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Blackberry may have lost the top spot in the US smartphone market this year, but it’s not giving up. The Canadian company RIM is fortifying its smartphone stable releasing the Blackberry Torch 9800 as its first combination touchscreen and full QWERTY portrait slider. Its form has the promise of leading the way for future Blackberry smartphones not only in looks but in proven robust features that continue to sweep corporate America, despite most of them switching to the Android side.

Continuing its Appeal to Business

Blackberry’s conventional looks that have defined the form may have boxed it in and confined the marque to a limited market that will no doubt be the same one to patronize the Blackberry Torch 9800. Even a blending with the more popular touchscreen form which may seem revolutionary for Blackberry but is already pedestrian elsewhere, won’t be extending it to wider markets anytime soon.

Blackberry Torch 9800

Powered by a 623 MHz CPU, the Blackberry Torch 9800 comes with a 4GB onboard storage gives the Torch 9800 enough user memory for most business apps while its microSD expansion capability for up to 32GB takes the better storage option for multimedia files. In addition, its generous 512 MB RAM and 512 MB ROM gives the new Blackberry OS v6.0 and preloaded apps enough room to play.

Respectable Multimedia

Blackberry has never led in the multimedia department as its target business markets are not supposed to have the time to engage in such frivolities. But it does take some nod to some entertainment features. For sure, you might never have to expect an FM stereo radio in one.

None of their models do. But Blackberry Torch 9800 surprises us here with a DivX and XviD support for its video codecs, as well as OGG and FLAC support for its audio players – something you won’t find in many so called music smartphones. It even has the industry standard 3.5mm headphone port and you can go wireless stereo listening with its A2DP profile support.

A 5 megapixel resolution is the common limit among its high end smartphones and so does the Torch 9800. But it features LED flash, geo tagging and continuous auto focus as well as image stabilization. Just don’t expect video recording to go past VGA resolution at a respectable 24fps frame rate.

High End Connectivity and Other Features

As a phone, the Blackberry Torch 9800 carries a wealth of connectivity and is one of the few offering quad band on both GSM on 2G and UMTS on 3G. It has class 10 GPRS/EDGE on 2G and HSDPA/HSUPA on 3G, along with local data connectivity for WiFi 802.11 b/g/n with carrier-dependent UMA, Bluetooth v2.1 with A2DP and microUSB v2.0.

SatNav gets a built-in GPS receivers with AGPS support preloaded with its own Blackberry Maps. A standard li-ion battery rated at 1300 mAh gets you going up to 5.5 hours in 2G talk time and almost the same for 3G, while music playback can reach 30 hours.

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