So there we where our contract with AT&T was up, we where do for an upgrade. Our old Samsung phones where losing internet speed and reception and where considered obsolete by the manufactures since they where almost two years old now.
We decided to stay with AT&T they haven’t provided horrible service and most technical problems seem to get fixed quickly. So we took the “Devil you know is better than the devil you don’t” option and renewed our contract with AT&T instead of trying Verizon, T-Mobile, or the many other wireless service plans out on the market.
After looking at the local AT&T Store, Best Buy, Wal-Mart, and AT&T’s Online Store; we decided to go with Radio Shack as our dealer. My wife and I both found smart phones there that fit what we where looking for. I didn’t want to give into the iPhone craze, nor the Google Android just yet, so I chose the Blackberry Torch.
The Pros behind my decision was:
It featured a slider QWERTY keyboard much like my older phone so it would be an easy adjustment until I got used to the touch screen keypad as well. Also having a slide out QWERTY key pad is great back up in case the screen would get damaged so I could still manually dial phone numbers if needed.
It was compact so even with a protective case it still isn’t bulky in my pockets.
Being a Blackberry it had a more mature and business like look to it than the other smart phones.
This smart phone Has PDA features and applications for reading and writing .DOC files, .XLS and .PPT files as well so that appealed to me as a writer since I could write and edit drafts of work and even post and publish from the phone eliminating my need to be tethered near an office PC or with my laptop near WiFi.
I really liked the fact that I could copy and paste text and links since a lot my research, writing and online publishing consists of the need lashing together different texts, links and such.
I rely on the online social networking sites to keep in touch with friends, family as well as my business contacts. So the Blackberry Torch after a somewhat easy set up can now keep quick tabs on my Facebook, Twitter, and Myspace accounts, as well as my Yahoo! And Google email accounts. The Blackberry set up app does require you sign up for a Blackberry email account as well to access the App store downloads.
I had never used a Blackberry much and this was my first touch screen phone ever. So it took a few days of playing with it and setting up all the applications and features.
The touch screen seemed very sensitive and it was hard to touch small items on screen. Then I discovered the built in track ball mouse type thing that allowed me to hover to the smaller print and zoom in or click on links. This made it much easier to use instead of trying to touch small item on screen.
My only complaints are the super sensitivity of the mouse and touch screen. Once I put a Zagg Invisible Shield protective screen on the touch screen the sensitivity improved for me. The Zagg provided a slight tackiness to the screen so my fingers wouldn’t slide so it gave me more accuracy with the onscreen keyboard and when scrolling through an app or webpage.
The roller track ball sensor is very sensitive to, when the phone is on it’s charger it shows a clock screen saver and any alarms that may be set. When I go to pick up the phone I bump the roller track sensor and it pops up the alarm setting which can easily get accidentally changed. It also has a slight lag sometimes when I’m typing or texting, nothing super horrible. Mostly a slight lag when the phone just comes out of Locked mode or the clock screen saver. Now that I’ve been using it more often and updated a couple social networking app the lag seems to have gone away after updated.
It has a Micro SD memory card slot so it saves some phone and application data on the SD card to keep the phones memory free.
It comes with hands free set of ear buds with a built in microphone so you can take calls and use it as an mp3 player with all the features of an iPod or iPhone media player.
The 5 Mega Pixel camera / video camera have a 2X zoom and a super bright LED flash that has the optional Red Eye pre flash option. You can also download a free app from the Blackberry app store to use the camera flash as a flashlight.
So inclosing when comparing my Blackberry Torch next to my wife’s Samsung Galaxy S Android Phone. I find the Torch to be more of a value with it’s features, signal strength and compact size and design.
This is an ongoing review that I will update with new experiences as the phone gets more wear and tear.
So to get updated information from my Squidoo Lens.
http://www.squidoo.com/blackberry-torch-tech-review