1. LionlinesCEO's Avatar
    Torch Review
    Out of the Box this phone impressed me. It took no time to boot up (way faster than my curve and bold 9700). The phone feels solid and the sliding screen mechanism locks right in to place and slides back down smoothly. It came with a microfiber cloth, nice head phones, a charging USB cord and wall charging adapter (The charging/usb cord is long and not short like my iphones was. Giving me plenty of length to plug in anywhere. Standard BB Software is included on a "mini disk." A quickstart guide and warrenty information is also included.

    Tool Tray
    Sliding the tool tray up to expose the apps was very smooth and lag free. Some cool apps I noticed that came standard was the ESPN app (Awesome if your a sports guy) Weather Channel, CNN, Bloomberg (stocks) and Fandango. What I really enjoy about the tool tray is not only does it it pull up and down but it scrolls horizontle wise to show your "frequent" used apps, Favorites (you can set yourself), media, downloads and All. Touching the clock jon the phone will drop down the connections menu, and allow you to set your alarm clock. Touching the notification bar underneath of the clock will pull down your missed calls, and my favorite feature the "social feeds". You can add every social feed that you have to this. I have my AIM, FB, Twitter and BBM. You can also filter these as well and post a status to multiple networks. Touching the speaker icon at the top left reveals the sound profile you are used too. Touching the Magnifying glass at the top right of the screen brings out the search box, type whatever you may be looking for on your phone and it will search every resource on your phone and display the results. It's great if your looking for a specific email or message or anything in between.

    Screen
    I know everyone was "iffy" about the screen resolution, especially with a few of the other smart phones rocking HD screens with high res. The screen when lit to 100% brightness was extremely crisp. No pixelation what so ever. If your trying to save battery ( which you don't need to because the life is tremendous ) and turn the brightness down, the screen still looks great.

    Keyboard (QWERTY/TOUCH)
    When I slide down the QWERTY KB I wasn't sure if I would like it the way it is indented beneath the screen, however in my findings it is easier to type than my 9700 was. The keys felt slighty stiff, but so did all my other berry's until I broke them in. The keys are backlit and light up nicely when you slide it open and when you push a key. The TOUCH screen keyboard has 3 different lay out options to choose from, IMO the standard full size keyboard is the easiest, but its up to you. The auto correction is very helpful and surprisingly not annoying at all, I never like to use it but I think I am going to keep it turned on. Everyone seems to like to read a comparison between the 9800's touch KB and the iphone's and they are extremely similar. I owned 2 iphones in the past and the TORCH is on the same level. I will give the edge to the TORCH because it has a little button next to the (.) key that is an "envelope" click and it will send your message off. The iPhone has a send button as well but it's next to where you enter text and not in as a convienent location as the Torch.

    Messaging
    BBM/SMS both has the "chat bubble" style format. When you send a message it appears in a white bubble and when you recieve one it appears in light blue bubble. Both message bubbles are against a grey background and the messages look so clear and decipherable. When the phone is closed in SMS mode (with recipient selected) there is a button for the virtual keyboard, add recipients , attachments and next unopened item, and of course Emoticons which look bigger and better than ever. When in SMS without a recipient selected you can choose from compose, search, reply, forward and delete. EMAIL has compose, search, reply, filter and delete options.

    Web Kit Browser
    Super fast, smooth scrolling, the Xtab's feature is an awesome add on. I love being able to have a few different web pages runnign and flick back and forth between them with 0 lag and 0 load time. I tested my phone on wi-fi and 3g vs my roomys iphone 4 and it won 3/5 times I was very impressed. Some of the web pages that the Torch renders are mobile sites and not the full site, but you can select full site if needed from the mobile site. Pinch to zoom and auto wrap text are perfect. Pinch to zoom is the exact same as iphone just as smooth. The auto text wrap 1 ups the iphone and makes it very easy for the reader to be able to read the text on the page. This is a huge advantage when viewing web pages with a ton of text.

    Camera/Video Camera
    First thing I noticed was you can use Geo tagging which is awesome, and the location is very acurate! You can also select the current lighting to get an even crisper picture. The new Scene Modes feature on the camera allows you to select between different environments and they are Auto, Face Detection, Portrait, Sports, Landscape, Party, Close Up, Snow, Beach, Night, and text (pictures of documents). The video camera has the usual suspect auto flash and available memory reader. I still think that Blackberry has the best VIDEO camera in the smart phone world, and now that it is matched up with a 5.0 MP camera... Please.

    Misc.
    When you touch and hold your finger on the tool tray 6 options come up in a box. They are Mark as favorite, Move, Move to folder, Hide, Launch, and full menu. Deff an easy way to move and manage your tool tray. The track pad is very sensitive and is a great way to move around the tool tray if you dont feel like using the screen. The Call, BB, Back and End Call buttons are all on a flat surface and do not pertrude at all making the phone even sleaker in my opinion. You get 1 quick launch button, I deff rigged that up with my BBM, but it comes set standard on camera. Lock and Standby buttons are both at the top. The Red LED notifier is on the sliders screen, its a little circle instead of the normal "pill shape". It blinks yellow when the battery is low. Headphone jack is on the right side comapred to the left on the bold 9700. Charging micro sd port is on the left.

    Final Thoughts
    Over all this phone is everything I anxiously anticipated for the past 5 months. All the new features that are true and rare to the blackberry name work flawlessly. All the rumors about lag can go out the window. This has been written first hand by me the consumer and as acurately as I could make it. I hope you enjoyed. By the way the Otter Box Commuter case is my form of protection, and I suggest you get it too or some other form of case or shield in order to protect. Insurance is also available for an additional 5$ a month! If anyone has questions for me post them here and I will try to get back to you. Thanks again!
    08-12-10 05:12 PM
  2. Masahiro's Avatar
    Would you be able to post a pic of the phone with an otterbox on it please? Thanks for the review though.

    Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com
    08-12-10 06:03 PM
  3. lauren122688's Avatar
    Wow! Awesome review! Very jealous you got the phone today :P can't wait till it comes to canada!!!

    Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com
    08-12-10 06:09 PM
  4. lostOzone's Avatar
    This is not a real review!! :-)
    To me two essential points are missing.
    What about the battery life? And with which usage 3G with wifi when how long? With many phone wifi connection use less battery than 3G.
    What about the sunlight readability? We can read about the pixel density but WTF when you cannot even see one pixel with the sun hitting your screen.

    TIA
    08-12-10 07:02 PM
  5. Masahiro's Avatar
    He did mention that the battery was "tremendous", but it's kind of difficult to really gauge when it's only been out for a day.

    Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com
    08-12-10 07:33 PM
  6. BoldtotheMax's Avatar
    How in the **** is this not a real review?

    I thought it was done well, but do look forward to see how long the battery holds up.

    Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com
    08-12-10 07:44 PM
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