Blackberry Torch 9800

Research In Motion's (RIM)much-awaited and talked about Blackberry Torch 9800 is out. The company's first smartphone to run on its Blackberry 6 operating system and Web browser is creating lot of excitement.

The Canadian company's first slider smartphone offers plenty of improvements over the older BlackBerry models, and RIM is also promising to roll out the new OS as an upgrade for many popular models.

However, the new Blackberry device has also disappointed some who have termed the launch as a catch-up attempt by the company rather than breaking any new ground.

Here's what disappoints analysts and reviewers in the new Blackberry Torch 9800.

At a time when most flagship smartphones have a 1 GHz processor, BlackBerry Torch's 624 MHz processor from Marvel makes it appear pale. Some reviews have blamed the device's sluggish performance on the processor.

Similarly, Blackberry Torch's 480-by-360-pixel resolution looks low compared to today's smartphone's standards. Apple calls its 960 x 640 iPhone 4 screen Retina Display, since it has pixels so small the eye can't see them.

Also, its 3.2-inch screen is dwarfed by most flagship smartphones.

Blackberry Torch has been termed as the 'Best Blackberry ever'. However, analysts feel that with a new version of the BlackBerry operating system, BlackBerry 6, Torch adds touch-friendly features that are largely already available on most other touchscreen smartphones.

The smartphone features a 3.2-inch capacitive touchscreen display.

RIM is touting multimedia as a major feature in Blackberry Torch. The company has also overhauled the interface for music, video, and photos in Blackberry 6 OS. However, still, Blackberry Torch comes with a measly 4 GB of internal storage and 4 GB MicroSD card. This means users will have to invest in another MicroSD card if they want to save all their music or other data.

With its two offerings of 16GB and 32 GB memory, Apple iPhone 4 beats the new BlackBerry device which offers a total of just 8GB memory.

Blackberry phones are considered to be the perfect choice for road warriors. Hence, it is essential for the phones to offer a good battery life. However, Blackberry Torch’s 1,300 mAHr battery, which provides 5.5 hours of GSM talk time, is only at par with Droid Incredible.

Blackberry Bold 9700 too provides six hours of talk time, and 38 hours of music playback, compared to 30 hours for the Torch

Blackberry Torch does not have a front-facing camera. This means no option for video conferencing. Also, there's no HDMI output feature.

Over the years, gaming has become a crucial part of smartphones features. However, analysts believe that with Blackberry Torch and Blackberry 6 OS, RIM was so busy playing catch-up on key features that it failed to see what the other major smartphone makers are working on next on the gaming front.

Blackberry Torch 9800 is also the first device from RIM to have the new BlackBerry App World store pre-installed. However, BlackBerry App World offers just 7,000 apps, while Apple's App Store offers a whopping 250,000 applications.