-smart phones like the iPhone for years, but phone screens are so small that using them to open and operate programs and folders on a Mac or PC is very frustrating, at least to me. The iPad, with its roomy 10-inch screen, is a different story. It actually has the real estate to make the process much more practical.

I’ve been testing a couple of these apps on my iPad, using them to remotely control Windows PCs and Macs at my home and office. In fact, I’m typing this paragraph in Microsoft Word on a Mac remotely from the iPad.

My conclusion is that these apps do work, but even on the large iPad screen, they’re too clumsy and confusing to use on a regular basis, mostly because touch-screen tablets aren’t a great match for the way traditional computers—designed for a mouse and a physical keyboard—work. Also, the apps have some functional limitations, and they are heavily dependent on the speed of the network or Internet connection, which can make them slow at demanding things like video.

A view of a Windows PC on an iPad via LogMeIn Ignition.

For my tests, I selected two apps squarely aimed at average consumers. One is called LogMeIn Ignition, and is the iPad and iPhone incarnation of a longstanding computer-to-computer remote-control product called LogMeIn. The other is called iTeleport. It has been around, under various names, since the early days of the iPhone, and now comes in an iPad edition as well.

Both apps get around the complexity of setup by installing a special free program on the computer you wish to control that talks to the iPad app. The apps can see and control all the computers on which you have installed companion programs. I found setup easy and the connections generally reliable and fast enough, except for video.

But the big drawback to these products is that they are clumsy in controlling the target computer. Each allows two basic methods for this. In one, your finger moves the computer’s mouse cursor and you click the virtual mouse by tapping. In the other, you can directly tap on things on the remote screen. In my view, LogMeIn was better at the first method and iTeleport was better at the second. But I found both clumsy and tedious in both programs, especially when I tried to combine controlling the remote computer with the frequent need to use touch to move the image of the screen around the iPad’s display.

LogMeIn Ignition costs a one-time fee of $29.99. The iTeleport app can be used free for 30 days, after which it costs either $2.99 a month or a $24.99 one-time fee. For the next seven days, iTeleport is running a sale that cuts the price to $1 a month, or $10 for the one-time fee.

Both apps can control multiple Windows or Mac computers, at no extra cost. For my tests, I used each to remotely access the same two Windows PCs and two Macs, both desktops and laptops. One limitation: neither app allows you to transfer a file from a computer to the iPad.

While there are some differences between the products, they are fundamentally similar. Once you log in, you see the remote computer’s screen on your iPad screen. In my tests, with both products, I was able to open Web pages, check email, view photos and use productivity apps. I also was able to print documents from the computers on my home printer, even while I was miles away.

In both apps, you pinch and zoom to enlarge or reduce the view of the target computer screen, and can rotate the image of the screen.

The iPad can’t play Flash videos, but these apps allow you to view such videos from your PC or Mac on the iPad. But there are catches. For one thing, neither program lets you hear audio from the computer through the iPad, so the videos (and music you play remotely) are mute. Also, in my tests, even over a fast connection, I could never get a video from the remote computer to play smoothly over either app.

LogMeIn also offers a version for Android, unlike iTeleport, and that allows audio to be transmitted. I tested this on a Samsung Galaxy Tab, and it worked.

One big difference is in the level of security or privacy the two apps offer. Both encrypt the remote connection, but LogMeIn requires you to sign in twice: once to its own service and once to the computer itself. iTeleport skips the computer login, so it feels less secure. In addition, iTeleport outsources its authentication to Google. You sign into the product using your Google credentials. This is simpler, but requires you to trust Google with the privacy of the contents of your computer.

Each program has special keyboards and shortcuts to add things to the iPad that computers use but the tablet lacks, such as function keys. Each also has various gestures you can use as shortcuts. But the overall effect is confusing.

Bottom line: You can control a PC or a Mac from an iPad, without any complex setup, using these two apps. But, unless you spend a lot of time learning to get good at it, the process is clunky and best used only when you absolutely must.

