BlackBerry Torch 9800
Review By CNETCNET editors' review
- Reviewed by:
- Bonnie Cha
- Reviewed on: 08/04/2010
- Released on: 08/12/2010
The good: The RIM BlackBerry Torch combines both a touch screen and full QWERTY keyboard. BlackBerry OS 6 brings such improvements as a better user interface, universal search, and an improved browser and multimedia experience.
The bad: The smartphone can be sluggish. The Torch has a lower-resolution screen. Applications can be saved only to the phone's main memory. Camera shoots only VGA video.
The bottom line: Though performance could be better and it could stand for some hardware upgrades, the RIM BlackBerry Torch 9800 and BlackBerry OS 6 offer much-needed improvements to stay in step with the competition, and keep BlackBerry enthusiasts happy.
Review:
Though BlackBerrys continue to be extremely popular, it's no secret that RIM needed to step up its game and really work on improving and advancing its operating system. Over the past few months, the company has given us previews of a refreshed OS, but now, we've finally had a chance to put it to the test.
The RIM BlackBerry Torch 9800 is the first device to ship running BlackBerry OS 6 and will be available starting August 12 for $199.99 with a two-year contract. We actually got the smartphone a few days before the official unveiling to put it through its paces, and we found a lot to like about it. The slider phone--a first for RIM--brings together a touch screen and a physical keyboard into a solid, compact design. The new OS brings some much-needed and welcome additions, including a better browser, an enhanced multimedia experience, and improved user interface. Sure, in the grand scheme of things, none of this is new but at least it puts RIM back on track. It's just unfortunate that RIM didn't upgrade other parts of the phone, such as the display and processor, as the Torch doesn't quite stack up to some of the latest smartphones. Still, there's enough there to keep BlackBerry fans happy.
Design
The BlackBerry Torch marks new territory for RIM. It's the company's first slider phone and isn't meant to be a one-off design, but rather, the start of a new series. RIM and AT&T actually began work on the device about a year and a half ago, and when creating the phone part of the goal was to offer a design that not only combined the best of all worlds--touch screen, full keyboard, and track pad--but also a familiar experience to previous and current BlackBerry users. For the most part, we think RIM was successful in doing so.
The Torch's shape is a little bit BlackBerry Storm and a little bit BlackBerry Bold. We wouldn't call it sexy but the look is certainly appropriate for the corporate scene, where BlackBerrys still dominate. In its closed state, the Torch measures 4.4 inches tall by 2.4 inches wide by 0.6 inch thick and weighs 5.7 ounces. It's a rather hefty handset, but it feels very solid, with a textured soft-touch finish on back. It's also thin and short enough to comfortably slip into a pant pocket.
On front, the Torch features a 3.2-inch half-VGA (480x360 at 188 pixels per inch) capacitive touch screen. Overall, the display is clear and bright enough for reading text and viewing Web pages, photos, and video. However, compared with many of today's smartphones, such as the HTC Droid Incredible and Samsung Captivate, the difference in resolution is noticeable and Torch's screen falls a bit flat.
What's noteworthy about the touch screen, however, is that it doesn't use SurePress technology like the BlackBerry Storm models, so you don't have to "click" on the display to register touches. Funnily enough, though, when we first started using the Torch, our instinct was to press down on the screen like it was the Storm, so we had to get out of that mindset.
For the most part, the touch screen is responsive. Apps launched as soon as we touched the icons, but the scrolling experience, as well as the pinch-to-zoom gesture, isn't quite as smooth or fast as some other systems. The display has a proximity sensor, so you won't have to worry about an errant press while on a phone call, and the built-in accelerometer was quick to change the screen orientation when we rotated the phone.
The Torch offers both portrait and landscape onscreen keyboards, which is suitable if you're writing a quick text message. However, if you're doing any more than that, it'd be a good time to slide the phone open and make good use of the full QWERTY keyboard.
