We preview the newest BlackBerry touch-screen slider. We've got some hands-on time with the brand new BlackBerry Torch 9800 this morning. RIM's first-ever to feature both the full touch-screen and its trademark QWERTY keyboard also packs a bunch of other firsts, such as the brand-new BlackBerry OS 6, tons of new media and web features, and also the beefiest camera on a 'Berry yet.
Facelift
The classic BlackBerry icons happen to be slightly refreshed - but not too much. Though a wider, more contemporary font can be used and menus look more spacious, long-time 'Berry users definitely will not feel alienated. We like this even though you can interact fully via touch-screen, the menu button is still quite definitely in play, and produces as intuitive an experience as on classic BlackBerrys. The device feels quite wide within the hand, and also the QWERTY keyboard is slightly wider than that of the Blackberry Bold 9700. The keys really are a touch smaller though, but just as comfortable to type on. The 3.2-inch capacitive screen is responsive and accurate, but you can still navigate entirely by hard keys if you want.
There's now 4GB of memory, expandable by a microSD slot. These devices will in all probability ship with a card.
New, social aspect
The contacts book now syncs friends list with both Facebook and Twitter, and as before, all messages, including Twitter direct messages, get into a universal inbox. A new addition is Social Feeds, an app that shows your social network feeds, including messages from BlackBerry Messenger, and RSS feeds from news and podcasts. The YouTube app is preloaded.
Customisable homescreens
Whenever we learned about the customisable homescreens, we wondered if we would get some kind of Android or Apple clone. But RIM has kept it BB style - instead of shortcut icons over a few screens, the homescreen is still blank, and you swipe up from the base of the screen to reveal a tray of programs. You can then swipe sideways to view all five homescreens: the all-programs menu, a customisable favorites menu, a media menu where media programs (but not apps, a minimum of within our pre production model) go, a frequent menu which instantly populates together with your most-used apps and many-contacted friends, along with a downloads screen for apps from BlackBerry App World.
Multimedia more than ever
At 360 x 480 pixels, the screen packs the greatest resolution on any BlackBerry yet, and video looked excellent - crisp and clear with great colors. It doesn't quite stack up to the Super AMOLED obtained in Samsung's latest handsets needless to say, and that we definitely got some glare in direct light, but it is several cuts above many devices.
Best Blackberry Browser
The brand new full HTML browser displays pages just like you'd see them on a desktop, so when you focus, will autofit text so it never runs off the page. The device doesn't support multi-touch, however, you can zoom by double-tapping. You can easily add websites to the Favorites homescreen by pressing the menu button. Incidentally, RIM bought out software company Torch Mobile for the browser - hence the name of the device.
Camera
Another first is the five-megapixel camera with auto-focus, flash and facial recognition. There's a dedicated shutter button at the side of the device which was slightly hard to depress. The shutter speed is faster than on the Blackberry Bold 9700, though not instantaneous. We'll have more details inside our full review that ought to be coming next month.
The BlackBerry Torch 9800 may be called an iPhone killer, but we think it's very much its own beast - along with a RIM creation. It will launch on O2, Orange and Vodafone, with the potential of more carriers being added to the lineup.
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