Find all Walt Mossberg’s columns and videos at the All Things Digital website, walt.allthingsd.com.

Write to Walter S. Mossberg at mossberg@wsj.com

Lenovo Rethinks Design and Price of the ThinkPad

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 01:12:32 +0000

Lenovo is rethinking the ThinkPad.

For years, the iconic laptop brand, originally created by IBM, has been known for solid construction and great keyboards, but with a boxy black design and relatively high prices. It has a business orientation, though it also has been the choice of some tech-savvy consumers willing to pay a little more and forego flashy style touches.

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IBM (IBM) and Lenovo, a Chinese-owned company that bought the brand in 2005, have at times been bold with the ThinkPad’s engineering. For instance, in 2008, Lenovo launched a very thin but full-width line, the X300 series, which uses cutting-edge materials and goes to head-to-head with Apple’s (AAPL) ultrathin MacBook Air.

But Lenovo has been reluctant to tinker much with the ThinkPad’s design. It has retained the classic but boring black-box look and preserved the solid, comfortable keyboard.

Now, to broaden the brand’s appeal, the company has decided to depart from that template. It has just launched two new ThinkPads at uncharacteristically low prices, with new designs, sizes and colors, and—shudder—a revamped keyboard.

I’ve been testing the two new models, and, in general, I like them. They are the least expensive ThinkPads ever offered, and the first available in a color choice other than black. Each can be ordered in red as well. Also, one is the first ThinkPad in years that is a mini-notebook, rather than a full-size laptop.

Lenovo’s new ThinkPad X100e.

One of these two new models, the X100e, is a small, netbook-like machine with an 11.6-inch screen—starting at $449, though the upgraded configuration I reviewed costs $599. The company refuses to call the X100e a netbook. Its keyboard, screen and resolution are better than what many netbooks offer, but it’s also heavier.

The other new line is called the ThinkPad Edge. It’s a full-size machine, with a 13.3-inch screen, that is more rounded than traditional ThinkPads, and has a silvery band around its edges. It starts at $579, though the step-up configuration I reviewed costs $799.

Both machines retain the solid feel of a ThinkPad. Neither is the lightest computer in its size class, though they’re not overly heavy. The little X100e weighs 3.3 pounds and the Edge weighs 3.6 pounds with its base battery, and 3.9 pounds with a larger battery.

And both retain a classic ThinkPad feature—the TrackPoint, a small red nub in the middle of the keyboard that can be used to move the cursor. It is an alternative to the touchpad that each machine also includes.

In my tests, both new ThinkPads proved snappy, though neither has the latest or most potent processors. Both ran Windows 7 fine, and handled well a variety of popular software—Microsoft Office, Firefox, iTunes and Adobe Reader. One caveat: The test units Lenovo sent me had twice the standard memory of base models. And my test Edge had a more powerful processor.

Under my tough battery test, where I turn off power-saving software, keep Wi-Fi on, set the screen at maximum brightness, and play a continuous loop of music, the X100e’s battery lasted 3 hours and 44 minutes. In normal use, you could likely get 4½ hours or more.

The Edge had a battery time of 4 hours and 16 minutes, so you could likely get over 5 hours in normal use. But the costlier Edge configuration I tested had a larger battery than the base unit, so would likely last only two-thirds as long.

Start-up times on the two were respectable for a Windows PC: ready to go from cold start in just over a minute. The touchpads on both also feature multitouch gestures, like the ability to use your fingers to resize or rotate photos.

What about the new keyboards? Instead of the closely packed, large, scooped keys that ThinkPad loyalists love, the X100e and Edge have “island-style” keyboards, with distinctly separated, flatter-looking letter and number keys. The Backspace, Shift, Enter and Tab keys are large and prominent. Lenovo eliminated the little-used SysReq, Scroll Lock and Pause keys.