The slider mechanism to expose the keyboard is smooth, and the screen locks into place securely. There's a pretty good distribution of weight when the phone is open, so it doesn't feel too top heavy when you're typing out messages. The Torch's keyboard is actually the thinnest one on a BlackBerry yet. As such, the buttons don't feel quite as good as the Bold, but the keys are still solid and a decent size. We also appreciate that there's a good amount of space between the top row of keys and the bottom edge of the screen, to prevent your thumbs from mashing up against the edge. Overall, the Torch provided a comfortable typing experience, though people with larger thumbs might need some time to acclimate. Still, it's certainly a roomier solution than the Palm Pre Plus, and came in quite handy for composing e-mails.
Below the display, you'll find some of the familiar BlackBerry parts, such as the standard navigation controls--Talk and End keys, BlackBerry menu button, back, and an optical trackpad below the display, and the lock and a mute buttons on top of the device. As with other BlackBerry devices, holding down the menu key will bring up a task switcher so you can easily toggle to a recently used app.
The right spine features a 3.5mm headphone jack, a volume rocker, and a customizable convenience key, which is set as the camera activation/capture button by default. There's a Micro-USB port on the left, and the camera and flash are located on back with the microSD card slot behind the battery door.
AT&T packages the Torch with an AC adapter, a USB cable, a 4GB microSD card, a wired stereo headset, a polishing cloth, and reference material. For more add-ons, please check our cell phone accessories, ringtones, and help page.
User interface and software
The RIM BlackBerry Torch is the first model to ship running BlackBerry OS 6, and much like the phone's design, when revamping the BlackBerry platform, RIM wanted to present something both fresh and familiar. There's a good bit of the familiar but a greater amount that's new, so this is definitely a major overhaul of the platform and not just a few added features.
Right off the bat, you'll notice a new home screen. On top, there's a Quick Access area where you can see the date, time, signal strength, battery life, and where you can manage your wireless connections. Below that is a new notification bar that includes one-touch access to change your phone's profile and to conduct searches. It will also alert you to new messages, missed calls, upcoming appointments, and so forth. Tapping on the bar will expand the tray so you can view more details and go directly to the appropriate app.
Most of the action, however, takes place at the bottom of the screen, where you'll find a new navigation bar. It makes good use of the touch screen, as you can swipe from left to right and vice versa to access apps and content based on five categories: All, Favorites, Media, Downloads, and Frequent. In addition to swiping sideways, you can tap on a category to expand it and see the full list of associated apps.
The categories themselves are fairly self-explanatory, but we should note that Favorites isn't restricted to apps. You can also add contacts and Web sites by going to an individual address book entry or Web site, pressing the menu key, and then selecting Add to Home Screen and selecting Mark as Favorite (should be checked off by default). Meanwhile, the process for adding favorite apps simply requires you do a long-press and then select Mark as Favorite from the contextual menu.
Overall, this system does a good job of making it easier to access and manage apps, and improves the user experience on the whole. With the contextual menus and improvements to the Web browser and multimedia features (more on this below), we got a sense that RIM really took advantage of touch-screen capabilities this time around, whereas the Storm models felt a little half-baked.
Yet, despite all this, one of our favorite things about BlackBerry OS 6 came down to a simple thing like universal search. RIM makes good on the "universal" part, as the search function scans nearly the entire contents of your phone, including contacts, messages, calendar, music, and pictures. In addition, you can extend your search to Google, YouTube, BlackBerry App World, and third-party apps, so you're getting a very robust search experience here. It was rare that we weren't able to find what we were looking for using universal search on the Torch.
Features
The RIM BlackBerry Torch 9800 is a quad-band world phone featuring 3G support, Bluetooth 2.1, Wi-Fi, and GPS. Other phone features include speakerphone, voice-activated dialing, smart dialing, conference calling, speed dial, visual voice mail, and text and multimedia messaging. Text and multimedia messages are now combined into a single in-box and supports threaded chat view, inline addressing and group chat. You can also instantly connect with friends through BlackBerry Messenger as well as through standard instant messaging clients like Windows Live, Yahoo, Google Talk, and AIM, all of which are preloaded on the phone.
