BlackBerry Torch 9800

BlackBerry buffs are making tryst with a new state of the art device, the Torch, which features a capacitive touchscreen and is supported by the brand’s trademark QWERTY hardware keypad. The Torch is a slider with pretty conventional design, and yet it ends up looking cool and smart. It’s in no way sleek, and yet it exudes sophistication. The front panel is taken up by the 3.2 inch capacitive touchscreen. Below it we have an optical trackpad with the usual menu and calling key on the left and back and call end key on the right. Sliding up the screen reveals a QWERTY keypad with small and tightly packed keys. Despite the size, the keys are pretty tactile and are geared to make you forget about the phone’s touchscreen capabilities. This is further enhanced by a very responsive optical trackpad. On the left spine of the lower panel lies the USB/charging/headphone slot and the right one has the volume rocker and convenience key that by default acts as a camera key. At the top of the phone are two keys for locking and silencing the phone. The 5.0-megapixel camera and LED flash are placed on the back panel. The overall look and build of the phone is great.

It’s a Six!

The Torch runs on the latest version of the BlackBerry OS, i.e. the OS 6, which comes with a range of features to improve the user experience. The homescreen has a settings panel at the top from where you can toggle between your Bluetooth and WiFi connectivity, set alarms and go straight to the settings options. Below it is a notification bar with option to change profiles on the left and search option on the right. The notification bar gives alerts on new mails, SMS, Missed calls etc. At the bottom of the screen is a side scrollable menu with five categories - All, Media, Downloads, Frequents and Favourites. You can select each of these tags to access the icons grouped under it. However, some of the icons are displayed below each tag. On long pressing any of the icons in the menu, you can move them, hide them or mark them as your favourite. The new OS incorporates a sweep gesture, which makes it easier to navigate when combined with kinetic scrolling. It doesn’t come with multiple screen panels or widgets on the homescreen, but the new OS seems to be pretty touch and user friendly, although you might take a little time in figuring it out completely.

BlackBerry Boys

The Torch supports all popular Email clients including Microsoft Exchange. But you do need to subscribe to BlackBerry Internet service to access them. The built in accelerometer makes it possible to use the phone in landscape or portrait modes. The phone comes with multi-touch support so you can pinch or double tap to zoom in and out of the screen. There is an option to open multiple windows and toggle between them. However, the browser doesn’t come with flash support. The WiFi capability lets users enjoy all high-speed data connectivity. There are a number of pre-loaded apps like Gmail, Google Maps, BlackBerry messenger, Nimbuzz, WordPress and many more.

On the social networking front you have apps like Facebook, Twitter, FourSquare, MySpace, pre-loaded on the device. After logging into your Facebook account, you can integrate it with BlackBerry’s message app, calendar and contacts. Twitter, on the other hand, can only be integrated with the message app. An application called Social Feeds is there to integrate all your SNS updates and present them in one scrollable list. You can also see Gtalk, MSN messenger, BlackBerry messenger updates here and filter them if you wish to view them in a single window. Surprisingly, the DocumentToGo version on the phone only enables you to view docs. The built-in GPS receiver comes with Blackberry Maps.

More for Fun

The Torch comes with a 5.0-megapixel camera and the highest resolution that you can set is 2592 x 1944 pixels. The pictures can be geo-tagged and you can choose from various scene modes such as close-up, face detection, party, sports, text etc. The picture quality is OK in well-lit conditions and the LED flash helps in low light conditions. The 5.0-megapixel snapper is quite good but no the best. You can share pictures with your SNS contacts directly from the gallery. Highest video resolution is 640 x 480 VGA @ 24 fps and you can also shoot in MMS mode (176 x 144). Scenes modes include portrait, landscape, auto, close-up and beach; you can use flash for videos, but you cannot geo-tag them. The video quality is acceptable. The video player comes with DivX and XviD support. The music player sorts music on the basis of artists, albums and genres. The sound quality is good. There are headset music equalizers like hip-hop, Jazz, R&B and nine more. The sound quality through the headphones is great and we enjoyed the rather musical experience of the Torch. The phone comes with 3.5 GB of internal storage which can extend the storage capacity further by adding a microSD card. The battery works great with constant Email, four hours of WiFi and three hours of music.

Alternatively

The Torch costs Rs 33,500. Other phones that you can consider are Nokia N900 for Rs 24,900 and Motorola Milestone XT720 which is a touchscreen phone for Rs 27,400.