It’s not surprising as we’ve seen these sorts of acts in the past, but Verizon is really pushing it by comparing the Pre to the BlackBerry Storm. I’ve had my Pre for just a few short days and I’m already itching to ditch my Curve and skip on over to Sprint for the Pre. Anyway, hit the jump to check out all the Verizon propaganda.

Great news: The Blackberry Storm is finally usable. Most of our issues with the phone were resolved with the first official Verizon update for the Storm. It’s now a quality phone that’s worthy of the BlackBerry name.

As of Sunday, May 31, the update is available via either directly from the support section of VZW.com or from an OTA download. We downloaded the update over the air yesterday and it took about 2 hours for the 19MB update - the servers were probably running at full capacity. Once it finished downloading and installing, we were instantly pleased.

First it was AT&T mouthing off about carrying the Palm Pre and now Verizon’s CEO Lowell McAdam is stating that VZW will begin selling the Palm Pre “over the next six months or so…” Also mentioned was the Storm 2 by McAdam, which will also go on sale in the same time frame. Side note: Palm shares went up 11 points while Sprint’s went down 3 points after this announcement.

So what are we looking at here? It’s a suspended, completely self-contained watch with nine hands that turn in wild abandon. The thing is inside a massive steel case and looks as cool as all get out.

I’m not a huge Storm fan but this one seems to speak to me as a man who likes big watches. It costs about $170 on a steel bracelet and $199 on a “slate” bracelet. You can pick it up at Watchismo, my favorite watch site.

We’re not the biggest fans of the BlackBerry Storm. Apparently that’s ’cause it was RIM’s first touchscreen device and we, as early adopters, should have expected this type of buggy device per the CEO. Sure, it’s a first-gen phone, but we expected more from Research in Motion. Didn’t you? Laptop Mag sat down with the CEO of RIM who spoke frankly about the craptastic Storm.

Outside of the iPhone and the G1, very few phones fuel the forum flamewars like the BlackBerry Storm. As the first touchscreen BlackBerry, it was bound to have some haters. Whether you’ve been enamored since day one or a zealous skeptic since the beginning, the phone has one fault that is undeniably unfortunate: no WiFi.

There’s nothing that can be done on the WiFi front for the original Storm - but what about take two?

No matter how you feel right now about the BlackBerry Storm, watch this video; it’s impressive as hell. Basically what first started as a geek side project of stuffing a Bluetooth receiver in a little RC car was recreated by Lewis Hamilton’s F1 team. Towards the end of the video too, the champ takes the Storm and sends the Formula One car racing away.

I have been using a BlackBerry Storm for about a month now and have came to like the phone. While I don’t have an iPhone love affair going on, it’s a solid phone I wouldn’t not recommended. (understand?) It has its quarks like any phone, but the single most annoying feature could - and should - be resolved by Research in Motion.

You see the Storm auto rotates everything unlike the iPhone where only certain apps switch to landscape view. That’s fine with me for apps and such. Auto rotating the main menu/app menu doesn’t add any usability and in fact, is frustratingly annoying. Half the time the phone takes a few seconds to change orientation causing random bad thoughts to race through my head while the phone decides what to do. But mainly, there is no reason to have the home screen rotate and RIM needs to address this aggravating trademark of the Storm.

Man, BlackBerry Storm users are gettin’ the unofficial goods left and right as of late. While the rest of us get to wait for updates to pass through weeks of carrier certification, it seems like someone is leaking these Storm firmware updates every time the code looks stable. This latest leak bumps the (unofficial) version numbers up to OS 4.7.0.106 for the BlackBerry Storm 9500 (GSM) and OS 4.7.0.103 for the BlackBerry Storm 9530 (Verizon’s CDMA model).

The BlackBerry Storm might have its faults, but I’ll give RIM one thing: they’re certainly cranking out these firmware updates at breakneck speed. Of course, no matter how fast they get the updates out, people will get ants in their pants - which is why it’s always good news when a leak like this one occurs.

The latest unreleased firmware for the Blackberry Storm (aka le lump of poo) has leaked is now available over at CrackBerry forums.