Tech bytes for tea?

The BlackBerry Torch was the first smartphone from Research In Motion (RIM) that shipped with the new BlackBerry OS 6. It has a completely new keyboard implementation – instead of having the physical keyboard and the screen share the face of the device, the Torch allowed the 3.2 inch screen to hog the entire front.

BlackBerry Torch 9800 with 6.0 Operating System.

An on-screen keyboard – which I found rather responsive – can be easily called up in case you need to type something. Need the traditional QWERTY keyboard to do some intensive typing? Slide it out from below the screen and you’re good to go.

It’s a trade-off, whether you have the hard keyboard readily available all the time or hide-in below the screen to make for a bigger screen.

For my usage profile, at least, I liked the balance – I do a fair bit of messaging and typing but I don’t mind having to slide out the keyboard when I need it – since I get a bigger screen real estate – 480×360 pixels on a 3.2 inch capacitive touch screen.

I did find the Bold keyboard slightly easier to type than on the Torch, but both are far more tactile and better than typing on a touch screen.

I suppose those who really have a lot of typing to do would rather have the keyboard available at all times – it depends on your usage profile. The Torch tries to give you both the large screen of the Storm and the popular hard keyboard in a compact body.

The hardware

The form factor is almost identical to many other BlackBerry devices like the Bold. The usual five buttons line the bottom of the screen: BlackBerry call, menu, back, and end buttons and optical trackpad.

The Marvell CPU runs at 624MHz (though the company claims this is a newer generation chip), with 512 MB RAM and 4 GB of storage. You can add up to 32 GB though the microSD slot. The device also comes with 802.11b/g/n WiFi, Bluetooth 2.1 and an AGPS chip.

Photos were rather impressive for a phone camera

The Torch has a 5 megapixel camera, with an LED flash. Photo quality was rather remarkable for a smartphone camera.  I like the preset scene modes – Party mode for lowlight indoor shooting and Sports mode both yielded impressive results. Video wise, you can shoot clips at 640×480 resolution.

With the new OS 6, web browsing on the Torch is now quite a pleasant experience using the new Webkit-based browser. Unfortunately, neither Flash nor HTML5 video are supported.

I really love the persistent notification alert bar at the top of the home screen: the small row of icons allows you to see social networking, email, SMS, call, and calendar alerts all in one place. The bar drops down a separate window to show the list of notifications, each of which can be clicked on to bring you to the app.

11 scene modes are available for taking photos under different situations

Another new feature I like is the universal search. Ever wanted to look for something you know is on your phone but can’t recall exactly where it is located and how to get at it? Simply begin typing the relevant search term into the search box and the Torch throws the icon for it right at you – almost instantaneously. It really beats having to wade through the menus and interface looking for contacts, messages, calendar, music or pictures.

has included a powerful universal search alongside a social networking tool which allows you to aggregate RSS feeds and services like Twitter or Facebook into a single view. There are a lot of changes, so we’re going to go step-by-step through what we consider the biggest changes for the BlackBerry platform.

Battery life

As with other BlackBerry devices I’ve tested before, battery seems to last forever. Alright, that’s exaggerating. There were days when I ran Youtube videos and videos from the media folder for extended periods of time and the battery held out. Under normal usage, I only had to recharge the battery every few days.

BlackBerry Torch 2

There’s been numerous leaks about what the upcoming BlackBerry smartphones lined up for 2011. One of them is the Torch 2. Expected to be announced during the BlackBerry World in May and released in the US in July, it looks physically like the Torch, but features a 1.2 GHz processor and a 640×480 resolution on a similarly-sized 3.2 inch screen.

Going by previous BlackBerry release schedules, we’ll probably only see the Torch 2 in Singapore towards the end of the year.

In the meantime, if you’re looking at replacing your current BlackBerry phone, do give the Torch a spin and see if it impresses you enough for you to pick one up as replacement.