Of course, what's a BlackBerry without e-mail? The Torch can sync with your company's BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES), with support for Microsoft Exchange, IBM Lotus Domino, or Novell GroupWise, to deliver corporate e-mail in real time. Recently, RIM also released BlackBerry Enterprise Server Express, a free but limited version of BES, that allows individuals and small businesses to sync their Exchange Calendar, contacts, and tasks and access files store on your company's network.
With BlackBerry Internet Service, you can also access up to 10 personal/business POP3 or IMAP4 e-mail accounts, with both separate and combined in-boxes. There's a setup wizard to help you sync your accounts, and it's usually just a matter of entering your log-in ID and password. We were able to sync our Gmail and Yahoo accounts with no problem, but did run into two-way synchronization issues with Gmail over BIS. Though RIM rolled out this feature this summer, it didn't work on our device. For example, if we read or delete an e-mail from Gmail on our PC, this was not reflected on the Torch, so we were constantly cleaning up our smartphone's in-box, which got to be pretty annoying.
Nowadays, e-mail isn't enough. People also want access to their social networks, and the BlackBerry Torch is up to the task. The smartphone not only comes preloaded with Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter clients, but also a new Social Feeds app, which aggregates updates from these sites, as well as instant-messaging clients, into one spot. You can pick and choose which sites you want pulled into the feed, and also adjust notification and display settings. In addition, the app also acts as an RSS feed aggregator.
The BlackBerry Torch comes preloaded with a number of other apps and games, such as DataViz Documents To Go Standard Edition, a memopad, a calculator, BrickBreaker, Word Mole, and Bejeweled. You'll also find AT&T services and apps on the device as well, including AT&T Map, AT&T Navigator, AT&T Music, Yellow Pages Mobile, and Where.
You can download additional apps from the new BlackBerry App World 2.0. The store offers more than 9,000 apps, which pales in comparison to iTunes and the Android Market, but the upside is that the store now supports carrier billing (AT&T will be the first to offer this) and the new BlackBerry ID service, which keeps track of your downloads and purchases so the next time you get a new BlackBerry, you can enter your BlackBerry ID and password and automatically reload your apps to the new device.
RIM said most existing apps should work with BlackBerry OS 6, but initially, there might be some variation on how well all the features of an app work with the new platform. Also, keep in mind that you can save apps only to the phone's main memory (512MB Flash memory).
Web browsing and multimedia
It's no secret that the BlackBerry browser has been RIM's Achilles' heel. Sluggish and limited in functionality, Web browsing on a BlackBerry was no walk in the park. To its credit, the company acknowledged the problem and acquired Torch Mobile in August 2009 (it's no coincidence that the phone is called the BlackBerry Torch) to develop a WebKit-based browser for the BlackBerry platform, and we're finally seeing the fruits of that labor.
The result is a combination of simplified processes, such as a cleaner start page and easier bookmarking, and new and improved features like tabbed browsing and enhanced URL sharing. There's also support for pinch-to-zoom and text reflow, so if you double-tap on a part of page to zoom in, the browser will automatically adjust the text to fit the screen. Another improvement is better HTML and JavaScript rendering, and partial support for HTML5 and CSS3, which might be a too much techno jargon for some, but it's important as it improves the speed and performance of the browser. Unfortunately, there is no Flash support and RIM would not comment on whether it would be added in the future.
In real-world use, we definitely felt the browser was much more functional than the previous version. We really liked the tabbed browsing setup, as it minimizes your current page and brings up thumbnails versions of all your open pages at which point you can swipe through until you find your desired page. For the most part, the text reflow function works as advertised, but if there's any type of in-line tables or graphics, some scrolling might be involved; there's also a slight redraw delay when you zoom in using the pinch-to-zoom gesture.
