The new Blackberry Torch 9860 running on OS 7 by Research In Motion (RIM) is a full touchscreen phone with a 3.7-inch capacitive touchscreen with new RIM proprietary liquid graphics technology that promises a smoother touchscreen experience. The display has resolution of 480×800 which is good enough. The colours look vibrant and are great for viewing images and videos.
Instead of QWERTY keyboard, it features a virtual keypad on the 3.7″ inch touchscreen. Keying in SMS’s is simple owing to the fairly intuitive virtual keypad. A 1.2 GHz processor under the belly of the Torch 9860 provides the strength to run Blackberry OS 7. The phone, however, has 2.5 GB internal storage, which is less, but you can expand the storage space up to 32 GB with memory cards. And as usual all your connectivity needs are handled by the regular Wi-Fi, 3G and GPS. The 5MP camera on the Torch 9860 has LED flash and can capture 720p videos at 25 fps. The camera on this phone is much better than the Bold 9900. It captures great colours and focusing is very fast.
The 1230 mAh lithium-ion battery will keep the handset running for a full day. Torch 9860 has the crystal clear sound quality during voice calls.
A couple of interesting in-built apps are thrown in with the handset. You have the BlackBerry Balance app that lets you switch between your work and private communications within the device. To keep all your files safe, you can log in to the BlackBerry Protect web site that lets you lock, locate or wipe your smartphone from wherever you are.
The phone has bundled a full-version of Documents-to-go app that takes care of your entire document needs. The app is really good for creating/editing documents on the go. The big screen is also an added advantage.
The pre-installed apps include your chat clients Windows Live Messenger, Yahoo Messenger and Gtalk. Social networking clients Twitter and Facebook are also bundled. Make sure that you download the updates for each of these apps. The bundled games include Brickbreaker and Wordmole and RIM is also giving away Gameloft’s Bubble Bash 2 free on the App store for a limited period because of the Blackberry outage.
The BlackBerry Torch 9860, priced at Rs. 27,690, is the decent competitor from the stable of RIM to take on the Android and Apple devices flooding the market right now. Using the Torch 9860 doesn’t feel like you’re using age-old technology or an antiquated handset.
Blackberry Boys will love this device!
