BlackBerry Torch 9800 review

RIM really hasn't made a good start to the touchscreen market with the Storm and Storm 2. Both had an awful clicky screen that was nowhere near as responsive as a capacitive screen and typing was a chore, although this did improve with the Storm 2.

Now comes the 9800 Torch, which is a bulky device, but the best so far from the Canadian manufacturer.

The 3.2-inch screen looks larger than its competitors because it's square rather than long and thin. At 360 x 480 pixels, it may not be the highest resolution, but this hardly means much - after all, it's what the display looks like rather than numbers, isn't it?

With 16 million colours, it's vibrant and bright. The best thing about that screen though is that it's hugely responsive, reacting to every slight touch.

This is a massive improvement over the Storm 2 with its clicky SurePress technology. Thankfully, this has been scrapped and we're now very impressed.

The screen has also affected the typing interface, too. Of course you can opt to use the hardware keyboard, but the virtual interface has been tweaked too. Slide the hardware Qwerty in and the phone will switch to the virtual Qwerty mode.

You can either type in portrait or landscape - switch between these by turning the device on its side. The accelerometer will instantly kick in and change the keyboard, making the keys larger and easier to use.

There's a text prediction tool that doesn't change words automatically like the iPhone does. It'll give you a list of words to choose from. If you don't want to change the word, just tap space. To zoom in on a letter, press and hold the sentence. A slider will appear, allowing you to scroll through the text. One letter at a time is highlighted, making it very easy to make changes.

The hardware Qwerty keyboard is a welcome addition and will make the Torch more attractive to existing BlackBerry users. The keys aren't as textured as on hardware-only devices, meaning they're not as easy to use, but still respond well.

The usual issue of the top row being slightly too close to the top section is unfortunately present, making it tricky to type fast if you have large digits.

Now, onto the biggest change: BlackBerry OS 6.0.

As everyday BlackBerry Bold 9700 users, we're massive fans of the BlackBerry OS, although it is a little glitchy on the BlackBerry Bold. BlackBerry OS 6.0 however, runs seamlessly. There's no lag when you're switching between applications or scrolling through the homescreens.

The homescreen has been completely re-mastered. There are five you can scroll through by swiping through them and they're organised into favourites, all, media, downloads and frequent. We did find the screen to be a little too sensitive when scrolling through these - sometimes an app would unexpectedly open.

The homescreen apps can be hidden by tapping on the top of the pop up box. Tap once on the bottom toolbar to access the top row of apps, or once again to view everything on that homescreen.

There are also toolbars along the top of the homescreen. The top toolbar that shows your network, signal strength and battery remaining becomes the connections control screen where you can quickly turn all connections on or off by tapping on it.

The secondary toolbar shows your notifications and expanding this will show information about alerts such as text messages and missed calls.

These all feel a little Android-like, but it also means everything is easy to see and control from one place. We like it.

The browser is another new feature in BlackBerry OS 6. BlackBerry browsers have always been below the standards of other pre-installed browsers, and although the browser in OS 6 is a vast improvement, it's a shame not to see any Flash support. We can't slag off its speed though, although zooming in using multi touch sometimes resulted in a pause while rendering the page.

Tap and hold any link and up pops a menu. You can opt to open the link, open the link in a new tab (yes, there's tabbed browsing on the BlackBerry 6 browser), bookmark the link, send the link to a friend, copy the link to the clipboard, forward, refresh, switch application or go to the full menu.

It's an impressive set of tools and it's all set out beautifully. In fact, there's not much of the old clunky-looking OS remaining on the whole of the BlackBerry 9800 Torch.

Social Feeds is another high point on BlackBerry OS 6. Previously you could access Facebook and Twitter separately, but the Social Feeds brings them all together in one application. You can switch between your full social feed that displays any Facebook, Twitter, AIM, BlackBerry Messenger, Google Talk, MySpace, Windows Live Messenger or Yahoo! Messenger messages in one stream. Scroll to the left and you can view RSS feeds using a filter.

If you tap the toolbar on the Social Feeds app, you can switch between social networking accounts too.

In terms of media, the BlackBerry Torch 9800 features a 5-megapixel camera, with autofocus and flash. This is one area we weren't impressed with. The photos are filled with noise and although there's a whole host of options for improving photos, it's just not we would expect after the super camera on the BlackBerry Bold 9700. Shame on you RIM!

Camera aside, the multimedia features of the Torch 9800 stretch far and wide. There's a podcast tool allows you to download podcasts using BlackBerry Media Sync. It's really easy to set up podcasts using iTunes and then you can transfer across to your BlackBerry device using BlackBerry Media Sync. These will all appear in the Podcasts application on the Torch 9800 and will dynamically update when the next edition becomes available.

The music player displays cover art with track details and an easy to use music player interface below the cover art.

There's also a 3.5mm jack for headphones on the side on the Torch, although this means the jack will stick out of the side unless you have the phone turned on its side.

Battery life on the BlackBerry Torch is tip top, as you'd expect from a RIM device. Quoted standby is 336 hours compared to the Storm 2's 280 hours, despite the battery having a lower capacity. Our review sample was very impressive when keeping charge. After a day's usage, the battery had only gone down a fraction, despite having our Social Feed updating permanently, music playing on our commute and push email activated.

The BlackBerry Torch may be a chunk of a device at 111x62x14.6mm, but it has shot to the top of our BlackBerry chart. It offers everything you want from a phone, appealing to both touchscreen and hardware Qwerty fans. The one downside? That camera really needs to be sorted.

BlackBerry Torch 9800 hands on pictures

BlackBerry Torch 9800 first impressions

BlackBerry Torch video

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