We saw a bump in speed, too, but there is still room for improvement, as the BlackBerry browser wasn't quite as fast as some of the other mobile browsers. Over a Wi-Fi connection, the Huffington Post's full site loaded in 50 seconds on the Torch, while the mobile sites for CNN and ESPN came up in 7 seconds and 6 seconds respectively. By comparison, the Android browser on the Nexus One brought up the same sites in 15 seconds, 3 seconds, and 4 seconds, respectively and the Safari browser on the iPhone 3GS delivered in 35 seconds, 6 seconds, and 5 seconds.
Moving on to the multimedia features. Much like Android, BlackBerry always provided an acceptable multimedia experience, but provided a rather lackluster user interface. This all changes with the Torch and BlackBerry OS 6, as you now get a Cover Flow-like presentation that utilizes the touch screen for navigating through tracks and playback. The video player also gives you more playback options, ranging from actual size to full screen.
The Torch supports MP3, AAC, AAC+, eAAC+, WMA, FLAC, and OGG music files and MPEG4, H.263, H.264, and WMV video codecs. To get files on the phone, you can use the Torch as a mass-storage device and simply drag and drop files. Alternatively, the new BlackBerry Desktop Software 6 can sync your media libraries from Windows Media Player or iTunes, and there's also a Wi-Fi Music Sync feature that, among other things, will allow you to download songs to your smartphone over your home's Wi-Fi network. The Torch has 4GB on onboard memory and comes with a 4GB microSD card, though the expansion slot can accept up to 32GB cards.
Other entertainment goodies include a dedicated YouTube player, Slacker Radio, MobiTV, and a new podcast app that offers content from the QuickPlay podcast catalog.
The Torch features a 5-megapixel camera with auto focus, 2X zoom, and an LED flash. It's the highest camera RIM has ever put on a BlackBerry but the company says it's not about the megapixels. It's about little details like providing the right tools for taking pictures indoors and capturing action shots. As a result, the company added new camera options such as face detection, additional scene modes, and a simplified camera interface.
We appreciated all the new camera options, and most of the scene modes did their job. For our standard indoor shot, we switched the scene mode to Party, which is recommended for "dim, indoor environments," and the setting definitely helped in terms of lighting and color performance. However picture quality was a bit soft. Outdoor shots came out nice, and we were able to capture fast-moving subjects using Sports mode. You can check out some image samples in our photo gallery. What's disappointing, though, is that the camera only records VGA video, whereas phones like the HTC Evo 4G and Motorola Droid X now offer HD video recording. That said, recorded clips on the Torch were pretty decent.
Performance
We tested the quad-band (GSM 850/900/1800/1900) RIM BlackBerry Torch in New York using AT&T service and call quality was generally good. On our side, the audio was clear with minimal background noise. Occasionally, there was a bit of voice distortion, making callers sound slightly robotic, but it didn't stop us from continuing our conversation. Meanwhile, our friends reported good results and didn't have any major complaints.
Speakerphone quality definitely could be better. Calls sounded hollow and several friends said they could hear an echo. Also, even at the highest level, the volume was low, making it quite difficult to hold a conversation in a louder environment. We had no problem pairing the smartphone with the Logitech Mobile Traveller Bluetooth headset or the Motorola S9 Bluetooth Active headphones.
We had pretty good 3G coverage throughout Manhattan, but we did have two dropped calls in Midtown. Data speeds were decent. CNET's mobile site loaded in 15 seconds, and we were able to download a 1.5MB app from BlackBerry App World in less than a minute. YouTube videos buffered within several seconds, and played back continuously. However, audio and video weren't always synced up. Videos from our own media library played back nicely with no synchronization problems, but we were definitely pining for a better screen.
If there's one area where the Torch trips up, it's general performance. Armed with a 624MHz Marvell processor, the smartphone can be sluggish at times. Though most applications launched pretty quickly, we encountered delays when switching between tasks. There were a couple of times they were significant enough that we thought the system might have frozen, but eventually it came back to life.
