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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 05:46 PMLike 0 -
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For you maybe. Your geeky knowledge of iphones and HTC doesn't quite represent the majority population. This is an honest review from a regular consumer who is moving forward to a webkit browser for the first time.08-12-10 06:24 PMLike 0 -
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I have one right in front of me, smooth is not the word to describe it. Maybe if I had a original iPhone next to me I could say that.08-12-10 06:26 PMLike 0 -
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Sooo...are you just going to wonder around all the 9800 threads and rag on them? Or did you actually have some constuctive first hand experience from actually spending time with the phone other than sitting at the AT&T store?08-12-10 06:29 PMLike 0 -
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He made it seem like this phone is like driving down a street with no potholes, or bumps in the road.
Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com08-12-10 06:35 PMLike 0 -
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just joined to say the same thing, saw a video of the torch compared to iphone4 and the samsung captivate (I think? anyway it was done by CB)
the torch if i remember right lost against both everytime
while scrolling it didn't seem smooth either
which hurt me, i've been waiting for this phone for ages, could have probably uprgraded atleast once in that time.08-12-10 06:37 PMLike 0 -
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@THEBBMAN my review did not cite many negatives, but I believe thats only because going from the 9700 and OS 5 to 9800 and OS6 it was like day and night. It is just really awesome to see a blackberry be able to do all these awesome features. If I had to say the negatives I would say, not as good as battery life as I expected, The social app gets a little overwhelming if you have it linked to many things as I do (BBM,AIM,FB,TWIT etc... right now I am showing I have an email when I open my browser @ the top but when I go back to the main tool tray I have no email, prob a small glitch... The camera could be a little clearer but the picture it takes is meant to be viewed on a larger scale and not on the 3.2 inch screen. I dislike how I cant just push the end call button to retract the tool tray, old habbits die hard I suppose. One other negative I will throw in is my 3g was full bar'd when I got out the store but it would not let me connect to the webkit browser, apparently it was something on ATT's end (surprise surprise) but it is working fine now. I will admit, the WK browser on wi-fi is super fast, I have been testing against my buddys jailbroken unlocked iPhone 4 all day and have been beating him 75% of the time, people can troll but its the truth, i will post a video soon. If you have any more questions let me know.08-12-10 07:11 PMLike 0 -
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@junebox just to set a standard I would say the iphone 4 is a 8.5/10 and I believe the Torch is a 9/10 considering all of the functions and shortcuts it can compute that the iphone doesnt have... Performance wise the iphone might have an edge, but APPLE only has 1 phone to concentrate on. RIM has a ton of devices... Imagine if RIM only started making 1 phone! I dont want to sound like a fan boy but its just my opinion. "to each his own"08-12-10 07:23 PMLike 0 -
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Why did you make two threads with two different titles?
Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com08-12-10 07:52 PMLike 0 -
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I love mine, got most things loaded in.. Now i have to get some battery life so i can finish this process...
08-12-10 07:55 PMLike 0 -
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@lionlinesCEO. Phone sounds great glad most of you are enjoying it. Some people have a hard time understanding that not everyone has the same needs for there devices. For the bb fans out there this phone looks like a real treat. Enjoy it guys and girls. Hope this is the first of many great devices RIM brings on out.08-12-10 08:30 PMLike 0 -
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I would like to know how you know the battery is so great. I mean every smart phone I used or tried seems to only last a day with moderate use and heavy use maybe 8 hours.
I came from a bold or should I say my 4th bold after they only lasted 4 to 8 months. Plus I upgraded to a bold after having 2 pearls and the track ball went, speaker and vibration stopped working on my last bold which made me buy this because I had a upgrade. Then 2 days later they announced the torch.
Now I have a captivate and it has it's draw backs, but puts the bold to shame. How much memory do you have on the torch I forgot to ask that in another post. Can you put a 32megs sd card into the torch?
My battery sucks on the captivate compared to my bold and I am sure it is going to be the same on the torch. I mean look at the tasks these phones perform. My GPS sucks on the captivate and I am trying to find out if it works on the bold.
My text to speech is by far amazing so far I hit 99% & I can talk for my email, message app, and even replying to this thread. Swype keyboard is amazing. Is there one on the torch?
I am sure email its far superior to my captivate. I think RIM'S server BIS is better then what they use for the captivate.
I am just trying to get TRUE feedback, instead of the torch out of the box is superior to everything out there and it beats them all after only an hour or not even a day of use yet.
I AM NOT BASHING THE PHONE OR RIM, but I am tired of these evaluations without any use or from people who have not even given an android a try.
Oh yea the other thing I hate about the captivate is this side load BS or you can only get apps from the android store un less you root the phone. Who the heck wants to have to be a programer to use an app.
So like I said in my thread I posted here, things I would like to know. I will keep reading for about 2 weeks before I jump back to a RIM phone again. I have 3 more weeks before my 30 days are up. But I am going to the store tomorrow or the next day to give one a try, and I am sure one of my friends will have one in his hand and then we shall see.
PS you have a swype keyboard youneed too try it. After a day or so you will love it.Last edited by Raven71; 08-12-10 at 08:52 PM.
08-12-10 08:32 PMLike 0
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