BB Torch 9860 - 5 reasons to go for it

The new all-touch BBTorch is everything that RIM had aspired to be. It's sleek, has a bright and big touchscreen display, fast processor to power the phone, and also a spanking new OS that's tailor made for the touch experience.

After the entire debacle about the quality of devices and touchscreens RIM had launched in the names of Storm and Storm 2, in the past, RIM has finally decided to leave the 'Storm' tag behind and brand the newly launched all-touch Blackberry phone of theirs as Torch 9860. The new Torch is everything that RIM had aspired to be. It's sleek, has a bright and big touchscreen display, fast processor to power the phone, and also a spanking new OS that's tailor made for the touch experience.

Priced at ₹8,490, the Torch 9860 is cheaper than rival smartphones such as Samsung's Galaxy S II at ₹9,990 and Apple's iPhone 4, which was launched in India in May with a starting price of ₹4,500.RIM doesn't give out sales numbers in individual countries, but the company's director of marketing in India, KrishnadeepBarua, said sales here are expanding faster than the Indian smartphone market's overall growth rate.

Here are the 5 features that, we think, have the potential to make the brand new Torch 9860 a runaway success -

3.7-inch touchscreen

This is the biggest Blackberry smartphone in the market today. The 3.7-inch touchscreen, coupled with a resolution of 800x400 and 253 DPI (dots per inch), provides a sharp and clean viewing experience. This means, better experience of augmented reality, web browsing and multimedia consumption.

One design element to note with the all-touch BlackBerry Torch screen: RIM designed the face of the smartphone to 'fall over' the device edge (something they call 'The Waterfall' internally), which lengthens the screen to provide a visual experience that works in landscape or portrait orientation.

HD recording & Liquid Graphics

The Blackberry 9860 lets you capture videos in 720p (although today's industry standard is 1080p) with its 5MP camera, and the Liquid Graphics display lets you view your photos, videos, games and apps in incredible detail.

Powerful Processor

A 1.2GHz processor powers BlackBerry Torch 9850/9860 smartphones, seamlessly integrating with BlackBerry 7 OS. So you can game, surf, socialize or watch videos with smoother multitasking and navigation.

Magnetometer

Combined with the Camera app and GPS, the magnetometer or digital compass on the BlackBerry Torch 9860 smartphone has enabled a new class of 'augmented reality' applications on the BlackBerry platform. One example is the Wikitude augmented reality browser that combines real and virtual worlds via the Camera viewfinder to provide immediate and relevant data about one's surroundings. One great feature of the Wikitude browser is its integration with BBM 6. This (opt-in) feature allows you to see the location of your BBM 6 contacts in real-time and spontaneously arranges to meet for coffee if you happen to be in the same 'hood. See the video above for an example.

Blackberry OS 7

Last, but not the least, it's Blackberry OS 7 that makes the Torch 9860 shine as much as it does. Together with the powerful hardware found in the BlackBerry Torch 9850 and 9860 smartphone, the new BlackBerry 7 OS offers a variety of performance and usability enhancements resulting in a truly wonderful user experience.

From the ground up, the software architecture of BlackBerry 7 has been redesigned to maximize the use of hardware acceleration and graphical fidelity. This optimization allows for rich graphics, smooth animations and a fluid touch experience.