Review: RIM BlackBerry Torch

Research In Motion (and its iconic BlackBerrys) used to rule the smartphone roost. That was until Wunderkinder like the iPhone and an army of Android devices crashed the party and stole some of the Canadian smartphone maker's thunder.

But RIM isn't going down without a fight. It's set to unleash the full-featured Torch for AT&T.

After spending time with the device, it's clear the Torch represents a natural evolution of RIM's enterprise-centric hardware. It incorporates elements of touchscreen-heavy precursors like the Storm with the QWERTY-heavy workhouse chops of the Bold. The 4.37-inch chassis feels perfectly at home in-hand, and though the sliding design screams 2006, RIM's eye for aesthetics gives the Torch an apropos sleekness.

At center stage is the handset's 480 x 360 capacitive touchscreen. Though the 3.2-inch display is light on real estate and less than dazzling, it makes for a solid backbone for reliably smooth, touch-based navigation. Luddites wanting to toe-dip into this tactile sweetness still have the option of an optical trackpad, and the Torch's tried-and-true QWERTY keypad. Hybrid input systems can sometimes become a clusterfrak of input ambiguity, but that's surprisingly not the case with this handset. With the inclusion of a reliable onscreen keyboard, each input method feels competent, lithe and fully baked.

Once we got poking around, there was a lot to see. As one of RIM's first phones to sport the overhauled BlackBerry 6 OS, features like multimedia playback, web browsing and search all have marked improvements. Booting up the music player reveals a splashy, album-art–heavy interface, and RIM wisely took a page from Android and included a front-and-center universal search toolbar.

On the web side, RIM ditched its dreadful browser in favor of a much more user-friendly Webkit-powered surfing tool. Social networking even gets a little integration love with a dedicated RSS-like feed that centralizes incoming data from Facebook, Twitter, AIM and G-Chat. Though we weren't necessarily blown away by these features, they were all handled with relative aplomb. Even with its soon-to-be-outdated 624-MHz processor, the Torch proved reasonably adept at hopping between tasks.

If there's one thing we can hold against the Torch, it's that the handset is merely an evolution rather than a revolution. On one hand, it's a sensible progression of RIM's hardware focus — if not a well-rounded flagship for an otherwise industrious fleet. However, when compared to the smartphone pack leaders — in both specs and capabilities — the Torch falls shy of game-changing greatness. Diehard BlackBerrys probably won't care either way (and to be fair, this is clearly RIM's strongest contender to date), but unless you're itching to join the fold, we suggest keeping your torch lit for something more powerful.