I found the letter and number keys to be comfortable, accurate and fast, with a solid, reliable feel—even on the smaller X100e. Lenovo explains this is because the letter and number key tops aren’t really flat, but have the same curve as the tops of classic ThinkPad keys.

But the new keyboard has compromises. On the Edge, the Delete key was too small and insufficiently prominent. On both devices, the Home, End, Page Up and Page Down keys are far apart, and the latter two are tiny and hard to press, especially on the Edge. The Num Lock key and virtual numeric keyboard are gone.

All in all, ThinkPad lovers looking to save money, and other PC users considering a ThinkPad, might find these new models worth a try.

Find all of Walt Mossberg’s columns and videos online, free of charge, at the All Things Digital Web site, walt.allthingsd.com. Email him at mossberg@wsj.com.

Second Chances: T-Mobile Tries Again

Katherine Boehret — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 00:08:02 +0000

As the saying goes, you never get a second chance to make a first impression. But it never hurts to try. This week, I tested the T-Mobile myTouch 3G with Google (GOOG), which is the company’s second chance at introducing a “Google phone” to the masses.

Google’s first device, called the T-Mobile G1, came out in October and was less than a sensation. The phone had a touch screen and a handy slide-out physical keyboard, but it was bulky and unattractive. It came with just one gigabyte of memory and lacked important features like compatibility with Microsoft Exchange for use with work email. Its app store, called the Android Market, offered only about 50 applications. The G1 launched with surprisingly few accessories.

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The $200 (with two-year contract) T-Mobile myTouch 3G (t-mobilemytouch.com) available Aug. 5, has fixed many of these problems. Its new design uses an on-screen keyboard, which gives it a thinner, more stylish build that feels great in the hand. It now comes with four gigabytes of memory, works with Microsoft Exchange and can record and play back video footage. The Android Market has increased its number of apps to about 6,300, and the myTouch will hit stores with accessories like designer shells and docking stations. Its combined voice and data plans are at least $25 less per month than what AT&T’s (T) plans cost for users of Apple’s competing iPhone.

But while using it, I couldn’t help thinking that the myTouch felt less like a new device and more like what the G1 should have been in the first place.

The myTouch, which is built by HTC of Taiwan, runs on an improved version of Google’s operating system, that performs tasks faster has a more streamlined look and supports stereo Bluetooth connections. But it carries on many traits of its predecessor. It still synchronizes over the air with Google account information including email, calendar and contacts. Swiping a finger to the left or right on the myTouch’s home screen will still open other screens, with space for icons representing apps. And its handy window-shade-like Notifications menu can still be pulled down onto the screen at any time to show a list of new messages.

The most dramatic difference on the myTouch is its on-screen keyboard, which may frustrate some people who liked the G1 for its because it had a physical keyboard and a touch screen. Like on Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone, the myTouch keyboard corrects words as you type, recognizing you’ll make more mistakes on it than you would on a physical keyboard. The keyboard suggests words in a horizontal bar that appears above the keyboard and below the text area. You need only type “Washi” and the word “Washington” appears in this bar for you to select. These shortcuts speed up the otherwise frustrating process of on-screen typing.

Unlike on the iPhone, the myTouch keyboard’s keys don’t get larger as your finger hovers over them so as to help you touch the right key. Nor does a word become magnified when you’re trying to place the cursor at a certain spot. The myTouch’s trackball can be used to pinpoint a specific letter but I usually forgot all about the trackball, opting to use the responsive touch screen for navigation.

T-Mobile offers much less expensive monthly plans for the myTouch than AT&T offers for the iPhone. The cheapest voice and data plan from T-Mobile costs $55 compared with AT&T’s $70. Unlimited data and messaging plus minimum voice plans total $65 for T-Mobile and $90 for AT&T. And AT&T’s messaging is currently limited to text, while T-Mobile messaging includes text, picture and video.

