Review of my BlackBerry Torch 9800 from RIM

Finally I can make the jump to a touch screen phone without having to sacrifice the stability of my old Blackberry Curve. I have been a Blackberry user since the original Curve was released back in 2007. After three years of awesome performance, I can honestly say that I will remain a die hard Blackberry user.

When I first heard about the Blackberry Torch, it seemed like the phone of my dreams. A touch screen Blackberry with a keyboard still present. It has been two weeks now since I’ve had the new Blackberry Torch 9800, and I feel I can now give an honest opinion on how well this phone performs. Consider this review as a Blackberry owner who has been using Blackberry phones for years. Now before I go ahead and divulge on the many, and I do mean many, great things about this phone, I feel I should air out its flaws first.

Bad Points
This phone is supposed to be the newest thing out and should be ahead of the market in all aspects, so it came as a bit of a shocker to me when I found out that this phone is not capable of playing 3D games. Now I’ll be honest, I don’t really plan on doing any type of gaming on this phone, but I still feel it would be a nice gesture if RIM would supply us with the same capabilities that some phones have had for years! Another minor annoyance is the fact that this phone has a 624 MHz processor. This makes me a little sad when I see phones like the Droid X and the Evo having 1 GHz processors. Now enough with the negativity, there is no denying that this phone truly shines, and could very well become the leading Blackberry phone.

Good Points
For starters, the hardware on this device is superb! The phone has a nice weight to it and it doesn’t feel radically different from a Blackberry device. The keyboard itself is just like the quality you would expect from RIM. Along with the nice keyboard, the phone itself has a nice rubber type of grip to it, so it doesn’t feel like you’ll drop it if you’re only using it with one hand.

The touch screen itself is a snappy little bugger. It was able to keep track with all the movements I was doing. One of the biggest improvements hardware wise is the fact that RIM has blessed us with a camera that can compete with the others on the market. My Torch is able to take stunning photos, and it even works well in low lights. The flash on this camera is seriously bright. Make no mistake, RIM wanted to dazzle the consumer and it should go without saying that is exactly what they have achieved. One of the main improvements to the Blackberry platform is the fact that this phone has OS 6. The UI looks fabulous and runs as smooth as butter. It no longer feels like we have to sacrifice the visual experience in an attempt to keep the phone running smooth. My favorite feature of this new OS is the universal search. Whenever you start typing something, the OS automatically searches through your phone for matching characters. This means that all your settings, messages; media is searched for whatever you typed.

All in all I can honestly say this is one of the best phones out right now, if you’re on the fence about getting it just go ahead and bite the bullet. There is no doubt in my mind that I will be using this phone for quite some time.