The BlackBerry Torch 9800

The BlackBerry Torch 9800 is very much a phone of two halves: the back section is great, but the front and most visible section is a big letdown.

Face down, the BlackBerry Torch looks like any other BlackBerry of recent years, for better or worse. A metal rim runs along the top so profiles can play nice with your holster, a camera with a flash resides just underneath, and there’s a distinctive removable back panel which can be prised off to get at the battery and microSD slot. This time round it’s rocking a bizarre ridged mould, which can best be described as “ribbed”. You soon stop noticing it though and it’s comfortable enough.

On the sides, you’ll find the micro USB port, volume rocker and one quick launch key (rather than the usual two). The 3.5mm audio port is also on the side: it’s usually something we grumble about but RIM didn’t really have much choice given the unusual form factor.

The best bit though is the keyboard on the BlackBerry Torch 9800. It’s been lifted straight off the Bold 9700’s design, and given that’s the best board for speed typing in the mobile business right now, that’s no bad thing. Since it’s set down slightly it’s a little bit harder to use but it’s still immensely practical for firing through emails, and the lip underneath doesn’t block your thumbs or out and out cut you like the one found on the Palm Pre.

The way the BlackBerry Torch 9800 is weighted, it’s actually comfortable to hold while typing, and it never feels like it’s going to topple over your hands in the way the overly oblong Sony Ericsson Aino slider felt like it would. The sliding mechanism is excellent too, and you won’t see any Oreo style twisting problems over time, we suspect.

It’s just a shame then that the upper half of the BlackBerry Torch, you know, the half you’ll be using most, is such a letdown. The chrome top above the screen is far too big: so large in fact that RIM’s managed to squeeze two BlackBerry logos on top of one another into it, and it really adds a sense of bulk to the phone. The LED indicator is still present, so email obsessives can tinker with their alerts as before.

Also present from before is the row of physical buttons and control scheme found on non-touchscreen BlackBerry models. Sitting below the screen are the call, menu, back and reject buttons, plus the optical trackpad which makes text selection much less fiddly. The problem is that they’re joined together, and are very difficult to push down individually, particularly the tiny call and reject zones. They should have been separate or touch sensitive.

But the real disappointment is the screen on the BlackBerry Torch 9800. The 480×360 resolution is way behind the curve (at least on a screen 3.2 inches or bigger), and if you’ve ever used an Android phone with a WVGA (800×480) screen or an iPhone 4 with its stunning Retina Display, it’s almost embarrassing. You can see the rough edges on words when reading emails – which you’re going to be doing a lot on a BlackBerry, let’s face it – and it just leaves you with the impression that it’s cheap, and BlackBerry 6 is underpowered.

And yet, even if it looks cheap, the whole affair feels a bit delicate too. While we reckon it’d come off better from a trip to the concrete than an iPhone 4, the BlackBerry Torch 9800 still feels delicate. Our Bold 9700 has survived trips into puddles and even a car crash and is still going: we’re not confident the BlackBerry Torch 9800 could, though we naturally aren’t going to simulate those examples to confirm.

What might just swing the build of the BlackBerry Torch 9800 for you is the battery life. Where a few hours of anything but standby on a HTC Desire can leave the little droid all but tapped out, the BlackBerry Torch just keeps on going and going. This phone will easily see you clear a weekend, or two full days of working week use, especially if you switch to 2G overnight.

But battery life and keyboard alone aren’t reasons enough to buy any phone these days. Software is key, and we’ve got the lowdown on that for you in our BlackBerry Torch review: BlackBerry 6 section.