The BlackBerry Torch's battery has a rated talk time of 5.5 hours (2G)/5.8 hours (3G) and up to 17 days (2G)/13 days (3G) of standby time. In our battery drain tests, the smartphone was able to provide 5 hours of continuous talk time on a single charge. With moderate use (some Web browsing, music, and video playback, and e-mail), the smartphone was able to last a little more than a day before needing to recharge. According to FCC radiation tests, the Torch has a SAR rating of 0.91 watt per kilogram and a Hearing Aid Compatibility rating of M3/T3.
- Manufacturer: Research In Motion Ltd.
- Part Number:4790237
General
- Product Type Smartphone With digital camera / digital player
- Service Provider AT&T
- Width 2.44 nm
- Depth 0.57 nm
- Height 4.37 nm
Cellular
- Technology GSM / UMTS
- Band GSM 850/900/1800/1900 (Quadband) / UMTS 800/850/1900/2100 (Quadband)
- Phone Design Candy bar
- Vibrating Alert Yes
- Caller ID Yes
- Wireless Interface Bluetooth , IEEE 802.11b/g/n
- Additional Features AGPS , Touch screen , GPRS support , EDGE , microSD card slot , Trackpad
Communicator Features
- Operating System BlackBerry Handheld Software
Messaging & Data Services
- Short Messaging Service (SMS) Yes
- Mobile Email Yes
- Internet Browser Yes
- Messaging / Data Features Text messages , E-Mail
Multimedia Features
- Downloadable Content Applications
Display
- Type LCD display
Battery
- Talk Time Up to 330 min (GSM) , Up to 348 min (UMTS)
Hardware
The size and shape of the device is nearly identical to the 9700, and in fact, its dimensions (4.4-inches up and down by 2.4-inches across when closed) are within spitting distance of the simpler, portrait QWERTY model. The thickness differs by a tiny margin (the Torch is 0.57-inches thick, while the Bold is 0.56-inches), though for some reason it feels much more significant when holding the two in your hand. Compared to more streamlined devices like the Captivate or iPhone 4... well, it has a full keyboard, okay? The Torch keeps the familiar, metal-like (it's plastic) bezel around the edges of the phone, looping around back just as with the Bold, though this time it's split in two pieces due to the separate screen and keyboard portions of the phone. The front of the device is mostly taken up by the Torch's 3.2-inch capacitive touchscreen (480 x 360, just like the Storm and Storm2), though you'll find the familiar BlackBerry call, menu, back, and end buttons and optical trackpad just below the display. Along the right side of the phone is a 3.5mm headphone jack, volume rockers, and user-assignable convenience key (it defaults to the camera), while the left side houses only the Micro USB jack. Up top there are mute and lock buttons, while the phone's 5 megapixel camera and LED flash sit in a familiar spot along the back of the phone.
Internals
As we said, the Torch sports a 480 x 360 capacitive display, which is adequate for the device but already a generation behind the competition in terms of resolution and pixel density. In fact, almost every smartphone we've reviewed this year -- save for a few low-end models -- sport a higher res display than the Torch. We're unclear as to why RIM didn't bring the screen up to at least 480 x 800, but we suspect it has something to do with backwards compatibility with apps. Compared to other displays, text looked blocky, and images didn't have the clarity we would have expected from a smartphone in 2010. Touch sensitivity wasn't outstanding on our review unit, making for a real lack of confidence when it came to finger tracking. We feel like there's polishing to be done on the software side that would greatly improve the experience, particularly when attempting more precise pinch-to-zoom and swipe gestures (more on that in a moment). Oh, and SurePress? Nowhere to be found on the Torch.
Inside, the phone packs 512MB of RAM (doubling that of the Bold 9700 but the same as the 9650) and 4GB of hardwired storage, with a microSD slot for additional storage up to 32GB (you get a 4GB card in the box). As you would expect, there's 802.11b/g/n WiFi on board along with Bluetooth 2.1 support, as well as an AGPS chip for when you get lost. Disappointingly, RIM is still using the same Marvell CPU found in the 9700, clocked at 624MHz (though the company claims this is a newer generation chip). In our testing, performance was sluggish in some areas, and we can't help but wonder if it was a fault of the software or the slower processor speed. Not to harp on this, but with competition like the Nexus One and Droid X, it seems logical that RIM would put a little more horsepower into these phones.