On the other hand, T-Mobile offers 3G coverage in far fewer cities than AT&T. The myTouch comes with only a fourth of the built-in memory of the same-priced the 3GS iPhone, and half the memory of the 3G iPhone model, which is costs half the price. And myTouch offers only about a tenth of the apps the iPhone offers, and has a smaller screen.

T-Mobile wants myTouch users to understand apps and download them, starting with the AppPack: a package of eight to 10 apps that T-Mobile will send to myTouch customers via an SMS with a link. Customers can peruse this list of apps and download just the ones they choose. While some people may not appreciate receiving apps suggestions, it could also introduce apps to people who didn’t know how they worked.

The Android Market, where all apps for Google’s phones can be found and purchased,still isn’t as well organized as it should be. It separates games from other applications and organizes them by popularity and date, but doesn’t separate those that are free and those that must be bought. I downloaded several free apps including WordGame, Facebook, Twitter, Sketch-a-Etch and Sherpa. But I was especially irked by the way some of the apps I downloaded kept trying to get me to download additional apps every time I opened them. The Twitter app, which was listed as one of the most popular, displayed prompts to download browsers and RSS readers—even six days after I first used the app. An on-screen message gave me the option to “Ignore Forever,” but this apparently didn’t include prompts to download other programs. Any user would be confused and irritated by these unsolicited messages. Google said that was what the developer chose to do—a major downside to the Android’s open model.

The myTouch’s 3.2-megapixel camera and video camera worked well and started up quickly. An icon labeled Gallery neatly holds still images and videos. And the myTouch has simple ways to upload photos to Picasa or videos to YouTube.

A built-in tool for Google Web searches using voice commands worked remarkably well, even when I tried to trip it up by saying four words at once. It didn’t recognize my last name, but I’ll let it off the hook since it’s spelled differently than it sounds.

The T-Mobile myTouch 3G costs $50 more than the G1, but its extra features are worthwhile. Be ready for a frustrating first-time experience with the on-screen keyboard and try to read user comments in the Android Market to figure out which apps prompt you to download additional programs.

The myTouch is what we expected from Google the first time around. Time will tell if people are ready to give it a second chance.

—Edited by Walter S. Mossberg.

Write to
Katherine Boehret at mossbergsolution@wsj.com

Family Snapshots in the Splendor of HD

Katherine Boehret — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 01:28:02 +0000

This Thanksgiving, families across the country will gather around the television just as quickly as they gather around the turkey. And with good reason: Many people will be staring at beautiful high-definition TV sets. (According to the Consumer Electronics Association, 47% of U.S. households had HDTVs as of July, a percentage that’s likely to increase as the date for analog-to-digital conversion approaches.) But if Eastman Kodak (EK) has its way, many people will be gathered round the TV this holiday season, gazing at family memories in full HD splendor.

The Kodak Theatre HD Player’s motion-sensing pointer remote works much like a mouse on a TV screen.

This week I tested the Kodak Theatre HD Player, the photo-centric company’s attempt to snag valuable real estate in the living room. This small, black box pulls photos and videos from computers around the house and displays them on an HDTV. It also enables the sending and receiving of photos via Kodak Gallery, and connects to Web-based photos stored on Flickr, Facebook, Picasa, .Mac and others. Podcasts, Internet Radio and updates from news feeds, weather forecasts and stock quotes are also accessible using the HD Player. And it has a terrifically simple motion-sensing remote that works like using a mouse on a TV screen.

But the HD Player isn’t all smiles. Its $299 price doesn’t include any built-in storage for keeping content directly on the device. It currently has no way of accessing HD movies or television shows, nor will it work with Macs. In comparison, Apple’s (AAPL) $229 Apple TV has 40 gigabytes of storage, can access HD television shows and movies via the iTunes Store, and works with Macs and Windows PCs. This is important because as budgets tighten in the current economy, gadgets have to prove their value and versatility more than ever.

