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What once began with the BlackBerry Storm has now evolved into the BlackBerry Torch 9860. The old SurePress technology is gone and now a capacitive touch screen makes input easy. The release of the BlackBerry Torch 9860 already happened in late August and depending on which country you are located at, you most probably can already buy a 9860.

Without further ado, let’s jump right into the review.

First impression

The BlackBerry Torch 9860 is a piece of it own. If you are used to the usual screen on top, keyboard below design then the Torch 9860 will be a bit unusual to you. I didn’t bother much with the Storm BlackBerrys, because I really didn’t like the SurePress technology. So the BB Torch 9860 made a nice first impression for NOT having a SurePress screen. The other thing that struck me, were the keys below the screen. The call, hang up call, menu and back buttons are not the usual touch buttons, but real physical buttons. I’m not sure how to rate this, but these buttons somehow break the otherwise perfectly elegant impression. Like all BlackBerry devices, the 9860 has a feel like it’s made of steel. No loose parts. No funny noises when holding the device firmly in the hand.

BlackBerry OS 7 on the Torch 9860

RIM has done its job to polish the BlackBerry OS 7 and make it ready for touch devices. Originally BB OS 7 was labeled OS 6.1, but then RIM re-branded it to BlackBerry OS 7, which makes an appropriate choice, since there are a lot of improvements and two that really stick out: Liquid graphics and the Webkit Browser.

Liquid Graphics

Liquid Graphics is supposed to deliver a really smooth experience when doing just about anything on the Torch. In fact RIM added a Adreno 205 GPU to make sure animations and loading of graphics doesn’t hit the processor. Previously graphical animations had a heavy impact on the responsiveness of the device, however now almost everything runs very smooth. Sometimes I could sense a very tiny lag when zooming in and out of websites in the webbrowser, but that is a really small lag hardly worth mentioning. There is definitely improvement from previous devices (I’m talking about the Storm here). Last but not least, Liquid Graphics is a marketing term that sums up all the improvements both in hardware and software that have been made to achieve a lag free visual experience.

Webkit Browser

If you tried to use the internet on OS 6 or older BlackBerry smartphones, you probably downloaded a third party web browser like the Opera Mini. That is no longer necessary as the Webkit Browser finally delivers the experience that you expect from a modern web-browser. If you often surf the web, then getting a OS 7 device is a good choice, and the BlackBerry Torch 9860 is a particular good choice. The huge screen is quite impressive.

The Torch 9860 screen

The huge screen is not only helpful when surfing the web, it just rocks when doing just about anything. The capacitive touchscreen is 3.7 inch in diameter, features a 480 x 800 pixels WVGA resolution and 16 million colors. The colors are bright and lively. Searching the contacts is no problem even in bright sunlight. 253ppi will make sure text is crisp and sharp as on a ebook-reader device.

Virtual keyboard is not for everyone

While the huge screen is perfectly made to watch videos in HD resolution, look at holiday photos and other forms of media, writing serious amounts of text with the virtual keyboard can be a pain. Just to be clear, writing 10 normal sized emails and a few more SMS every day is perfectly fine with the Torch 9860, however if you are a journalist or have some other reason to write a lot of text on the screen, the virtual keyboard can’t compete with a hardware keyboard. Journalists and authors, be faithful to your BlackBerrys with a physical keyboard!

Hardware and battery

The BlackBerry Torch 9860 comes with a single core 1.2 Gigahertz processor, supported by the aforementioned Adreno 205 Graphics-CPU and has 768 Megabytes of RAM. That’s more than previous devices and it’s enough to power all current applications. Despite the huge screen and the powerful hardware, the battery of the BB Torch 9860 survives more than 1 day of intensive use. And that’s exactly what I expect from a BlackBerry device. There is already 4 Gigabyte internal memory, which might already be enough depending on your needs. If it is not enough, there is a slot for a microSD media card with a upper limit of 32 GB.

Digital camera

The digital camera is another improvement from the last generation of BlackBerrys. With 5 megapixels pictures are sharp and colorful. Video has also improved and now 720p HD videos can be recorded. While this sounds like a good thing, the video autofocus needs some improvement. There is no problem with pictures, but when recording a video the focus reacts to slow for my taste sometimes. Playing around with the video function for a while you will soon learn which situations can cause the slow auto focus, but I’d prefer if I could just video anything I want without any focus issues.

The best thing about the Torch’s camera is, it is better that the BlackBerry Bold 9900 camera, which only has 3.2 megapixels. If taking photos is important to you, then and you are thinking about a OS 7 device, give the BlackBerry Torch 9860 some extra points in you list.

Conclusion on the BlackBerry Torch 9860

The Torch 9860 is a great phone and I can recommend it to everyone. As the BlackBerry Bold 9900 is hitting the shelves at the same time, you have to think about which one better suits your needs. Are you already used to phones without physical keyboard, then take the Torch. If you don’t need to write large amounts of text everyday, then the Torch is for you. I don’t need to talk about the overall quality, it’s the usual high RIM quality. Maybe the best way to decide is, just put the Torch 9860 and the Bold 9900 next to each other and pick the one that looks more beautiful to you. And I have to admit, the WVGA is really impressive yet elegant, so I’ll have the BlackBerry Torch 9860 with me for a while and see how it helps me getting things done.

BlackBerry Torch 9860 Technical details

If you have any questions or are a Torch 9860 owner yourself, leave a comment and tell me what you think.

Related Tags: 9860, blackberry, camera, megapixel, torch, WVGA