The Blackberry Torch 9800 is RIM (Research in Motion)'s answer to all the touchscreen madness that seems to be gobbling up the smartphone market place in its sway. The good thing is in opting for a touch sensitive screen, RIM has not compromised on its USP, the full QWERTY key board. The Torch 9800, when looked at from this perspective, is a first as it combines with it both the touchscreen as well as the slide out key board.
Enjoy both the physical key board as well as the touch sensitive screen!
In taking on the competition, RIM has also expanded its colour options and we are actually talking about a edition of the smartphone handset here. If we may add here, with the Blackberry Torch 9800, RIM also went over board doing the marketing bid. Now, this is something that we are more used to happening with the likes of Apple, HTC, Samsung and Sony Ericsson. RIM, indeed is clearly turning the tables here.
The other prime factor that will surely work in favour of the Blackberry Torch 9800 is its reasonable price. With a couple of months of its launch, the SIM free price of this smartphone handset feel by a good £ 100 and the monthly payments under typical contracts by £ 10.
To top all this, the Blackberry Torch 9800 has also been given the latest in the Blackberry arsenal the Blackberry OS version 6 of the operating system as well. Its presence has understandably enough quickened and made more effective lot of the functions like moving across the bottom half of the screen to find all the widgets and options all at one go, etc.
| Technical Specifications | Blackberry Torch 9800 |
| Dimensions and Weight | 4.37 x 2.44 x 0.57 and 161.1 gms |
| Display and Touchscreen | 3.2" HVGA, 480x360 pixel colour display |
| Operating System | Blackberry OS version 6.0 |
| Processor | |
| Battery | 1300 mAH removable/rechargeable lithium-ion battery; Talk time – 5.5 hours, Stand by – up to 408 hours; Music playback -up to 27 hours; Video playback – up to 5.7 hours |
| Camera | 5 MP camera with 2.5x digital zoom, video recording, 11 picture taking modes, flash, and image stabilisation |
| Media Player | Video formats supported – MPEG4, H.263, MPEG4 Part 2 Simple Profile, H.264, WMV; Audio formats supported – MP3, AAC-LC, AAC+, eAAC+, WMA, AMR-NB, MIDI, Flac, Ogg Vorbis |
| Internet Connectivity | 802.11 b/g/n,WPA / WPA2 Personal and Enterprise, Cisco CCX certified, Wi-Fi® access to BlackBerry® Enterprise Server, Wi-Fi access to BlackBerry® Internet Bundle, Support for UMA (carrier-dependen |
| Memory | On board memory – 512 MB; Expandable memory through microSD card – 32 GB |
| Location and Maps | In-built GPS and Navigation Maps |
Now, let us go back to where we left and delve on the individual features in some detail.
Efficient Blackberry OS and User Interface
As mentioned above, the combined strength of the physical key board as well as the touch sensitive screen does take a while to get used to. But here it is worthwhile to remember that users who are familiar using cheap Blackberry smartphones will still find the physical QWERTY more expeditious and handy to use than the touchscreen keyboard.
Like in all Blackberry phones, we recommend that you get your Blackberry set up done for all the various requirements. For the internet and E-mailing and the required security set up all in place, as well as the other various applications like the contacts and the use of the Blackberry Messenger, etc.
Once this much is done to your taste and preference, the Blackberry Torch 9800 can indeed surprise you with its slickness and technical brilliance. While the advent of the Android into the smartphone market has admittedly taken much of the sheen from Blackberry smartphones, no one can ignore the highly professional and matter of fact approach with which Blackberry smartphones conduct themselves. The Blackberry Torch 9800 is no exception.
Like in a iPhone, here as well you can create folders and move and save applications in. Though this is slightly slower than the super fast momentum with which the iPhone works. But all the same, it works and it is not sluggish at all. The speed is very much there but just falls short when compared with the iPhone 4.0, that is all. And there is simply no stopping or stalling anything or getting stuck somewhere, for that matter. Like say, you sometimes encounter in a Symbian platform.
For instance, you may like to open a Google mail account and have all your mails, contacts, calendars, etc seamlessly and flawlessly moved into the smartphone device. This bit does happen rather clinically . It is all indeed incredibly simple and easy to operate.
Internet Connectivity
Besides the fact that it is very much a 3G smartphone and you have Wi-fi along with EDGE, GPRS, HSDPA, and bluetooth, etc, what enhances the appeal and overall the web browsing experience with the Blackberry Torch 9800 is the fact that you have the Web Kit itself. Hence, lot of the sluggishness is overcome here and you can actually do multiple site browsing along with E-mailing, etc.
But still the sheer technical prowess of the iPhone or the Android overtakes and sooner or later, users are bound to find the difference. For instance, viewing any video clip on YouTube is not exactly a no hassles and easy to do so activity with this one. Still, it is pretty good, and backs you well for most the time. It is only when you begin testing some of the more complicated graphics rich web pages that the speed drops.
One of the reasons for this may be the slightly less powerful processor that RIM has given the Torch 9800. There is only so much you can do so with a 624 Mhz processor. This is rather unfortunate. We greatly recommend the 1 Ghz chip set for this otherwise magnificent product. After all, the competition is directly with monstrous dual core processors. Isn't it?
Battery is terrific!
But the less powerful CPU is, at least, partly overcome by the really good 1500 mAh battery that takes care of a full days load that includes net browsing with lot of E-mailing (the pet attraction of all Blackberry phones) and other functions like calling, texting and even a image or two taken along with a viewing of a video clip or two.
Camera
The five mega pixel camera delivers acceptable images and even the video clips manage handsomely provided you know how to use the flash as well as the digital zoom well. Though, again it has be said that before the sheer magnificence of the 720p high definition recording performance of rival camera smartphones, you really feel left out.
But here, it is worthwhile pointing out that all Blackberry smartphones (the Blackberry Torch 9800 included) are not meant to offer sophisticated and powerful camera devices. In fact, it took quite a while for RIM to even move from the two mega pixel standard to the present five mega pixel one. Really, if the Canadian mobile phone company really has to outwit its Android and Apple iPhone rivals it needs to do something about the camera and video recording aspect of its phone handsets.
Media Player
Here again, there is not much besides the FM and the odd playlist to choose from. Blackberry smartphones have in general managed to address the essential and very basic needs of the typical business person. Now, with expansion in mind, RIM needs to add more value to the entertainment aspect of the phone device.
Maps and Navigation
This is one area, where Blackberry phones have always been strong enough. And this strength is seen readily in the Blackberry Torch 9800 as well. The in-built GPS takes care of all your everyday location related concerns. The Blackberry Maps open up rather quickly and are very user-friendly to use. The digital compass helps with the direction and there is ample help in terms of which road is blocked, etc.
Prices are attractive
The network service providers like O2, Orange, T-Mobile and Vodafone all offer several BlackBerry Torch 9800 Deals many of which give the smartphone handset away for free under say monthly payment plans between £ 20 to £ 25. Now, this is not a bad thing at all if y ou look at the value that the phone is offering. The SIM free prices are well below the £ 350 mark.
Conclusion
The Blackberry Torch 9800 is not a bad option at all if you take into consideration the fact that it comes with both the touch sensitive screen as well as the physical keyboard. And also packs on all the net connectivity related and other options like the Blackberry Messenger, etc. Unless you are handering for a very powerful camera, media player and a social networking hardware cum software, this one really is up to the mark.
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