Camera
On the video front, the camera can shoot up to 640 x 480 resolution clips, still not competitive with most top-tier smartphones hitting the market right now (720p at 30 FPS is quickly becoming the standard). Again, here's a spot where we can't help but think that a faster CPU might have allowed RIM to take it up a notch -- instead the company is just treading water with its offerings.
The updated pictures app on the phone makes it easier to organize your collections, though we were a little bothered by the time it takes to render zoomed-in views of shots taken. One nice addition is pinch-to-zoom in the gallery viewer, since RIM is keeping up with the Joneses.
Call quality and speakerphone
Calls on the Torch were crisp and clear, and as with previous BlackBerry devices, getting into and out of calls was a breeze. We also found the speakerphone quality to be reasonably high, though the midrange of the audio felt a bit shrill at high volumes. Overall, making and receiving calls on the phone was a pain-free and most importantly fast experience.
As far as antenna concerns go, we didn't notice any outstanding issues with signal loss or an unusual amount of dropped calls. We suspect that we're in particularly good range of a cell tower, but our guess is that most users' experiences with the phone will be similar. We don't see an Antennagate cropping up for RIM.
Software
Look and feel
In the previous version of the BlackBerry OS, you had two basic views, the first being a screen with your favorite (or top) apps, time, date, and message alerts, and quick access to sound profile settings. The second screen was basically your entire collection of apps and folders with little information otherwise (think: the iPhone homescreen). RIM has now joined these two views together by stealing a move from Android's playbook: a window that slides up from the bottom of the display showing your apps. You can notch this window into place to show everything (four rows), or any variation between all and nothing. We kept ours at the standard view of four apps at a time (one row), though it's easy to toggle between sizes. Not only can you bring this window up onto your homescreen and scroll vertically through it, but you can also swipe side to side for different groupings of apps, like "favorites" or "media." You can also swipe on the top bar of this window when its reduced to move through groups of apps. RIM has also added a persistent notification alert to this screen via a small row of icons at the top of the page. This allows you to see social networking, email, SMS, call, and calendar alerts all in one place. Like Android, this drops down a separate window showing your most recent activity, and each notification can be clicked on to transport you to the app.
Everything on the homescreen seems designed to help you get to your most used functions quickly, which is wonderful. Tapping on the time brings up your network connection manager and alarm settings, tapping on the profiles icon lets you choose your sound setup, and hitting the search icon naturally brings up your search window (more on that in a second). It all works really well, and we feel like RIM has made the right amount of compromises here to make getting around the OS cleaner and easier. Of course, there are still lots of ways to do things in BlackBerry 6, so sometimes moving from place to place can get a little confusing. You have the choice of using the touchscreen, trackpad, or search for finding items, and in addition to the standard menu key to bring up contextual menus, long-pressing on items all over the OS reveals a separate context menu with many (though not all) of the menu key items. Just as with Windows Phone 7, the long press is a kind of mystery meat in this user experience -- it does what you'd expect it to do, but there's a weird overlap with the menu key, and it's inconsistent throughout. We're guessing this has a lot to do with the fact that RIM is planning to update its older, non-touchscreen devices with the new OS -- while not necessarily a bad thing, it does create sometimes-chaotic interaction.
Menus and messaging apps have all been given the once over as well, and there's now Storm-like inertial scrolling in lists. RIM has also altered the manner in which you adjust settings on the phone, giving you a more graphic-heavy menu to navigate preferences, which is a huge improvement over the lists seen in the last version of the operating system. While most applications will look familiar to BlackBerry users, there seems to be less clutter (we'll look closer at specific apps below). One of the nice touches we liked in the OS is a method of selecting text by tapping at the beginning and end of the section you want with two fingers -- a really smart and useful idea.
