BlackBerry Torch 9800 Officially Out

After seeing crystal clear images leaked on websites long back, we finally hear from the horse's mouth directly. BlackBerry's new flagship model; model 9800 a.k.a Torch is officially unveiled on American carrier AT&T's website. The BlackBerry Torch is the first phone to run on the next-generation BlackBerry OS 6 and sports a Palm Pre-like slide-out QWERTY keyboard above what can be guesstimated as a 3-inch+ touch-screen display at this point. Other feature improvements include a 5 megapixel camera with an LED flash and 802.11n support (which the recently launched Pearl 9000 series showcased). We'll be reporting back with more dirt so keep tuned into this space all you BlackBerry fans!

Updated Notes:



- The keyboard is more or less the same as the Bold 9700; which was fairly comfortable to type on. Heavy text input shouldn't be a problem.



- At the conference, BlackBerry reps were taking pride in boasting the enhanced multimedia capabilities. But DivX/XviD video compatibility, which was present on earlier models like the Bold 9000, was removed on the Storm 2. The info shared by RIM doesn't seem to suggest that the Torch will get it back again.



- Speaking about video, there doesn't seem to be 720p recording that most newly launched high-end phones boast of (including the iPhone 4, Motorola Droid 2 or the Nokia N8)



- Good to see that they finally gave up on the piezo-electric powered "Surepress" click-screen technology that they were trying to push with the BlackBerry Storm 2. But what's more interesting is that this is the first BlackBerry to sport an optical trackpad (which we're appreciative of) and a touch-screen. Presumably, the phone could be operated without touching the screen at all.



- The display has the same size and resolution of the Storm 2 (360 x 480 pixels, 3.2 inches, capacitive type)



- The browser is now Webkit-based. This should bring the browsing experience at par with the iPhone or Android-based ones, since they use the same rendering engine. This was one place where BlackBerry needed to improve big-time.



- We hope the increased 512 MB of RAM and the new OS 6 help in the swiftness of the interface, as the Storm 2 we tested did have laggy behavior at times.



All in all, the first impression of this touch-screen-keyboard combo device seems positive. We'll tear it down further when we get our hands on it.