Blackberry Torch 9860 deals & review

The Torch 9800 released in 2010 has proven to be one of the most popular BlackBerry phones of recent years and was followed up in 2011 by the improved Torch 9810 and Torch 9860. The Torch 9810 offers the same sliding design as the original with some hardware updates, but the Torch 9860 adopts an entirely different approach. This is one of the few full touchscreen phones released by BlackBerry, and as such it does not come with one of their iconic QWERTY keypads.

The QWERTY keypad is probably one of the primary reasons that many people will be interested in buying a BlackBerry phone, along with the many excellent messaging options that come included as part of the BlackBerry package. So you may be wondering why you would be interested in purchasing a BlackBerry phone without a QWERTY keypad included. The Torch 9860 is BlackBerry´s answer to the increasing dominance of touchscreen phones from competitors like Apple, HTC and Samsung. While it does not come with a QWERTY keypad it does come with all the other messaging features that make BlackBerry phones so popular, such as great email support and BlackBerry Messenger.

Because of this it is the perfect phone for traditional BlackBerry fans looking to make a transition to the world of touchscreen phones. While the Torch 9810 also comes with a touch sensitive screen this is much smaller than the one found on the Torch 9860, and the latter device provides much more room and flexibility for things like web browsing and multimedia.

These features have made a dramatic improvement on the Torch 9860 compared to earlier BlackBerry devices thanks to the BlackBerry OS 7 interface, which makes its debut on this phone (along with the Torch 9810 and Bold 9900). Significant enhancements have been added with support for OpenGL and BlackBerry´s new Liquid Graphics system, which provides a much more visually appealing interface. It also enhances other areas including apps, games and videos.

BlackBerry OS7 now supports HTML5 video so you can enjoy a more enhanced online video experience from websites like YouTube. Web browsing in general has had a major boost thanks to a new JavaScript compiler that makes web page rendering much more speedy and efficient. BlackBerry Maps is included as well as BlackBerry App World where you can get a whole range of excellent games and apps to enjoy.

The Torch 9860 comes with traditional BlackBerry messaging features such as BlackBerry Messenger and excellent email support. It also includes superior social networking support with Facebook and Twitter well integrated into the interface. You can even tap out a message and then send it via a selection of social networks and messaging channels at the same time. Of course without a QWERTY keypad typing is done through an onscreen keyboard.

The Torch 9860 features an excellent touchscreen display that measures 3.7 inches, making it comfortably sized and spacious at the same time. It includes 16 million colour depth and multitouch gestures along with a sharp WVGA resolution offering some excellent picture quality and high pixel density. Although the Torch 9860 does not come with a QWERTY keypad it still keeps hold of the traditional optical trackpad which can be used to navigate around the interface. This is a little bit redundant on a touchscreen phone and is probably more of a comfort feature for people switching from other BlackBerry handsets.

Entertainment is excellent on the Torch 9860 with great support for music and video, and this model is particularly good for video thanks to the larger screen. The music player even supports Flac and OGG formats which will be of great interest to real music buffs. The Torch has 4GB of internal storage space available for multimedia content with a further 32GB on offer through microSD cards.

Along with this the Torch 9860 comes with a decent 5 megapixel camera including 720p video recording. While there are better phone cameras around this is perfectly suited for most people´s everyday use, and provides excellent picture and video quality. Pictures and videos can be uploaded to various services including social networks with ease from the Torch 9860.

This is not the first attempt by BlackBerry to produce a full touchscreen phone as they had a similar idea with the earlier Storm models. The Torch 9860 is a far superior effort in the touchscreen arena than the Storm series however and benefits from all of the excellent web browsing, multimedia and messaging improvements added into BlackBerry OS7.