If you're a Bold fan, then you're probably used to a pretty snappy UI... but you're also probably used to seeing some freezes and ticking clocks. That doesn't change with the Torch. As we said previously, the phone is running atop a fairly slow CPU (given the current climate) and RIM seems to be throwing a lot more at it -- in terms of functionality and graphics -- than in previous phones. The result is a mixed bag: sometimes you feel like you're blazing through the device, while other times you're presented with an aggravating freeze. What makes it worse is that you'll get the clock in some scenarios and not in others, so you may be frantically tapping on the screen while the phone's display is totally static. In most modern smartphones, this is not a common experience. In fact, on almost every new Android device we've reviewed and certainly the iPhone 4, we never ran into issues where the device simply stalls out. It feels like the Torch is already butting up against the limits of its abilities, and nothing genuinely CPU intensive seems to be going on. It's not like the phone is running 3D games in the background, that's for sure.
Universal search
Mail, messaging, and social networking
Let's look at mail first. Now, we're primarily Gmail users, which means we're not syncing this phone with a corporate mail account humming along on RIM's servers. It also means that we're in luck because the BlackBerry platform is pretty much the only place outside of Android that you can get a reasonably good Gmail experience. Archiving, threaded conversations, labels, starring, spam management -- it's all present in a built-in plugin made specifically for Gmail. Getting started is easy, as it only requires your standard Gmail login. You're then given an option to sync your contacts (it will sync your mail calendar whether you like it or not). So far so good. Once your email is setup, it's pushed to the phone instantly, and changes you make on the phone (creating labels, archiving, labeling, etc.) are pushed back to Google's servers almost immediately. Unfortunately, there's one piece of this puzzle missing, and it's a doozy: when you make changes directly in your Gmail account (in a browser), the changes take ages to get pushed back to the phone. In fact, sometimes the changes never seem to make it back to the phone. So if you just triaged your inbox on your computer, your phone will still make it look like you've got an inbox full of unread messages -- and they are unread on the phone. There seems to be a fundamental breakdown in this stage of Gmail for RIM devices, and it makes dealing with Gmail accounts on the phone a royal pain. Now, that may not bother a lot of users, but if RIM wants to attract the everyman to this phone -- the person who actually uses Gmail -- it's going to have to do a little better than this.
On that note, what's also confusing about RIM's handling of mail is that you've got two inboxes -- your dedicated Gmail (or whatever service you use) inbox, and then your "messages" folder, which actually seems to catch more mail. That's all well and good, but none of the Gmail features are present in this inbox (not even threaded messaging). That would be fine if you could ignore this messaging folder and just manage your mail in your proper inbox, but RIM forces you into this inbox because it's the place those handy homescreen notifications take you if you click on them. Does this actually make sense to anyone in the world? Why does RIM give users two different inboxes with two sets of functionality to handle the same messages? The issue is further compounded by using searches within the Gmail inbox -- this also presents another, slightly skewed set of options. For instance, when you search for a string, you can archive a set of those messages. You have to back out to the main inbox and go one by one. It is a deeply confusing and unnecessary system for handling email (Gmail, at least), and we really would like to see the company clear up these obvious problems.
Hey, we get it, BlackBerry users love this unified messaging inbox where they see all their SMS, MMS, BBM, and email mashed up into one place. But not everyone wants to handle their communication like that, and RIM doesn't really give you a choice. It's like the company threw off the Gmail integration as a lark, and just kind of tolerates the idea that a customer would want to have a separate inbox. You can set options to exclude your messages from showing up here, but then you lose out on that new quick jump to your email from the notification bar. In a perfect world, you would get the option to choose where that jump takes you for what messages -- or perhaps have an option that says "always default to X mailbox." Just a thought.
Yes, we're griping, but the mail experience still has lots and lots of great features that make for a solid experience, despite our woes. For starters, the viewer now utilizes Webkit for messages, so your emails should turn up looking much better than they have in previous version of the BlackBerry OS. Furthermore, the search in mail is excellent, displaying results almost as fast as we could type them. And let's not forget that you're dealing with the folks that practically invented push email, so if you're impatient (at least about incoming mail), this will be music to your ears.
