BlackBerry Torch 9800 Review

In the smartphone market, BlackBerry hold a very unique position. The range of handsets are limited, but the popularity of the BlackBerry brand cannot be doubted. Once the domain of the Road Warrior salesman and busy mobile executive, RIM have expanded the appeal of their BlackBerry handsets so that the brand is amongst the fastest growing in the ultra competitive teen/youth/student market.

Recently RIM announced a new BlackBerry device, the BlackBerry Torch 9800, a feature packed mobile handset that offers a strong suite of options across the board. We're going to take a more detailed look at what this handset will have to offer.

The BlackBerry Torch is one of the first handsets to have the new BlackBerry OS 6.0 pre-installed. The new OS is designed to give BlackBerry handsets a broader appeal, with a slick user interface that should compete well with offerings from other competitor manufacturers. The main focus of a BlackBerry device has always been, and continues to be, all about accessing email on the move. To this end BlackBerry handsets invariably come with a comfortable, easy to use full QWERTY keyboard, and the Torch also offers this. The design of the handset is such that the keypad is hidden away under the main display; when needed, the keypad slides out from device, to sit neatly underneath the main display. The reason the keypad slides away is not just to keep the size of the phone down, but also because the Torch has a full TFT touchscreen, giving the option of being able to enter data via the onscreen keyboard, too.

The display itself is a TFT touchscreen, with a pixel resolution of 360 x 480 pixels, and measuring a decent 3.2 inches. The main navigation key on the 9800 is similar to that seen on other recent BlackBerry handsets, a comfortable to use optical trackpad. The 9800 Torch is quite a hefty beast, in mobile phone terms, weighing in a a noticeable 161g, and measuring up at 111 x 62 x 15mm.

The way we communicate these days means a modern smartphone has to offer more than just easy access to email on the move. Whilst email is still an important communications tool, the usage of social networking sites has rocketed in recent months. Thankfully the 9800 Torch is no slouch in this area, with good native apps for both Twitter and Facebook available, which allow you to have status updates and notifications pushed out to your handset in an instant, so you will always be up to date with the information shared by your friends online.

BlackBerry handsets are surprisingly decent media products generally, and the Torch continues the tradition of offering a decent set of media functions. The device offers a full media player, with playback support for multiple video and audio files, including MP3, WMA, FLAC, OGG, MP4 and WMV. Internal memory capacity on the 9800 is an impressive 4GB, which can be expanded with Micro SD memory cards; the 9800 Torch supports cards up to 32GB in size. The handset also includes a decent 5.0 Megapixel camera, with autofocus and LED flash. Image stabilisation is present, to help remove the fuzziness caused by shaky hands on some images, and the inclusion of a GPS unit allows captured photos to be tagged with location information. As well as a full GPS receiver, there is onboard support for aGPS which enables a faster lock-on time to your current location, and the device will ship with BlackBerry Maps pre-installed.

One of the areas where BlackBerry devices suffered in the past was with data connectivity. Often you would find yourself in a situation where you could get a phone with GPS, but not 3G. OR you could get 3G and GPS, but no WiFi. Or WiFi and 3G, but no GPS. You get the picture. Thankfully it seems that RIM have decided it is best to just include all the popular connection options in one device, giving the consumer the option to choose which service suits them best. To this end, we find that the Torch 9800 includes the aforementioned GPS, as well as full 3G connectivity with HSDPA and HSUPA included, and full WiFi 802.11 b/g/n available, too. For local data connections the BlackBerry Torch 9800 supports Bluetooth 2.1 with A2DP, and ships with a Micro USB connector, which doubles up as the charging port.

All round, the BlackBerry Torch 9800 is fully featured smartphone, sporting a slick, updated User Interface running over a totally new Operating System. All the main features you would expect to find on a modern handset are included, and there is little we can see to criticise on the new handset. It would seem that this BlackBerry device is set to be a winner.

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