After using the Kodak Theatre HD Player with Windows XP and Vista machines over the past week, I can conclude that this device’s interface shines in its simplicity and is a lot of fun to use. Kodak teamed with Hillcrest Labs to make the player’s motion-sensitive remote and corresponding software, which includes satisfying extra features like images that automatically magnify when the remote control’s cursor points at them and icons that make chirping sounds when selected. The remote itself is shaped to rest comfortably in a hand and has three simple buttons and a scroll wheel.

Quick-access memory-card slots for six types of memory cards appear on the box’s front, and two USB ports can connect to digital cameras or USB storage devices.

Currently, the player’s software works directly with Flickr, RadioTime (8,750 radio stations) and FrameChannel, which grants access to various “channels” like Facebook, .Mac, Picasa, People.com news and National Geographic. Kodak says it will incorporate YouTube access in January; I got a sneak peek at the interface for this and it looks well-organized.

Yet the HD Player’s smart combination of software and remote left me wishing it did a bit more. Photo sharing is enabled only via Kodak Gallery, so you can’t use another Web-based account to share photos directly from your TV. Likewise, a blue light on the box slowly blinks only when new Picture Mail (a message containing shared photos) is received on a Kodak Gallery account, not when new photos are added on other sources such as Flickr Photostreams or Facebook pages.

The Home screen of the HD Player shows four categories: Pictures & Videos, Kodak Gallery, Music and Entertainment. Subcategories are where you might guess they would be, for example podcasts are listed under Entertainment. And a tiny Home icon appears in the top right corner of every screen so you can always get Home with one click. The Pictures & Videos category holds photos and videos from a currently selected Windows PC.

An unlimited number of Windows PCs can wirelessly pair with the player as long as they have special Kodak software installed on them. But only one PC’s content can be accessed at a time. I toggled between two paired computers without a problem, but would’ve preferred accessing music and photos from both sources simultaneously.

The HD Player’s motion-sensing pointer remote works much like a Wii remote control. Wherever you move it, a tiny leaf-shaped cursor appears on-screen. A Hide button on the remote will hide the cursor while you watch slideshows. The remote’s Back button is helpful; when pressed, it backs you out of one screen using visual effects that make the screen shrink into the TV as if you were moving backward.

A play button appears on the first photo in a folder so users can select this icon to quickly start slideshows. Whenever the HD Player receives new Kodak Gallery Picture Mail, or a slideshow is created on a connected PC, yellow alert circles appear on the screen to notify users and a number in the middle of these yellow circles indicates how many new items are available for viewing.

Some content on my PCs took a little while to be recognized by the HD Player, including podcasts that I subscribe to on iTunes. When they did show up, both audio and video podcasts played without issue and on-screen playback buttons made them easy to control.

The HD Player uses your photos to create automatically generated slideshows, called Picture Chronicles, once a week. These Picture Chronicles use up to 50 photos from the same time of year in all of your folders, for instance grouping all Thanksgiving photos together from the past five years.

Kodak has plans to make its player Mac-compatible in the future and also hopes to add other partnerships with new types of content following its YouTube announcement early next year.

The Kodak Theatre HD Player does its job well, bringing photos and videos that might otherwise live only on your PC to your big screen HDTV. For the holidays, this device could be a real plus. But Kodak has some work to do to make this a more useful Web-connected tool.

Edited by Walter S. Mossberg

Email us at mossbergsolution@wsj.com. Find this and other columns and videos online free at the All Things Digital Web site: http://walt.allthingsd.com

BlackBerry's Storm Presses Into the Touch-Phone Fray

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 02:32:02 +0000

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. These folks scorn Apple’s popular iPhone, whose keyboard is virtual and must be operated by tapping on the screen.

But, on Friday, Verizon Wireless and Research in Motion (RIMM), the BlackBerry’s maker, will do the unthinkable: They will introduce a BlackBerry model without a physical keyboard, one where typing and navigating require tapping on glass, just as users do on the iPhone. This new model is called the BlackBerry Storm, and will sell for $250 with a two-year contract, though a $50 mail-in rebate can bring the price down close to the $199 that Apple (AAPL) charges for the base model of the iPhone.