The browser
So, BlackBerry 6 got itself a bonafide Webkit-based browser, but does it fix the problems? In a word: yes. For the most part, the browser on the Torch is leaps and bounds beyond anything that RIM has put in a phone before. If you're used to the experience of using a Pre, iPhone, or Android device, you'll feel right at home. Web pages display correctly and reasonably quickly, and all the standard accouterments are here, including pinch-to-zoom, tabbed browsing, and text reflowing. Basically, it's a pretty good mobile browser with some extra features that we really like (such as an actual cursor, which allows you to navigate sites the way god intended). But there are problems too, the main one being that it doesn't seem like the Torch's guts have the goods to pull off a seamless browsing experience, so when you're zooming in and out and panning around you get a lot of freezes while loading, artifacted content that takes ages to render, and generally choppy behavior (as you can see in the video below). There's also no support here for Flash or HTML5 video, so you're limited to YouTube if you want to watch video on the go.
It's an uneven experience, overall -- we're certainly happy to see RIM embracing Webkit, but we just wish the phone had the horsepower to deliver a really killer experience. We don't know if its memory constraints (less likely), RIM's method of bottlenecking data through its servers (somewhat likely), or the speed and power of the CPU (much more likely), but the browser doesn't feel as competitive as it should with other phones in this class and price range.
Media player / WiFi syncing
As you may have heard, the newest version of BlackBerry Desktop allows WiFi syncing with your phone, meaning you're able to wirelessly transmit music from your PC to your phone (Windows-only right now). In our testing we had mixed results. Some songs we couldn't get to show up at all in our sync list, while others didn't pass the litmus test for file format compatibility (word to the wise, if you're a Zune user, be prepared to leave your WMV files behind). The concept is obviously great, but the execution needs a little work here -- it's far more confusing and inconsistent than we would have liked.
App compatibility / App performance
Beyond that, the apps we did run seemed fine, but we do have to once again take issue with the performance of this phone as it relates to the rest of the smartphone market. For instance, the Torch comes preloaded with a number of pieces of bloatware and a handful of games, one of which is Sonic the Hedgehog. Now, the game this port is based on is about 20 years old, and even our Treo 650 could run an emulator that played a pixel perfect version of the title (an arcade side-scroller). On the Torch, however, the experience is abysmal. Slowdowns, garbled audio, horrible controls. It's actually kind of sad. Now compare that to the kind of fully developed 3D gaming we see on the iPhone, Palm Pre, and even Android, and it's more than a little disheartening. It's 2010 -- if these are "super apps" (Mike Lazaridis' words), we're expecting a lot more than this. We know gaming might not be a focus of most users' needs, but they're a great indicator of how flexible and powerful a platform is, and what we've seen doesn't look promising. Coupled with the fact that RIM told us in a meeting that there would be no 3D APIs and no OpenGL 2.0 support for BlackBerry 6, we're not feeling psyched.
One ray of light here is that RIM is now pushing web standards-based apps (think: webOS) as a viable option for developers, and the new SDK will allow for deeper hooks into the OS (like use of notifications). That could breathe some new life into the platform, and performance should be consistent, though as we've seen with Apple's web apps and webOS, this isn't necessarily a strategy for market domination.
Battery life
As with every BlackBerry we've used, the battery life on the Torch seemed exceptional to us. In comparison to most other phones we've tested recently, RIM's offering sits at the top of the heap in terms of longevity. There were actually a few days we tested without charging overnight, and when we awoke we were surprised to find that the battery indicator had barely moved -- even with lots of emails and messages coming down while we were sleeping. It's obvious that the company has put a lot of effort into making sure that the Torch sips rather than gulps battery life, and they certainly seem to have succeeded. If you're on the move a lot or a heavy user, you won't be disappointed -- and let's not forget that you can always get a second battery or larger third-party battery if you've really got to go the distance.
Wrap-up
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