BlackBerry Torch 9810

The BlackBerry Torch 9810 is a straight upgrade to the popular Torch 9800, sporting a better display and a later version of the BlackBerry operating system plus some other improvements along the way.

As with the previous handset, the Torch 9810 has a smallish 3.2″ touchscreen display, this time up to 480 x 640 pixels from 360 x 480 pixels. The operating system is BlackBerry 7 rather than BlackBerry 6, internal RAM has been upped to 768Mb from 512Mb and the 5 megapixel camera on the back is now capable of HD video capture.

The new operating system promises a better user experience, although version 6 was disappointing compared to rivals, so RIM need to raise their game here. It includes all the usual smartphone features such as a web browser and media player, plus of course excellent support for email because this is a BlackBerry.

GPS is built in (plus a mapping application), and the Torch 9810 supports 3.5G data, WiFi and Bluetooth. It comes with a very useful 8GB of built-in flash memory plus a microSD slot, and it also has a 3.5mm audio socket.

The Torch 9810 is likely to appeal to existing BlackBerry users looking for an upgrade, Android customers will probably see the relatively small screen size as being a retrograde step. The Torch 9810 is quite heavy despite the small screen size, weighing 161 grams and measuring 111 x 62 x 15mm when closed.

The 9810 forms one of a trio of BlackBerry 7 handsets alongside the BlackBerry Bold 9900 and the BlackBerry Torch 9850 / 9860 which RIM hope will stop users from defecting to rival platforms. Although these are likely to be the best BlackBerry devices ever, RIM will have a very hard time competing with the massively successful Android platform.

RIM say that the BlackBerry Torch 9810 should be available later this month, no guidance was given on price although it will most likely retail for around €400 to €450 at launch.