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Despite its lack of a keyboard, the Storm is a real BlackBerry in every other respect, with push email, corporate features and the familiar BlackBerry menus. In many respects, the Storm is a touch-based, large-screen version of the recently released BlackBerry Bold, which is the most polished version of a traditional BlackBerry. It is also the latest member of the new class of hand-held computers, the super-smart phone category kicked off by the iPhone last year and joined by the Google G1 earlier this year.

The Storm sports a large, high-resolution touch screen that fills most of its surface and automatically switches from portrait to landscape mode when the phone is turned. There’s also a forthcoming souped-up download store for third-party software, meant to be similar to the ones on the iPhone and the Google (GOOG) phone. And the Storm can even be used in European and other countries where most Verizon (VZ) phones don’t work.

BlackBerry Storm’s touch screen switches from portrait to landscape mode when turned, and aims to make typing on glass feel more like typing on a real keyboard.

However, the biggest innovation in the Storm is a clever feature RIM hopes will give it a big advantage over the iPhone. When you strike a key or icon on the Storm’s screen, you feel a physical sensation, as if you were pressing down on a real key or button. That’s because you are, in fact, pressing a real button. The entire glass display is one large button, mounted on a mechanical substructure that allows it to be depressed when pressure is applied.

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 also replaces the side-mounted scroll wheel or track ball on other BlackBerrys for activating menu choices and icons.

But, in my tests, this physical feedback feature, which RIM calls SurePress, didn’t magically turn the Storm’s touch interface and virtual keyboard into their physical counterparts. The feature does provide a more reassuring confirmation that a key has been struck or an icon has been clicked than the mere visual feedback one receives from the iPhone. 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.

In my opinion, using the Storm’s keyboard is much more like using the iPhone’s keyboard than a traditional BlackBerry’s. I found that I could type quite well on the Storm after awhile, but that a greater adjustment, and more practice, were required than with a physical keyboard.

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. This keyboard design relies on software to guess which letter you meant to press. You can also switch to a virtual cellphone-style keypad that requires you to hit each key multiple times.

From left, BlackBerry Storm, Google G1, and iPhone 3G

This is a curious design decision. Once a company ditches a physical keyboard for a virtual one, it can create all kinds of keyboard variations. RIM could have offered a full, vertically oriented keyboard, even if it would have had smaller, more closely spaced keys.

RIM also failed to customize the Storm’s virtual keyboard for some common, specific tasks. For instance, on the iPhone, when you are typing in a Web address in the browser, the keyboard morphs to offer a convenient key that automatically enters “.com”. Not so on the Storm.

There’s another glaring deficit in the Storm: It lacks Wi-Fi capability. This means that, unlike on the Bold, the iPhone or the Google G1, if high-speed cellphone data service is absent or pokey, you can’t fall back on speedy Wi-Fi connections in public places. And, at home or in the office, you can’t take advantage of Wi-Fi connections that are often much faster than cellphone data networks.

The Storm has some important advantages over the iPhone. Its screen, while 7% smaller physically, offers about 13% higher resolution. Photos and videos look beautiful on it. It has much better battery life for phone calls than either the iPhone or the Google G1. While the latter two phones deliver just under their claimed five hours of talk time, in my tests, the Storm lasted a bit over six hours, which is actually half an hour more than its claimed 5.5 hours of talk time. And the Storm has a removable battery, unlike its Apple rival.

This new BlackBerry comes with more memory than the similarly priced base model of the iPhone — nine gigabytes versus eight gigabytes. And, unlike the iPhone’s memory, the Storm’s is expandable, via larger flash cards.

The Storm’s camera is much better than the iPhone’s, at 3.2 megapixels, versus just 2 megapixels for the Apple device. It also has zoom and flash, features the iPhone’s camera lacks. And, unlike the iPhone or the Google G1, the Storm can record videos. In my tests, all of these camera features worked well.

