The Philippine Online Chronicles

Research In Motion (RIM) recently  launched the BlackBerry Torch 9800 in the Philippines.  The BlackBerry Torch comes in with great expectations from the tech community, as flagship phones from the competition are as full of bells and whistles as this latest smartphone presents to us. RIM's John Leung and Greg Wade led the presentation of the new phone.

“Blackberry Torch 9800 is the world’s first smartphone to combine a BlackBerry keyboard with a full touch screen experience and the first to include the new BlackBerry 6 OS.”

The over-all design still follows the classic Blackberry design, the slider and hidden keyboard makes it a lot classier and streamlined. Opening up and closing the slider gives you a smooth yet solid feel, no hint of being flimsy and it seems to be really sturdy. A small hitch for me is when you try to open the slide with one hand, you can’t anchor on anything to slide open since the design is flushed, so i just gently press down on the screen and slide up.

The sleek and shiny gunmetal finish is pulled of well even though it is made of plastic. At the back, the ribbed plastic battery cover feels slightly rubberized which makes a slightly industrial and tough statement at the back. This will certainly prevent scratches and nicks on the back of your phone as well as not slip out of your hand so easily.

The Torch’s Keypad is like an exact copy of the Bold’s, pressing the buttons and typing has very good tactile feel, which certainly brings welcome advantage over stand alone touchscreen phones. The user may opt to use the touch screen for quick leisurely tasks, and slide down the no-nonsense Blackberry keypad for precise input.

Hardware Mediocrity makes you Cool!?

In heed of comparing apples and oranges, we can see how the Torch lacks punch when compared to the competition. The 624mhz processor doesn’t cut up to the 1ghz standards of this day and age. However, even with a sportingly slow processor, seldom do I get lags. Most slowdowns i encounter are when I have something in Appworld being downloaded while I use the Torch. And even when I have all my social feeds running while I surf and text, the phone is surprisingly cool (to the touch).  So yes, having a Torch on your hand will make you “cool”.

Having been accustomed to the HTC Desire which i use everyday, looking at the Torch’s low resolution 480 x 360 pixels screen does not satisfy me a bit. The capacitive touchscreen does work very well, giving me smooth transitions with every flick.  Although sometimes some background processes freeze up the screen in a while which make you think that the touchscreen is unresponsive.

Battery life

If there is any department which i can give 5 stars, this is it. The trouble about the latest smart phones including the iPhone and top-of-the-line Androids are the incompetent battery life. With a very active mobile data consumption, moderate text messaging, and light calls, I manage to squeeze out at least 18-20 hours of power before i get a low battery warning. This is superb as compared to my usage on other smart phones which just gives me 8 hours max with the same use (HTC Desire).

Operating System

BlackBerry OS 6 features a rich experience that’s powerful and easy to use. It has a redesigned interface and includes expanded messaging capabilities with intuitive features  to simplify the management of social networking and RSS feeds (Social Feeds), and provides integrated access to BBM (BlackBerry Messenger), Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and various messaging applications available on the BlackBerry Torch smartphone. One of the biggest groundbreaking improvements that RIM made is the introduction of of a Webkit based internet browser that renders HTML web pages quickly and beautifully for a great browsing experience. It features tabs for accessing multiple sites simultaneously, pinch to zoom for easy navigation. Now, browsing with a Blackberry Torch will not distort most of the websites unlike previous models and makes browsing on the go such a joy.

Another new welcome feature on the operating system is the Universal search, this  Basically makes you find just about any piece of content on the phone simply typing into the search box. That goes for apps, music, contacts, notes, emails and just about anything stored in the phone.

From Endgadget:

“While it's not the radical departure some were hoping for, the revamped operating system takes some extreme steps to deal with issues that have plagued BlackBerry phones for quite awhile.”

Conclusion

So does this enhanced multimedia experience rival the best in the industry?

Biting into this newest product of RIM will depend on the end user. For a long time Blackberry user, all the new features and better integration will surely convince one to upgrade to the latest BB. As for someone that is looking into getting a new smart phone, the market has plenty of offerings from the whole industry to choose from. But surely, choosing a Blackberry Torch will not be a mistake. It is a very capable smart phone for present day use, and Blackberry still does have it’s advantages in terms of streamlining and simplifying use to deliver “everything at your fingertips.”

Photos by the author. Some rights reserved.