Also, the Storm has copy and paste functionality; MMS (a service for sending photos directly to other phones without using email); voice dialing; and the ability to act as a modem for your laptop. It also allows you to edit, and not just to view, Microsoft (MSFT) Office documents. All of these features are missing from the iPhone out of the box.

The Storm also has a better speaker than the iPhone, and a noise-canceling microphone system. Phone calls, even on speaker phone, were crisp, clear and plenty loud. Physically, the Storm is attractive but hardly svelte. While it’s about the same length and width as the iPhone, it is 15% thicker and 17% heavier — almost as heavy as the chunky G1.

The Verizon high-speed network on which the Storm runs is older and better-established than either the T-Mobile (DT) high-speed system the G1 uses or the AT&T (T) 3G network used by the current iPhone. Where Verizon’s high-speed data coverage is strong, the Storm flies.

But, because it lacks Wi-Fi, the Storm can be much slower at Web access than its main competitors. I tested these Web speeds in two hotels in Silicon Valley. In the first, where Verizon reception was strong, the Storm trounced the iPhone on cellphone data speeds, averaging over 800 kilobits per second to the iPhone’s 621 kbps over AT&T. But, when I switched the iPhone to use the hotel’s Wi-Fi network, it beat the Storm by 100 kbps or so.

At the second hotel, barely a mile away, the Storm’s lack of Wi-Fi hurt much more. There, Verizon’s signal was poor, and data speeds on the Storm averaged a horrible 96 kbps. But the iPhone on AT&T averaged 459 kbps, and on Wi-Fi the iPhone averaged 785 kbps.

My test Storm, which was a near-final model missing only a few minor software tweaks, was also sluggish at some tasks. It took noticeably longer than the iPhone to flip the first photo from landscape to portrait orientation, or to start the process of flipping through a series of photos by swiping them with a finger. And some other tasks were also slow. It’s possible that production models will be quicker.

Rim has tweaked the familiar BlackBerry user interface for the touch screen, and in general these changes worked well. You select the menu item or icon you want with a light touch, then press down on the screen to activate or confirm your choice. There are even a couple of cool new touch features. For instance, in a list of emails, if you lightly touch and hold one entry, the Storm shows you all messages in that thread.

But this combination of a light touch followed by a hard press on the large screen took some practice, just like typing did. It befuddled several BlackBerry veterans at first.

And some common tasks took more steps than on the iPhone. For instance, emailing a link from a Web page required four steps on the Storm, versus two on the Apple device. The Storm’s email system will be familiar to every BlackBerry user. It has the same corporate email features as other BlackBerrys, and I was easily able as well to use a BlackBerry Internet email account and to set up several personal email accounts, including Gmail.

The Web browser is much improved over the one in older BlackBerry models, and offers multiple ways to view and navigate pages, including one in which a finger moves a cursor, just as on a PC. But I found that panning and zooming in the browser was a bit slower and more awkward than on the iPhone. And, to make some Web sites work properly, I had to dig through menus to change options.

Using the BlackBerry desktop software, I was easily able to synchronize my calendar and contact data over a cable from a Windows PC. (There’s also Mac software for the same task.) But, unlike the iPhone or the G1, the Storm doesn’t offer wireless synchronization from consumer services, only from corporate servers.

The Storm’s multimedia software isn’t as fancy as the iPhone’s, but it’s better than the G1′s, and worked very well in my tests.

Overall, the Storm is a very capable handheld computer that will appeal to BlackBerry users who have been pining for a touch-controlled device with a larger screen. And it offers yet another good option for anyone who is looking to buy one of the new, more powerful, pocket computers.

Find all of Walt Mossberg’s columns and videos online, free, at the All Things Digital Web site, walt.allthingsd.com. Email him at mossberg@wsj.com.